Transcription of George Dvorsky for the show Entertaining Maine #265
Lisa: People who are longtime listeners of Love Maine Radio know that I love music and it’s always fun to have people in the studio with me who feel exactly the same way and actually this individual George Dvorsky has taken his love of music to a whole new level. George Dvorksy is an accomplished actor and entertainer who brings deep and diverse experience with him to Vinegar Hill Music Theater. He was appointed creative director in March 2016 for the venue’s inaugural season. George has starred in numerous Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional productions across the country. New England audiences will know him from his extensive work at the Cape Playhouse, Maine State Music Theater, North Shore Music Theater and the Ogunquit Playhouse and there’s so much more to talk about with you but thanks so much for coming in.
George: Thanks. My pleasure. Good to be here.
Lisa: Tell me what it’s like to be really devoted to music and have your life be all about music and singing and bringing music to the greater public.
George: My mom said I sang before I spoke which is interesting because I stuttered as a kid. Spoke when I sang, it was kind of like the Mel Tillis thing. I would talk and stutter but I would sing and it would be clear. Music has always been a part of me. It’s funny because some people will say … My brother-in-law said, “Why don’t you sing all the time?” I said, “Because it’s just so much innate and it’s so much a part of me that I don’t … When it’s your job and a part of your life, you don’t always just do it.”
Lisa: It’s interesting that there’s probably some singing that’s going on internally even as you’re not …
George: Yes.
Lisa: Even as you’re talking.
George: That’s a good point and actually there is. I hear music all the time. If I sit still, I like to have some music in the background. Quiet doesn’t really work for me. There’s gotta be some music in my life all the time.
Lisa: Were your parents musical?
George: My father sang in a barbershop quartet in the service. He was in the army for a while and I think that was basically … My mom, she would say she had no musical talent but I would hear her singing. When I’d go home I’d put some music on and I’d hear her singing in the kitchen. She could sing but my dad was the singer, and I’m the youngest of five and every one has played an instrument and/or basically sung but I’m the only one that really took it and ran with it.
Lisa: What part if you were going to be in a barbershop quartet, what part would you be?
George: Interesting you asked. Years ago, I sang tenor and when I first started out in this business, I wanted to be a pop tenor. I was out in LA and doing demos and Warner Bros. Records was interested in me for having the really high stuff recorded that they didn’t have anyone else to do. Then I came back to New York and this coach I found said “You’re really a lyric baritone.” I developed my lower register. I’m lucky that I have both to draw from but I would say now just because I’m getting older … As Ronan Tynan said, “It’s easier to be a baritone at this late stage of the game.” I’m a lyric baritone by name.
Lisa: Tell me, what is a lyric baritone?
George: You’ve got the heaviness of a baritone. Most tenor voices have a lighter timbre to them and they can get up into those top notes. I can still get those top notes but I don’t want to sit up there. If I can go up, hit them and come back down and then sit in the lower register for a while, it’s much easier. For those musicians out there.
Lisa: I think it’s an interesting conversation to have because I know there’s enough people with enough musical background that many people will understand soprano, alto, baritone. I don’t know, tenor is sort of above baritone, is that right?
George: Yes. Yeah.
Lisa: Baritone and then bass.
George: Yeah, you’ll go bass, baritone, tenor for the three, and then a countertenor which is kind of like a mezzo for a woman. Countertenors are so high you sometimes confuse them with a lower mezzo voice for a woman.
Lisa: It’s interesting what those of us who know a little bit about music, what we understand is the divisions but you’re saying that there’s an even greater breakdown.
George: Yes. It’s funny to watch the singing competition shows and you hear some of the “stars” talking about a woman singing in falsetto. A woman doesn’t sing in falsetto. Men have a falsetto. Women have a head voice and that’s their natural voice. Falsetto means a false or a fake vibration of the chords and that’s what men … If you go up here, that’s falsetto for a guy, but for a woman, that would be her head voice. It’s technical but sometimes watching The Voice and American Idol, I go, “That’s not what it really is.”
Lisa: How has it been for you to work with the Vinegar Hill Music Theater in a really different capacity? You’ve been a performer for such a long time.
