THRILLS & GLORY: THE BRIEF, BLESSED HISTORY OF THE PRACTICAL THEATRE CO.
To read the latest chapter in my personal history of The Practical Theatre Company, click here.
After you’ve read our ancient history, you can check out video clips of far more recent PTC-style comedy if you click here.
After my graduation from Northwestern University in June of 1980, the birth of my daughter Maura that July, and our establishment of The Practical Theatre Company in the newly-built John Lennon Auditorium at the corner of Howard and Custer Streets – the most important thing that happened to me (and all of us at the PTC) was our serendipitous introduction to the remarkable Ron & Sydney Crawford and their fabulous children: Suzy, Jennifer and Ronny, who would soon come to be known as Rockin’ Ronny.
I can’t remember the exact moment I first met Ron & Syd Crawford in 1981 – but it was a moment that changed my life. It’s hard to catalogue the many ways in which the Crawfords contributed to my personal and artistic growth. They gave freely and generously of their love, their many talents, their warm hospitality – and their genuine enthusiasm for what these crazy kids were doing in their tiny storefront theatre on Evanston’s border with Chicago.
Ron and Syd Crawford were – and are – artists of the first rank. To me, they were – and are – a living, breathing cultural institution. In those days, their splendid Victorian “painted lady” on Elmwood Avenue in Evanston was home to the North Shore’s most vital and progressive salon — something I’ve only begun to fully appreciate in recent years. According to Wikipedia, a “salon is a gathering of intellectual, social, political, and cultural elites under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation.”
Rush & Paul, two of Evanston's avant-garde habitues of Le Salon de Crawford.
I didn’t realize it back then, but that was the scene at Ron and Syd’s house. Artists, writers, musicians, peaceniks, revolutionaries, madcap recent NU graduates, and assorted interesting members of the Evanston avant-garde – they all gathered at the Crawford’s home. Sydney and Ron were inspiring hosts, to be sure, and we all increased our knowledge through the passionate, party-driven conversation and camaraderie, as we dug the scene, hanging out with the groovy creative spirits, iconoclasts, and free thinkers at les Salon de Crawford!
Inside the Crawford house, you could still feel good vibrations lingering from the Summer of Love. The walls were covered with the evidence of an artistic and socially conscious life well lived – all arranged with impeccable taste: a poster from Eugene McCarthy’s campaign, neon artwork, and a museum’s-worth of paintings, photos and drawings. Oh, the drawings!
The Crawford's living room turned into an impromptu recording studio.
Yet another fabulous Ron Crawford poster for a PTC/Rockme event.
I’ll get back to the drawings in a moment. But for those who don’t know the Crawfords as well as I do, I should provide some basic biographical info…
They live in New York City now, but Ron & Sydney raised their children in Evanston and lived there for 30 years. (Ron’s dad was Captain Robert Crawford, the “Flying Baritone,” who wrote the Army Air Corps Song, “Off we go into the wild blue yonder…”) Ron did a lot of animation work in the 60’s and 70’s, creating educational films, corporate videos, TV commercials (Fiddle Faddle, anyone?) and television station graphics. When we met him, Ron still had an animation studio and film and video editing equipment in their coach house. (He often used his equipment and skills in the service of the PTC.)
Long before Sydney became the PTC’s beloved den mother, she helped Ron run their business (she even starred in some of their commercials), worked in a local frame store — and made the world turn for everyone in her salon.
Twenty years ago, Ron started working as an actor and, of course, he found success. He appeared in the Steppenwolf Theatre production of The Grapes of Wrath that went to Broadway, and his film career took him to Paris, where he starred in the movie Arthur and the Invisibles, as well as its two sequels. He also performs a one-man stage show, Travels with Mark Twain. You can fill in the gaps regarding Ron’s acting career here and here. Once Ron got to Broadway, Ron & Syd wound up staying in New York City — where they reside to this day. Lucky, NYC…
In recent years, Ron does for New York City what he did for Evanston, Illinois.
Today, Sydney is a talent agent representing fashion stylists, prop stylists, and photographers for print work: advertising, celebrity shots, and catalogs, etc. She started her agency, Sydney Represents, in 1994. Of course, Syd’s still doing what she does best: creating an enthusiastic, encouraging and productive environment in which artists can flourish. She certainly helped one of the most talented artists I’ve ever met to thrive: her husband, Ron.
Willard Hall at Northwestern University
Which brings me back to those drawings.
Ever since I’ve known him, Ron has always had a pencil and art pad in hand, rendering every scene, every gesture that draws his interest into a kinetic snapshot made of exquisite lines. He drew every important building in Evanston, and every Victorian home that captured his fancy. What Ansel Adams photos are to Yosemite – Ron’s drawings are to Evanston. Lucky for me — and everyone at the PTC — Ron has also illustrated just about every major event and many candid, everyday moments in the life of The Practical Theatre and its house band, Riffmaster & the Rockme Foundation (for whom his son, Rockin’ Ronny, bangs the drums with uncommon artistry).
