INTERMISSION 15 minutes with ...
Teri Ralston
Teri Ralston is a member of that special club of theater artists who played a part in
launching one of Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musicals. In her case there were
two. She originated Mrs. Nordstrom, one of the Greek chorus liebeslieder in the
original Broadway production of ‘A Little Night Music,’ and Jenny, featured on ‘Not
Getting Married’ and ‘Poor Baby’ in the original Broadway production of
‘Company.’ Ralston has also had a long relationship with South Coast Repertory,
where in September 2007 she performs Madame Armfeldt in Stefan Novinski’s staging
of ‘Night Music.’ As a student at San Francisco State Ralston became friends with
SCR Founders David Emmes and Martin Benson as well as director Daniel Sullivan
and others. She would return to the Costa Mesa theater in ‘Side by Side by
Sondheim’ and ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ among others. We spoke by
telephone on a Sunday morning after two previews had gone very well.
CRIS GROSS With 'A Little Night Music,' you've been in more than half the musicals done at South
Coast Repertory, and nearly all the Sondheim.
TERI RALSTON Yes, that’s right.
CRIS GROSS Except ‘Marry Me A Little,’ which was up while you were in the world premiere of
Craig Lucas’ ‘Prelude to a Kiss.’ Tell me about ‘Company’ first, which followed a five-year period
where Sondheim did not have a show on Broadway. So there had to be some anticipation. Plus, I
think it marked the emergence of his voice and sensibilities after the previous shows.
TERI RALSTON Well it was. And, it was the first collaboration of Hal Prince, Michael Bennett and
Stephen Sondheim, which was the greatest collaboration I know. It was an amazing to see those
three forces come together. They couldn’t be more different, the three of them. I think the extremes
of each of them balanced to this incredible center, conceptually. Stephen is an admitted
procrastinator and Hal was his fuel. Hal is so wonderfully conceptual. He’s such a great producer
because his producing eye combined with his director’s eye give him such a clear vision of where he
wants to a project to go. And, of course, they didn’t always agree, but what they ultimately came up
with is brilliant.
I did the backers auditions for ‘A Little Night Music.’ So I was up at Steve’s house the first time he
played some of this music for Hal and me. And I felt that sense that Hal was really driving Steve.
One day we went there and Steve was having a hard time writing the song for Carl-Magnus - and he
said, ‘Well I haven’t gotten that song written, but I did write a line that I really like." So he tells us the
line in ‘You Must Meet My Wife’: “She’ll save the cigar butt. Bizarre, but . . . You’re joking!”
All three had fabulous senses of humor and they worked with humor. In terms of being really being
behind the scenes, some of the conflicts I’ve read about, I was right there but I don’t remember even
tension. But that may be that I just . . .
CRIS GROSS I think it would have made an impression if that was there was an over-riding sense of
conflict. There probably was an occasional snit but it never endangered anything.
TERI RALSTON Yeah. If there was any it was behind close doors. Because it was very
professional. I’ve certainly had other experiences where you were so aware of the tension of the
creators.
CRIS GROSS So how long were you in ‘Company?’ Did you stay in for the full 700 performances?
TERI RALSTON No. Hal let some of who wanted to come to California do so for the beginning of the
national tour. It was a total of six months in California: four months at the Ahmanson and two months
up at the Curran in San Francisco. And so six of us did that and then some of us went back into the
New York production after that and others went on in the tour and we went on to London.
Basically I did ‘Company’ for a year and nine months, because I did it a year on Broadway and six
months in California. I then went in and did it in New York and then Hal closed it. I remember him
coming to me and saying ‘This was our gross this last week. You know what this means? I didn’t
have to close it.’ So, he felt he closed ‘Company’ too soon. Then we went on to London and I did it in
London for three months.
When I came back they were working on ‘A Little Night Music,’ but I wasn’t going to be in it. Hal had
always said I was his favorite all-American girl and since he wanted ‘Night Music’ to be very
European, he said there wasn't anything in it for me. But then, after I had done the backers auditions
they said we really wanted me to be in and they had this idea of the liebeslieder. This was going to
be kind of a Greek chorus and they wanted me to be Mrs. Nordstrom in that. And, in my young years,
I said ‘Well, yes, I’d like to be part of the creative process, but I wanted an out because I didn’t want to
stay a long time with it.’ So, Hal gave me a three-week out. And, of course the liebeslieder thing just
grew and became such an important part of the show. But I still only stayed with it a short time
because again in my young years I had literally gone straight from college to Broadway in one year. I
wanted to make sure I could still act. So I left ‘A Little Night Music’ quite early and went off and spent
the next year doing regional theater and summer stock, which I’d never had a chance to do. And it
was great. I never regretted it.
