Funny Encounters at a Certain Age

Looking back at interactions our son had with fellow creatives ... and a president

When our son was a child actor, first in Washington, D.C., and then in New York between the ages of 9 and 13, Ben had a number of encounters with actors, creatives, and politicians that were unforgettable — at least to me.

What made them so memorable wasn’t that anything major took place, except for the night my then-11-year-old spontaneously danced with Chita Rivera at a Kennedy Center party. What was memorable: How kind the adults were to him, and the kid-like responses Ben had to the interactions.

In 2007, when he made his professional stage debut in Ford’s Theatre’s “A Christmas Carol,” the cast was asked to perform scenes from the show for military families at the White House. George W. Bush was president at the time, and the U.S. was deeply involved in the Iraq war.

For context, we lived only a few miles from Fort Belvoir, Va. and about 20 miles from the Pentagon. Several of our neighbors were in the military, as were the families of many of our kids’ friends. Deployments, and the strain they put on the families left behind, were commonplace.

Ben, then 9, and his siblings also heard our conversations about the war and — being kids — decided they didn’t “like” the president. Given that we lived in a time where free speech was largely still encouraged, they didn’t hesitate to say so.

In the days leading up to the performance, we had to remind our son that — on the off chance he should get to meet the president — he was in a professional setting and had to act professionally. It was not, we stressed, an opportunity to exercise those First Amendment rights.

Of course, afterward, President Bush and his wife, Laura, went to the area where the cast had gathered to introduce themselves. When the president got to Ben, he asked if our son had any siblings.

“I have two sisters, and they beat me up all the time,” Ben said.

The president, according to the child guardian who was on site with the kids, laughed and said, “My sisters weren’t very nice to me either,” before moving on.

Afterward, I asked Ben why he had said that to the president of the United States.

“Well,” he said, “I had to insult somebody.”

A Kid’s Life in an Adult World

A couple of years later, working on “Ragtime” at The Kennedy Center, he was fortunate to meet playwright Terrence McNally, novelist E.L. Doctorow, composers Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, and, of course, Rivera. Later that year, he made his Broadway debut, only to feel the pain of a show abruptly closing two months later.

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Bobby Wilson, the head guardian on “Billy Elliot: The Musical” and more than two dozen Broadway shows, is one of the kindest and most eloquent humans I know. Recently, in a Facebook post on the “Broadway Remembered” group, he made a point about the closing of a show that has stuck with me.

“Post-show life is complex for Broadway kids,” Bobby wrote. “They have seen a door open to a grown-up world in which their hard work, their focus, and their talent are valued, and they are respected as peers by the adults with whom they share the stage. But when the show closes, they return to a world where few people really understand or appreciate what they have achieved in that ‘other life’ and how it has changed them.”

Following “Ragtime,” our then 12-year-old came home for two months to work on “The Golden Age,” a play at the Kennedy Center that was running in repertory with two other McNally shows — “Master Class” starring Tyne Daly and “Lisbon Traviata” — as part of a “Nights at the Opera” series.

We had always tried to make sure Ben was early to rehearsals and to the shows, and before long he encouraged us to get him there as early as possible. The reason, he said, was because he was talking about acting with his new friend, John.

“John Glover?” I asked.

“Yeah. He’s cool,” Ben said of the Tony Award winning actor. “Did you know that he was on ‘Smallville’?”

During the “Golden Age” run, Ben and I attended the Helen Hayes Awards, where the Kennedy Center’s production of “Ragtime” was up for multiple honors and legendary playwright Edward Albee was receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award. It was an opportunity — a year after the Kennedy Center run ended and four months after “Ragtime” closed on Broadway — for Ben to briefly reunite with the theatre family he had come to love.

McNally introduced Albee, a longtime friend and writer of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and “A Delicate Balance,” among other classic shows. At the after party, we were celebrating with “Ragtime” alums Sarah Rosenthal and Laurie Ascoli when I noticed Terrence and Albee talking.

Not wanting to miss out on a chance to have Ben’s picture taken with two of the great playwrights of the 20th century, I convinced him to ask Terrence, an incredibly kind man who generously agreed. Laurie and Sarah joined in and we got a photo.

Another Lesson

I was reminded of those times while interviewing comedian Carole Montgomery for my “Conversations” series earlier this month. Carole’s husband, Todd, was a child guardian on “Billy Elliot,” which Ben was in for 18 months before spending another 18 months on the second and final national tour.

As I mentioned in that piece, the Montgomerys were kind enough to let Ben live with them for a month when he was on a layoff break from the tour and had to return to school in New York. Every day, he called his mother or me after school to let us know how things were going.

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At the time, the Montgomerys lived with Todd’s mother, Sande Campbell, in the Midtown apartment. Sande, who died last year at age 87, was a longtime arranger, conductor, and Broadway accompanist who taught voice lessons in the apartment.

One day after school, Ben called and whispered into the phone, “Dad, there’s a man sitting in Todd and Carole’s apartment. He said Sande is giving voice lessons to his wife Elaine.”

I asked Ben, “What is he doing?”

“He’s just sitting there and reading.”

“Did you introduce yourself and ask his name?

“Yeah. His name is Neil. I think he might be somebody famous.”

And then it clicked; Sande was working with Elaine Joyce. Carole had mentioned “Neil” to me at one point.

“Yes, Ben, that’s Neil Simon. The theater you did ‘Ragtime’ in is named after him.”

My then 13-year-old said: “Oh, wow, that’s cool. How do you get a theater named after you?

“Why don’t you ask him?’

Sadly, I don’t think he did.