You can check out the wide range of Ron Crawford’s truly awesome work at his website by clicking here.
What follows is a gallery of drawings that Ron has blessed me with over the years, from the early 1980’s up through today, drawn from the hundreds of fabulous Ron Crawford sketches I’ve been saving ever since I met Ron & Syd — and was drawn into their happy, heavenly circle. Vive le Salon de Crawford!
Note: To see any of the Ron Crawford drawings in this post in glorious detail, simply click on the image. Presto!
Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation performing at Tuts on Belmont Ave. in Chicago (1982).
"The Basic Food Groups Four" in "Babalooney" at the Piper's Alley Theater. (1983)
"Babalooney" pre-Off-Broadway preview at Crosscurrents. (1983)
Rockme Foundation "World Tour" at Biggies in Cleveland, Ohio. (1983)
Paul & daughter Maura at Q&R Studios, Evanston. (1983)
Paul as Ghost of Christmas Past, Goodman Theatre. (1984)
Rockme party after a performance of "Hula-Rama" at the John Lennon Auditorium. (1984)
Paul hanging out in the house at the Provincetown Playhouse in NYC. (1984)
The Rockme Foundation playing at Limelight in Chicago, opening for Jimmy Sohns & the Cons. (1984)
A meeting of the John Lennon Athletic Club, trying to keep the 703 Howard space open. (1985)
SNL (1985)
SNL, Studio 8H at 30 Rock. (1985)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Mary Gross in make-up at SNL. (1985)
Ron's poster for "Art, Ruth & Trudy" (1986)
Paul as "All The King's Horses" in "Art, Ruth & Trudy" ('86)
"Art Ruth & Trudy" preview at Club Victoria. (On the PTC's 7th birthday in 1986)
"Greylord have mercy on me!" ('86)
"Professional Pessimist" ('86)
Paul and Victoria in rehearsal for "Art, Ruth & Trudy". (1986)
Paul, Brad Hall and Steve Rashid taping "Overnight Guest" at WMAQ-NBC. (1986)
Victoria and Paul at home in their apartment in Evanston. (1986)
Taping "Swan Lake" in "Bozo the Town" at the Vic Theatre at Belmont & Sheffield in Chicago. ('87)
"Bozo the Town" notes with Sheldon Patinkin, Victoria, Paul, Louis DiCrescenzo, Bea & Steve Rashid.
I wrote the copy, Ron did the drawing. ('89)
Paul in "The Dybbuk" at the National Jewish Theatre. ('87)
Victoria and Linda Emond in "Serious Money" at The Court Theatre, directed by Terry McCabe. (1989)
Victoria as "Jacinta Condor" in "Serious Money" backstage at Court Theatre. (1989)
Real life & drawing at Rockme Foundation's "Woodshed @ Woodside" recording sessions. (2008)
Paul at the mike. (2008)
Larry & The Rockmes at Woodside Sessions. (2008)
The best way to end this post is with the man himself, Ron Crawford. "Peace. Out!"
It was 20 years ago that I was fortunate enough to cross paths with two pop culture legends.
Here I am, circa about '64. Just the age for Bazooka Joe. In fact, is that an eyepatch strap wrapped around my crewcut head?
I’d actually known one of these legendary figures since I was a boy, riding my bike recklessly down to the corner store for a comic book, pop and some chewing gum. The gum of choice was Bazooka, a sugary square of latent tooth decay, swathed in a waxy wrapper. But I didn’t buy Bazooka for the taste of the gum – just as I didn’t buy baseball cards to get that stale, petrified pink stick that came along with all the photos, stats, and trivia. No, as my teeth worked their way through the first torturous chomps that would eventually soften that small rock-hard mass into something chewable, I was psyched to read the latest about a smart-aleck kid with an eye-patch: Bazooka Joe.
As far as I knew back then, Bazooka Joe And His Gang had always been and always would be. Iconic characters like Joe and Mort weren’t born and could never die. That’s how it is with great folk art. Did Woody Guthrie really write “This Land Is Your Land”, or was it always on the wind, just waiting to be given voice? Was some unknown drummer the first to hit a rim shot after a bad joke – or is that response simply wired into our DNA? Weren’t hamburgers and hot dogs available since the Garden of Eden? For millions of kids like me growing up in the early 1960’s, chewing Bazooka gum while reading Bazooka Joe comics was an essential cultural touchstone — albeit, one that made our jaws sore and our dentists rich.
