Posts

Posted on

Memorial party for Kirk

This is Jamie, Kirk’s husband. Kirk passed away September 3, 2024 at 10:26 EST, of complications from Covid. I was able to be with him and hold him, and talk to him as he made a peaceful passage. So many people reached out in so many ways to give him strength. I greatly appreciate it and he did too.

There was a memorial party on November 16, 2024, at Genesius Theatre in Reading PA, with many fun and touching performances. There were approximately 125 people in attendance, some of whom were not Kirk’s exes. It was a fundraiser for the theatre that, in Kirk’s words, “saved my life, and gave me my life.” Please donate using the link below:

https://www.tix.com/ticket-sales/genesiusdifference/1331/donations

Below is the video from the memorial party:

And below are the video tributes:

This was the program:

Click here to view the pictures in the memorial’s slideshow

Click here to see pictures taken at the memorial

Here are some written memories:

Sean Meriwether:

Dale Stern

Ellen Walter

Eva Beears

Faye Warmkessel

Jeff Boyer

Julie Gallagher Stern

Karen Franey

Mike Boyer

Mike Pardo

Ray Warmkessel

Ryan Keogh

Wendy Boyd

The pages from the guestbook:

The text of my eulogy:

As a Wizard once said, “A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.”  If that’s true, I can look out now and see that Kirk’s heart was enormous. Thank you all so much for coming. 

Kirk’s family had a dark sense of humor about death, joking about it frequently. His parents even had what they called the “death box”, with meticulously detailed directives carefully stored. Our tombstone up at Spies Church bears the inscription “We’re Not Here”. And so tonight we are having a party, and I am delivering my eulogy honoring the Lawrence family viewpoint on death. 

Kirk lived to be creative, and had creative output until the very last possible moment.  He wrote, he designed, he edited, he acted, he sang, he directed, he danced. Well, anyway, he moved well. He gave. And gave. 

Kirk and I began in a theater, and in a way I guess we are ending in one. We met after I saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch on a New York business trip - Kirk was the show’s box office manager, website designer, and promotional Hedwig-about-town. We were married on a Monday evening on the stage of the Jane Street Theater, an off night during Hedwig’s original off Broadway run.  HX Magazine, New York’s premiere gay entertainment guide, covered the event, and I quote: “There were 125 people in attendance, some of whom were not Kirk’s exes.” Can I see a show of hands *here*? Exes? Too many of you are being polite. Remember - one night counts. 

Kirk started in West Lawn, returned to Reading, and lived in many places, including Bristol, Virginia; San Francisco for a brief but memorable time, but mainly his beloved New York, where he lived and worked in professional theatre for over twenty five years. During that time, he did it all - stage and tour management, set design, lights, sound, electrical, puppeteer, specialty props design, theatrical website design, box office management. But it all began here at Genesius, where as he said, quote, “When I was 11, in 1974 – a gay, withdrawn, chubby child…my mother, at the suggestion of a friend, dropped me off at Genesius Theatre…In truth, Genesius saved my life, and gave me my life.” 

If it were even possible to compile a chronological list of his life’s theatre work, we’d be here until after midnight. We may be anyway. So an incomplete but evocative list of places and names will have to do. Peter Pan. The Superheroes Save Christmas. 1776. Jerry Hall. The Minetta Lane Theatre. Blues In The Night. Julie Taymor. Steve Reich. Penny Arcade. Art D’Lugoff and the Village Gate. The Westside Theater.  And The World Goes Round. Other People’s Money. Full Gallop. Irma Vep. The Vagina Monologues. The Jane Street Theater. Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Sweeney Todd. Willy Wonka. The Belsnickel Scrooge. Dog Sees God. Sideman. Mary Stuart. That’s What She Said. John Brown’s Body. Trumbo. Dutch Apple Dinner Theater. The Broadway Palm. The Wizard of Oz. Finding Neverland. So to recap, he began his acting career as a Lost Boy, and ended up as Captain Hook. A certain symmetry there. 