Right at that time Danny Sullivan called and asked if I wanted to do ‘Tartuffe’ at the Cincinnati
Playhouse and I did that. I did a season and a half at the Actors Theater of Louisville, I did my first
summer stock, ‘Annie Get Your Gun,’ Maria in ‘The Sound of Music,’ Sally Bowles in ‘Cabaret,’ Fiona in
‘Brigadoon.’ And then I came back and did another Broadway show, which was ‘Baker’s Wife,’
which of course didn’t make it.
CRIS GROSS It just occurred to me that you were involved in 'Company' and 'Night Music' in the early
'70s, around the time ‘Last of Sheila’ came out, weren’t you?
TERI RALSTON Yeah, yeah.
CRIS GROSS That's such a fun movie that few people seem to know, or don't know it was written
by him and Perkins.
TERI RALSTON Oh, it’s so fabulous. I remember one night we went to Steve’s house and saw a
bunch of . . . ‘I don’t know if we saw ‘Last of Sheila,’ I remember he showed us ‘Evening Primrose.’
And people would leave and he kept showing things and of course I was the last to leave and he
ended up showing home movies of Betty Comden and Adolph Green and Leonard Bernstein making
movies as kids. That’s what they’d do, they’d go away on weekends and they’d make these little
movies. And, oh my God, it was brilliant and being able to see that stuff it was pretty cool.
CRIS GROSS Speaking of California, I've recently been taken by a kind of California musical
aesthetic. It's a less pretentious than all the Broadway hoopla, but it is very satisfying. Shows like
pre-Broadway runs of 'Curtains' and 'Drowsy Chaperone' to something like 'Ace' at the Globe, 'Can-
Can' in Pasadena, or even little shows like 'Cesar & Ruben' in NoHo or 'Little Egypt' at the Matrix.
TERI RALSTON There’s wonderful musical talent here in California. The thing that is frustrating,
certainly in the Los Angeles area, is that there just are no long runs. There just are none. There’s a
big difference between what the Old Globe and La Jolla are doing and what all the Civic Light Operas
are doing. I was directing at a lot of them and frankly didn’t really want to do that anymore. It’s a very
short rehearsal period and then the run is so short. And they pretty much keep doing the same
pieces over and over. But the hope of Broadway is in the regional theaters because producers just
can’t go start on Broadway and can’t launch a show on the road. They have to be developed and
they’re being developed, Thank God, in regional theaters. And La Jolla and San Diego are two of the
greats. And God knows South Coast Rep is one of the great developers for straight plays. And I
would love it if they would start thinking about developing musicals.
CRIS GROSS Yes, and meanwhile, the debut of ‘Curtains’ or the revival of ‘Can-Can’ should be points
of pride for Southern California, or the remounting of 'Black Rider,' which certainly isn't going within
100 miles of Broadway. There's more breathing room for shows.
TERI RALSTON Yes, yes. Pasadena Playhouse is doing different and new things and giving old
shows a new look. They’re doing wonderful things. It’s been very hard, though. You know there’s
that East Coast-West Coast snobbery thing and it’s hard for shows that start here to make it on
Broadway. But it’s happening more and more, ‘Curtains,’ ‘Drowsy Chaperone.’
CRIS GROSS But it would be nice to get to where we feel if it works here but fails there we have
nothing to be ashamed of. Particularly given some of the talent we see, like the Kevin Earleys and
Michelle Duffys and Misty Cotton, who was in Pasadena's 'Last Five Years' and Gregg Henry's 'Little
Egypt' and is now Petra in your 'Night Music'. . .
TERI RALSTON Oh she’s great. She’s a great talent.
CRIS GROSS So have you been called upon to tell stories at rehearsal?
TERI RALSTON People always want to know what’s Sondheim really like. Stefan has been very,
very open. David and Martin asked me to do this and Stefan and I had never met so I flew out so we
could meet so he wasn’t dealing with a strange person on the first day of rehearsal. He was so
open, with lots of questions. Because I was in the original, and then stood by for Desiree at the
Center Theatre production, and then directed it, he really had a lot of questions about the
liebeslieder. He’s very open and doesn’t have that director ego thing of ‘No, No I don’t want to know
anything that was done originally’ or 'I don’t want other ideas.'
CRIS GROSS Your last SCR musical was 'Sunday in the Park with George,' which is my favorite,
though I admit it's the first act that makes it the best. The second act is certainly not his greatest
achievement. But you've been in here and elsewhere. Do you see that disparity or am I missing
something?