It was inconceivable to me, as I sat in front of that corner store and chuckled at the antics of Joe and his pals printed on those little colored rectangles of waxed paper, that I would ever have anything to do personally with Bazooka Joe. Then, two decades later, I found myself in the orbit of a second cultural luminary: Jay Lynch.
This is Jay a few years before we met -- so he's not flipping me off.
I met Jay Lynch in the early 1980’s through our mutual friends, Ron and Sydney Crawford. (Someday, I will devote a lot of blog space to the amazing, artistic Crawfords.) At the time Jay was writing a comic strip called Phoebe & the Pigeon People with artist Gary Whitney. (I will soon be writing more about Gary, too.) Of course, like any fan of The Chicago Reader I knew Phoebe & the Pigeon People very well before I ever met Jay and Gary. In person, Jay was a relatively quiet guy. He was quick-witted and fun to be around, but you wouldn’t call him conversational. Jay gave up information about himself with more reluctance than a Gitmo detainee – so how was I to know he was an underground comics legend?
These links will give you a more complete picture of Jay Lynch:
http://www.mindspring.com/~jaylynch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Lynch
Jay is a cultural superstar that has been operating on the minds of American youth (and older folk of youthful spirit) for decades. A contemporary of R. Crumb, Jay contributed to Bijou Funnies, one of the first underground comix, and his characters, Nard n’ Pat are icons in the world of subterranean funnies.
Besides his work with Gary Whitney on the long-running Phoebe & the Pigeon People strip, Jay contributed to Mad Magazine and worked for Topp’s on Bazooka Joe comics. He’s the guy all of us middle-aged kids have to thank for Topp’s “Wacky Packages” in the early 1970’s: those satiric cartoon stickers we stuck all over everything, with titles like “Plastered Peanuts,” “Ultra Blight Toothpaste,” “Messquire Magazine,” and “Mrs. Blubberworth’s Whale Fat Syrup.” And then there’s Jay’s work on classics like Garbage Pail Kids and Meanie Babies. The list goes on…
In the fall of 1989, Victoria and I were planning our wedding for June of the following year, and I already had one foot in Los Angeles, when Jay approached us with an offer I could scarcely believe: would we like to work with him on a new edition of Bazooka Joe comics? I was busy and the holiday season was upon us – but how could we pass up a chance to have our work immortalized on one of those little waxy rectangles? A cosmic opportunity like that must be seized upon with joy and thanksgiving. We told Jay that we’d give it a shot.
According to Jay, Bazooka Joe was in a transitional, post-MTV period. Joe was in need of a makeover. For one thing, the notion of Bazooka Joe and his gang was problematic. The word “gang” no longer called to mind harmless Huntz Hall and The Bowery Boys. Now, courtesy of rap video imagery and real-world drug wars between outlaws like the Crips and Bloods, “gang” had taken on a far more negative connotation. “Bazooka Joe and His Gang” were gone, replaced by Bazooka Joe & Company.
Now, Jay Lynch had dubbed himself Jayzey long before Jay-Z, so he knew that Topps had to embrace the MTV and Hip-Hop culture if it wanted to destroy the teeth of a new generation of kids, so Jay told us they were launching Bazooka Joe Raps. Run DMC meets Bazooka Joe.
Bazooka Joe himself would undergo a bit of a transformation: hipper, more handsome, and more of a jock. Joe’s hair and the bill of his ever-present baseball cap were both longer. And while his eye patch remained, Joe’s good eye was on the future.
Topps was also introducing some new characters. Mort was still there, his nose sticking out of his ultra-long turtleneck, but Bazooka Joe’s new girlfriend was a sexy shopaholic named Zena.
In another nod to advances in youth culture, Metaldude made his debut. A hairy, hard-rocking misfit, Metaldude was designed to appeal to guys who wouldn’t be caught dead hanging with a relatively square guy like Bazooka Joe.
Then, there was Ursula – something totally new for Bazooka Joe: a black woman. And a sexy, confident and athletic black woman at that! Hard-bodied Ursula was drawn in an eye-popping fashion that even a guy with one good eye like Joe would have to appreciate.
From November of ’89 through February ’90, Victoria and I submitted scripts for the various new Bazooka Joe series, including Bazooka Joe Fantasies and Bazooka Joe Mystic Master of Space & Time. As it turned out, we did our best work on Bazooka Joe Raps.
However, my favorite strips are the ones we wrote for Bazooka Joe & Company. I’d always loved those classic three and four panel jokes as a kid – and to get a chance to do it myself was an honor. Victoria, having chewed more than her share of Bazooka Joe as a youth, was also thrilled to be part of a great American cultural institution.
The comics that illustrate this article are ones that we were privileged to add to Bazooka Joe’s jaw-aching legacy. And we’ve got Jay Lynch to thank for allowing us to share a very small part of childhood cultural history.
Click CD photo for music & info!
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 