This next story, classic 1970s Genesius, comes directly from Larry Fecho. So don’t blame me. In the show, and the song APPLAUSE… the chorus sings … “I love applause, applause, applause”. And Ellen Walter started joking one night during a performance and started singing… “I love Kirk’s balls, Kirk’s balls, Kirk’s balls.” It started catching on and half the chorus during the performances were singing that lyric while the other half sang it correctly. Until Michael O’Flaherty caught on and yelled at them and they went back to singing the right lyric! Larry says he really misses the ‘70s.

Kirk was old school theater. You didn’t grow up in the Genesius of the 1970s without being old school. He had a strong belief that to give your best performance onstage, you needed experience in all the offstage tech. And that putting on a show was a total team effort, with no egos. And he told actors that constantly. For me, one of the unexpected pleasures of the time immediately after his death was the outpouring of love via stories posted on Facebook. And I loved that so many of the tributes came from tech people he had known while on tour as an actor. He was never above moving set pieces or setting props during a show while he was offstage. Ask anyone at Dutch Apple. 

My favorite example of his stagecraft was when he was on this stage, singing “Fifty Percent” from Ballroom, during the He Sang She Sang cabaret. The previous performer had unknowingly lost an earring. It was lying on the stage for all to see. Kirk came out, started singing, picked up the earring mid-verse, and incorporated it into his performance of the song. Made sure that the stage was clear for everyone else, and did it as if it were totally planned. That’s old school. 

Old school is also that the show goes on, no matter what. He was onstage here for Bat Boy shortly before his first hip replacement, bone on bone, jumping down on one knee revival style [wave hands] for his role as Reverend Billy Hightower. I asked him how he could do that, performance after performance. His reply? “My character does not have a problem with his hip” Three weeks after that surgery, he was onstage again, having committed to Aspects of Love. At Dutch Apple in Lancaster, he crossed during a blackout and his fellow actor was a bit too far downstage. Off he went, breaking his wrist on the floor. He got back onstage, hit his mark in time for the lights to come up, and finished the show. That day was a double. Between shows he went to urgent care and got x-rayed, confirming the break. The show’s dancers bandaged him up. He did the second show that day, finished the week’s performances, and only then had surgery to fix the wrist. Immediately after that surgery he got on a plane to Fort Myers to fulfill his next contract at the Broadway Palm. Now that’s old school. 

On his acting resume under “special skills”, he stated “willing to change or remove hair”.  That was an understatement. Sometimes it was like being married to a hundred people. He had so many different looks due to roles, or just for the hell of it - the Dick Cheney look in Mary Stuart, hair extensions for Beethoven in 33 Variations, a green swirl for The Wizard, the fabulous Captain Hook wig, and of course Jane Street.

As an aside, it should be mentioned that coincidentally, Kirk’s very good friend Jane Street passed away on the same day as he did. She was vacationing with her ex-husband Otto and extended family in Bulgaria. Jane mistakenly drank a glass of milk poisoned by Vladimir Putin’s henchmen, milk that was intended for an oligarch at a nearby table. Confusingly, her last words were “mmm, tastes like goat!” Raise a glass, not of milk, to Jane. To Jane!  She was inimitable. 

Things you might not know about Kirk: he loved playing Pokemon Go - whenever I see his favorite Pokemon, the Oshawott, I know he’s around. He was a self-taught website designer who created some of the very first websites for Broadway shows. He was an avowed Francophile and loved our numerous trips to Paris. He built the best campfires ever - not flashy blazing ones, but useful ones for cooking that would last for hours. When he had a song stuck in his head, he would get rid of the earworm by singing  “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas”.  His hiccups would last for hours or days, until he got the acupuncture which always cured them. He loved rubber duckies, treasured the pair we exchanged in lieu of rings for our legal wedding in 2012, and eagerly anticipated tour hotels he knew gave them out. He was the best cat dad ever, and tolerated the sibling rivalry with his parents’ dog Precious, the daughter they never had. He could sometimes end up at odds with someone, but when he did, it was rarely personal and nearly always in the service of his own artistic vision. He was a fantastic bread baker who knew by feel if the dough was right, and by sound if the loaf was done. 

He was always on his phone. I used to get onto him about it a bit. I didn’t realize then what he was doing all that time. Largely it was time spent keeping in contact with people, solely for the joy it brought him and others. Personal happy birthday greetings. Custom annual holiday cards. Personal and professional advice, given and received. Personal hellos for no reason other than the hello. I’ll bet a lot of you were on the receiving end. 