TERI RALSTON When I saw it, at the end of the first act I couldn’t move. I just sat there sobbing. It
speaks to artists to such a profound degree, that personal thing that we must do, in lieu of
relationships often, and the passion we have for it. And that aria, that thing that Stephen has written
for the end of the act, that symphony I should say: I couldn’t catch my breath. So it’s very hard to
follow that and I don’t think the second act comes up to it. I like the second act, but it's not as
accessible.
CRIS GROSS Maybe someone should find a way to flip them.
TERI RALSTON Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. God if it could end with that first act, oh my God. It would be
an interesting thing to do, have it in reverse. You know Steve has written first acts and in his
collaboration with Lapine he’s had a very hard time writing the second act. In both cases with Lapine
as the book-writer.
CRIS GROSS Well that’s good to hear. Because, from those opening notes about the blank page,
TERI RALSTON Ahh. It’s one of my favorite lines ever. Probably my favorite line ever. I quote it all
the time and I’m probably not even quoting exactly, but, it’s my favorite, “A blank page, so many
possibilities.” And that to me is the way I live my life. Tomorrow is a whole new thing. A blank page,
so many possibilities. It’s such a positive exciting way to think about life.
CRIS GROSS And yet we weight that paper with so much pressure to achieve. The blank page can
defeat you if you’re not strong. It’s great that he lays it out that way and then takes it to the heights
that he does.
TERI RALSTON Absolutely.
CRIS GROSS By the end of the act it’s extraordinary what he’s done with his blank page.
TERI RALSTON Oh, I know. I remember when 'Sunday in the Park' was being written. It’s so funny
the naiveté of people. Word was out that Stephen had totally lost his mind. I heard people say, 'He’s
now written a song where he's just repeating blue blue blue blue blue, red red red red red. He’s lost
his mind.' But what could be more brilliant than the pointilism of what he’s written?
CRIS GROSS Let’s hope he’s got more in him.
TERI RALSTON I don’t know that he’s going to do any more musicals. He’s going to keep writing, but
. . . no actually, he said he wasn’t after ‘Bounce’ but now I hear he’s working on another piece.
Teri Ralston
Teri Ralston is a member of that special club of theater artists who played a part in
launching one of Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musicals. In her case there were
two. She originated Mrs. Nordstrom, one of the Greek chorus liebeslieder in the
original Broadway production of ‘A Little Night Music,’ and Jenny, featured on ‘Not
Getting Married’ and ‘Poor Baby’ in the original Broadway production of
‘Company.’ Ralston has also had a long relationship with South Coast Repertory,
where in September 2007 she performs Madame Armfeldt in Stefan Novinski’s staging
of ‘Night Music.’ As a student at San Francisco State Ralston became friends with
SCR Founders David Emmes and Martin Benson as well as director Daniel Sullivan
and others. She would return to the Costa Mesa theater in ‘Side by Side by
Sondheim’ and ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ among others. We spoke by
telephone on a Sunday morning after two previews had gone very well.
CRIS GROSS With 'A Little Night Music,' you've been in more than half the musicals done at South
Coast Repertory, and nearly all the Sondheim.
TERI RALSTON Yes, that’s right.
CRIS GROSS Except ‘Marry Me A Little,’ which was up while you were in the world premiere of
Craig Lucas’ ‘Prelude to a Kiss.’ Tell me about ‘Company’ first, which followed a five-year period
where Sondheim did not have a show on Broadway. So there had to be some anticipation. Plus, I
think it marked the emergence of his voice and sensibilities after the previous shows.
TERI RALSTON Well it was. And, it was the first collaboration of Hal Prince, Michael Bennett and
Stephen Sondheim, which was the greatest collaboration I know. It was an amazing to see those
three forces come together. They couldn’t be more different, the three of them. I think the extremes
of each of them balanced to this incredible center, conceptually. Stephen is an admitted
procrastinator and Hal was his fuel. Hal is so wonderfully conceptual. He’s such a great producer
because his producing eye combined with his director’s eye give him such a clear vision of where he
wants to a project to go. And, of course, they didn’t always agree, but what they ultimately came up
with is brilliant.
I did the backers auditions for ‘A Little Night Music.’ So I was up at Steve’s house the first time he
played some of this music for Hal and me. And I felt that sense that Hal was really driving Steve.
One day we went there and Steve was having a hard time writing the song for Carl-Magnus - and he
said, ‘Well I haven’t gotten that song written, but I did write a line that I really like." So he tells us the
line in ‘You Must Meet My Wife’: “She’ll save the cigar butt. Bizarre, but . . . You’re joking!”
All three had fabulous senses of humor and they worked with humor. In terms of being really being
behind the scenes, some of the conflicts I’ve read about, I was right there but I don’t remember even
tension. But that may be that I just . . .
CRIS GROSS I think it would have made an impression if that was there was an over-riding sense of
conflict. There probably was an occasional snit but it never endangered anything.
TERI RALSTON Yeah. If there was any it was behind close doors. Because it was very
professional. I’ve certainly had other experiences where you were so aware of the tension of the
creators.
CRIS GROSS So how long were you in ‘Company?’ Did you stay in for the full 700 performances?
TERI RALSTON No. Hal let some of who wanted to come to California do so for the beginning of the
national tour. It was a total of six months in California: four months at the Ahmanson and two months
up at the Curran in San Francisco. And so six of us did that and then some of us went back into the
New York production after that and others went on in the tour and we went on to London.
Basically I did ‘Company’ for a year and nine months, because I did it a year on Broadway and six
months in California. I then went in and did it in New York and then Hal closed it. I remember him
coming to me and saying ‘This was our gross this last week. You know what this means? I didn’t
have to close it.’ So, he felt he closed ‘Company’ too soon. Then we went on to London and I did it in
London for three months.
When I came back they were working on ‘A Little Night Music,’ but I wasn’t going to be in it. Hal had
always said I was his favorite all-American girl and since he wanted ‘Night Music’ to be very
European, he said there wasn't anything in it for me. But then, after I had done the backers auditions
they said we really wanted me to be in and they had this idea of the liebeslieder. This was going to
be kind of a Greek chorus and they wanted me to be Mrs. Nordstrom in that. And, in my young years,
I said ‘Well, yes, I’d like to be part of the creative process, but I wanted an out because I didn’t want to
stay a long time with it.’ So, Hal gave me a three-week out. And, of course the liebeslieder thing just
grew and became such an important part of the show. But I still only stayed with it a short time
because again in my young years I had literally gone straight from college to Broadway in one year. I
wanted to make sure I could still act. So I left ‘A Little Night Music’ quite early and went off and spent
the next year doing regional theater and summer stock, which I’d never had a chance to do. And it
was great. I never regretted it.
Right at that time Danny Sullivan called and asked if I wanted to do ‘Tartuffe’ at the Cincinnati
Playhouse and I did that. I did a season and a half at the Actors Theater of Louisville, I did my first
summer stock, ‘Annie Get Your Gun,’ Maria in ‘The Sound of Music,’ Sally Bowles in ‘Cabaret,’ Fiona in
‘Brigadoon.’ And then I came back and did another Broadway show, which was ‘Baker’s Wife,’
which of course didn’t make it.
CRIS GROSS It just occurred to me that you were involved in 'Company' and 'Night Music' in the early
'70s, around the time ‘Last of Sheila’ came out, weren’t you?
TERI RALSTON Yeah, yeah.
CRIS GROSS That's such a fun movie that few people seem to know, or don't know it was written
by him and Perkins.
TERI RALSTON Oh, it’s so fabulous. I remember one night we went to Steve’s house and saw a
bunch of . . . ‘I don’t know if we saw ‘Last of Sheila,’ I remember he showed us ‘Evening Primrose.’
And people would leave and he kept showing things and of course I was the last to leave and he
ended up showing home movies of Betty Comden and Adolph Green and Leonard Bernstein making
movies as kids. That’s what they’d do, they’d go away on weekends and they’d make these little
movies. And, oh my God, it was brilliant and being able to see that stuff it was pretty cool.
CRIS GROSS Speaking of California, I've recently been taken by a kind of California musical
aesthetic. It's a less pretentious than all the Broadway hoopla, but it is very satisfying. Shows like
pre-Broadway runs of 'Curtains' and 'Drowsy Chaperone' to something like 'Ace' at the Globe, 'Can-
Can' in Pasadena, or even little shows like 'Cesar & Ruben' in NoHo or 'Little Egypt' at the Matrix.
TERI RALSTON There’s wonderful musical talent here in California. The thing that is frustrating,
certainly in the Los Angeles area, is that there just are no long runs. There just are none. There’s a
big difference between what the Old Globe and La Jolla are doing and what all the Civic Light Operas
are doing. I was directing at a lot of them and frankly didn’t really want to do that anymore. It’s a very
short rehearsal period and then the run is so short. And they pretty much keep doing the same
pieces over and over. But the hope of Broadway is in the regional theaters because producers just
can’t go start on Broadway and can’t launch a show on the road. They have to be developed and
they’re being developed, Thank God, in regional theaters. And La Jolla and San Diego are two of the
greats. And God knows South Coast Rep is one of the great developers for straight plays. And I
would love it if they would start thinking about developing musicals.