Everyone leaves a digital life behind nowadays. Kirk probably left more than most. Poems, performances, posts. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Messages.  It is said that people die twice - once at the time of death, and again at the final time people think their name. If that’s true, Kirk may just live forever. 

When Covid first hit and the Finding Neverland tour abruptly ended, he found a new outlet for his talent. Taking his stimulus checks, he built a home studio and did voiceover work for audiobooks on Audible. Many Amish romance novels were given life through his mellifluous voice, using the accent he worked so hard to get rid of. Yes, Amish romance novels are a thing. And his poetry readings on YouTube gave him an enthusiastic new audience, especially among the Ukrainian poetry community he so loved.

I thought I saw the arc of my life, with Kirk and I enjoying so many more years together than the twenty-six we got. I was so looking forward to being old men together. He was thrilled about his new life in Ecuador, studied his Spanish for hours a day, and was excited about a new creative life. For him, Cuenca was the best of downtown New York City, New Orleans, and Europe, rolled into one place. Just before his final weeks, he had been cast in Harvey at a community theatre in Cuenca. I so regret that our new friends there never got to experience his amazing talent. 

Kirk had a million stories about the theater. One of my greatest pleasures was when we got together with his old New York friends, at Mont Blanc, or Le Madeleine, or Astray Cafe, or McHales, or Danny’s Skylight Room, bars and restaurants that are all gone now.  Every time we got together, especially with Stephen Russell, I would hear a new story. “I broke into a house with Chita Rivera.” “My first professional gig was having to hit all six feet six and a half inches of Tommy Tune with a spotlight” “David Bowie, Imán, and Angelica Huston, the three most beautiful people in the world, came to my Hedwig box office window together.”  “F. Murray Abraham needs to come get his damn Oscar out of my safe”. And with Stephen Russell recently gone as well, so many stories will be left untold. 

I’d like to think there’s a Danny’s in heaven, an amazing piano lounge.  Kirk is there at the bar with Stephen Russell, Jeffery Jeffries, and Bob Bendorff. Dan Smith comes in, and introduces Chuck and Ellen Gallagher, and Jane Simmon Miller. Blossom Dearie has just finished an amazing jazz set in the back room, and joins them as well. Jerry Scott is at the piano, and motions for Kirk to come over. And Kirk can sing again, in full glorious voice. 

Thank you all for coming.

For me, he will always be my Hedwig.

“The last time I saw you, we had just split in two

You was looking at me, I was looking at you…”

Godspeed, my beloved husband. We are children of the sun, forever together.

Posted on

So, Covid…

The National Tour of Finding Neverland was an amazing experience. Playing this version of Capt. Hook was thrilling, but truly it was playing my dear Charles Frohman that totally took my heart. It was an honor and a joy to bring him to life.

And then, Covid…We watched upcoming performances be erased off the schedule as venues shuttered, and we heard more and more news of this deadly virus. And we started to see the writing on the wall.

We played what would be our final performance on Thursday, March 12, 2020, in Saginaw, MI, at the Dow Event Center.

At the time, we didn’t know it was to be our final performance, but the signs were all there, and many of us treated it as our farewell performance. It was glorious; charged with emotion, laughter and tears.

And then we holed up at our hotel in Saginaw, waiting for the shoe to drop. And drop it did. On Saturday, 3/14, we received confirmation that all the remaining dates of our tour, including the long anticipated week-long sit-down in Vancouver, BC, had been canceled.

We took that Sunday to pack and say our goodbyes, and then we all went our various ways home, and Neverland became a lovely, melancholy, memory.

And then, for all intents and purposes, the world stopped. And, for a while, we all became lost boys and pirates, sailing an uncharted sea.

Posted on

Been a while…

Well, it’s been a bit since last I wrote. A year and a half on the road with a show will do that, I suppose. 

Anyway, I left the Wizard of Oz tour in January of 2019. 296 performances; didn’t miss a one. To paraphrase my frequent producer: I’m old school. Dead or on. 