CRIS GROSS Yes, and meanwhile, the debut of ‘Curtains’ or the revival of ‘Can-Can’ should be points
of pride for Southern California, or the remounting of 'Black Rider,' which certainly isn't going within
100 miles of Broadway. There's more breathing room for shows.
TERI RALSTON Yes, yes. Pasadena Playhouse is doing different and new things and giving old
shows a new look. They’re doing wonderful things. It’s been very hard, though. You know there’s
that East Coast-West Coast snobbery thing and it’s hard for shows that start here to make it on
Broadway. But it’s happening more and more, ‘Curtains,’ ‘Drowsy Chaperone.’
CRIS GROSS But it would be nice to get to where we feel if it works here but fails there we have
nothing to be ashamed of. Particularly given some of the talent we see, like the Kevin Earleys and
Michelle Duffys and Misty Cotton, who was in Pasadena's 'Last Five Years' and Gregg Henry's 'Little
Egypt' and is now Petra in your 'Night Music'. . .
TERI RALSTON Oh she’s great. She’s a great talent.
CRIS GROSS So have you been called upon to tell stories at rehearsal?
TERI RALSTON People always want to know what’s Sondheim really like. Stefan has been very,
very open. David and Martin asked me to do this and Stefan and I had never met so I flew out so we
could meet so he wasn’t dealing with a strange person on the first day of rehearsal. He was so
open, with lots of questions. Because I was in the original, and then stood by for Desiree at the
Center Theatre production, and then directed it, he really had a lot of questions about the
liebeslieder. He’s very open and doesn’t have that director ego thing of ‘No, No I don’t want to know
anything that was done originally’ or 'I don’t want other ideas.'
CRIS GROSS Your last SCR musical was 'Sunday in the Park with George,' which is my favorite,
though I admit it's the first act that makes it the best. The second act is certainly not his greatest
achievement. But you've been in here and elsewhere. Do you see that disparity or am I missing
something?
TERI RALSTON When I saw it, at the end of the first act I couldn’t move. I just sat there sobbing. It
speaks to artists to such a profound degree, that personal thing that we must do, in lieu of
relationships often, and the passion we have for it. And that aria, that thing that Stephen has written
for the end of the act, that symphony I should say: I couldn’t catch my breath. So it’s very hard to
follow that and I don’t think the second act comes up to it. I like the second act, but it's not as
accessible.
CRIS GROSS Maybe someone should find a way to flip them.
TERI RALSTON Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. God if it could end with that first act, oh my God. It would be
an interesting thing to do, have it in reverse. You know Steve has written first acts and in his
collaboration with Lapine he’s had a very hard time writing the second act. In both cases with Lapine
as the book-writer.
CRIS GROSS Well that’s good to hear. Because, from those opening notes about the blank page,
TERI RALSTON Ahh. It’s one of my favorite lines ever. Probably my favorite line ever. I quote it all
the time and I’m probably not even quoting exactly, but, it’s my favorite, “A blank page, so many
possibilities.” And that to me is the way I live my life. Tomorrow is a whole new thing. A blank page,
so many possibilities. It’s such a positive exciting way to think about life.
CRIS GROSS And yet we weight that paper with so much pressure to achieve. The blank page can
defeat you if you’re not strong. It’s great that he lays it out that way and then takes it to the heights
that he does.
TERI RALSTON Absolutely.
CRIS GROSS By the end of the act it’s extraordinary what he’s done with his blank page.
TERI RALSTON Oh, I know. I remember when 'Sunday in the Park' was being written. It’s so funny
the naiveté of people. Word was out that Stephen had totally lost his mind. I heard people say, 'He’s
now written a song where he's just repeating blue blue blue blue blue, red red red red red. He’s lost
his mind.' But what could be more brilliant than the pointilism of what he’s written?
CRIS GROSS Let’s hope he’s got more in him.
TERI RALSTON I don’t know that he’s going to do any more musicals. He’s going to keep writing, but
. . . no actually, he said he wasn’t after ‘Bounce’ but now I hear he’s working on another piece.
| THEATER TIMES DIALOGUE TIERNEY SUTTON |
| THEATER TIMES DIALOGUE / GOOD COMPANY |
'A Little Night Music'
at SCR (Review)
at SCR (Review)