Well, not quite. Had to take a break to have my left hip replaced. Months on a bus, but mostly, bad genes, did me in. But at the end of July, I begin a new adventure with the National Tour of Finding Neverland, as Charles Frohman/Hook. I can’t wait, and am so very glad the timing with my recovery worked out. I’d have hated to miss this amazing opportunity. It’s a truly magical show that make my heart sing. 

So, on we go. On to the next great adventure! 

Posted on

40 Years in Several Paragraphs

What is a home? Hopefully, it is a place of safety, a place of comfort, a place of growth, and yes, occasionally, a place of disagreement, but that’s a part of growth, isn’t it?

This is what the theater has been for me through the years.

When I was 11, in 1974 – a gay, withdrawn, chubby child, more comfortable with books and the arts than with the usual trappings of 11 year old boys – my mother, at the suggestion of a friend, dropped me off at Genesius Theatre, in my home town of Reading, PA.

Genesius was mounting an original Children’s production of “Peter Pan.” It was fitting that I was cast as a Lost Boy. But I wasn’t lost for very long. I found a life-saving second home.

There, among the other glorious misfits and square pegs, is where I spent the next 7 years. They were years spent watching, and learning from, tremendously talented people, some of whom would go on to professional careers, and some who were simply professional in their hobby. I learned everything I could from these people: acting; set design and construction; lighting; musical direction, and most importantly, how to be part of a greater goal. I learned that, and this is something that I try (sometimes successfully, oftentimes not) to communicate to younger actors, the more you know about all the aspects of theater, the better you will be at your specialty. I learned that theater is a living organism; each part, each specialty, as integral as the other. I learned skills that would keep me employed, in one aspect or another of theater for the next 40 years and counting.

In truth, Genesius saved my life, and gave me my life.

The foundation that Genesius gave me allowed me to have a long career in professional theater, a career of which that frightened 11 year old could never have dreamed.

Some career highlights in somewhat chronological order: Co-writing music for a children’s show for Barter Theatre; Master Electrician for the Montclair Theatre Fest under the direction of the legendary Phil Oesterman – which allowed me to work with Tommy Tune, Liliane Montevecchi, and Jerry Hall. That led to my first Off-B’way gig, running spotlight for “Blues In The Night” at the Minetta Lane Theatre. This led to numerous Off-B’way Master Electrician jobs, and to many backstage crew assignments. Crew highlights include the Pulitzer Prize winning “Other People’s Money” with Mercedes Ruehl, and “And The World Goes ‘Round,” directed by Scott Ellis, choreographed by Susan Stroman. I joined Actor’s Equity to Stage Manage a strange little piece called “Paradise for the Worried,” notable mostly for the cusp-of-celebrity cast, Laura Innes and Campbell Scott.

Stage managing took me on an International tour with Julie Taymor’s stunning piece “Juan Darien,” and also Internationally with Steve Reich, one of the pioneers of minimalist music, with his piece, “The Cave.”

Then came box office management. I assisted at, or headed, some of the leading Off-B’way houses: Art D’Lugoff’s legendary Village Gate, The Orpheum, The Minetta Lane, The Westside, and my beloved Jane Street Theatre, where I stayed every night after the box office closed to watch the phenomenal “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

“Hedwig…” became a catalyst for the rest of my life. I was the box office Treasurer, I designed and administrated the show website, and eventually, I became “Hedwig-at-large,” doing promotions that the stars didn’t care to do. “Hedwig” also led me back to acting; I was hired to play the title role at Richmond VA’s Firehouse Theatre Project, and subsequently at the Virginia Shakespeare Festival. “Hedwig’s” other influence in my life was that through the website message board, I met my husband of 17 years.

In 2008, for family reasons, I left New York and returned to Reading.

And now, I’ve found a home with the Prather Organizatiom, working between their two theaters: Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre in Lancaster, and the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre in Ft. Myers, FL.

I’ve included the somewhat lengthy “what have I done” section not as an exercise in braggadocio, I am, certainly, proud of what I’ve accomplished. But, more, I am amazed at where life has taken me. From one small hole-in-the-wall theater in Reading, PA, to a 40 plus year theatrical adventure; who could have imagined? It’s been, and continues to be, a marvelous journey.