George: Yes, in musical theater. A lot of people have called, when this was announced I was doing it, a lot of friends of mine from New York and around the area actually sent me scripts for their musicals or their plays and I said even though it said it’s a music theater, it’s actually a concert venue. Growing up with so much music and being a child of the 70s, my listening is very eclectic. Growing up, I was a huge … I’m an Olivia Newton-John stocker. When I finally met her, I was so excited but I’ve listened to her from the day she sang her first note until now. She’s actually recording things now that people don’t even know about. Just the diversity of my family and what we listen to with five of us being so different. My parents had …. We grew up listening to movie soundtracks, not cast albums, so it was interesting for me when I went and moved to New York and met some of the legendary stars, I didn’t know who they were so much because I knew …
For instance, John Raitt. I worked with John Raitt at Ogunquit Playhouse. He was the original Billy Bigelow in Carousel. I was used to listening to Gordon MacRae. Meeting Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, those were the people that I listened to and tried to emulate whereas John was just a friend of mine and I knew he’s a Broadway star but he was just a good friend. I think that actually eased my… I was never star struck by anyone. It’s interesting to see some of these people, they get nervous around them and don’t know how to act and it was an easier transition to work with these people but I wasn’t star struck by them so it was more like we were … What was the word, not companions …
Lisa: Peers?
George: Contemporaries, thank you, and peers. More so than being nervous about working with someone and not doing … Letting those nerves affect what you’re doing. It was an easier transition for me. However, when I did work with Gordon MacRae, I’ll never forget this, we did Paint Your Wagon in Sacramento Music Circus and I sat on stage, I was Jake Whippany, and he sang Maria and I thought, “Here’s this kid from Irwin, Pennsylvania sitting on stage with Gordon MacRae five feet away from me singing this glorious song.” I thought, who gets to … I’m a lucky guy who gets to realize those kind of dreams in their lifetime.
Lisa: You’re talking about something that I think for many people can be very almost transcendent to hear the right music and by right I just mean sort of the resonant music from the person who seems to be able to bring it to life most effectively. It’s something that we share with others really effectively. Is that one of the reasons that you like doing what you’re doing now with Vinegar Hill?
George: Yes. I was gonna say I didn’t answer your original question. Thanks for circling back to that. Having the background, I do have a musical theater but also having the pop part of my life growing up, I think that’s why I was looking forward to taking on this job because I could bring in the acts that I knew of or were familiar with or knew about just peripherally to bring them into Vinegar Hill and have them show the rest of the community what great talent and musicians that they are. That’s been the fun part, booking this talent and having people … Having people say, “How did you get these people?” A lot of them were friends. I called on favors. There were some people who actually reached out to us because they heard about what a great venue it was. It’s just been fun to have the diversity of so many different kinds of talent and we have some speakers, we have some comedians. It’s just been fun to get as much … It’s kind of like throwing things at a wall and see what sticks. It’s been fascinating and interesting and fun.
Lisa: Vinegar Hill is literally a brand new venue this year. Before that, it’s had a long, long history as something else.
George: It’s on the Smith Sisters’ farm. That’s what this piece of land is and the Smith Sisters in the early 1900s, the barn was actually a mile down the road. They dismantled it, put it on horse and buggy, brought it down to the house, reconstructed it, and it’s been there since the early 1900s. In 1989, Adrian Grant bought it to make it the Arundel Barn Playhouse. It was a non-equity summer stock theater for nineteen years, eighteen seasons, and then Tim Harrington and Deb Lennon bought it last fall and now it’s the Vinegar Hill Music Theater. People ask how it got that name. That part of land, there was a farmer further down the road that was on a grade, I’m not gonna say a hill but on a grade, and he had a bunch of apple trees and he put all the apples in barrels, let them sit too long, the apples turned to cider, they dumped them out and the vinegar ran down the hill, hence the name Vinegar Hill.
Lisa: That’s a great story.
George: That’s the legend of it.
Lisa: It’s not that far away from Kennebunk and Kennebunkport.
George: Six miles.
Lisa: Yeah.
George: Exactly.
Lisa: When I think of the Vinegar Hill Music Theater, it seems like it would be kind of out in the country and it is a little bit but it’s really … It’s right there. It’s right next to this …
George: Yes, Kennebunkport, Kennebunk, and Arundel make a triangle basically. There is no downtown Arundel. It’s funny because John Michael Coppola who was the Frankie Valli part of the Four C-Notes, our opening act. His thank you said, “I hope you support this theater. It’s the jewel of Arundel.” The audience all laughed and he said, “What? What? What did I say wrong?” I explained to him later Arundel’s a township. There’s no real downtown area as there is in Kennebunk and Kennebunkport.
Lisa: It was also … I believe that the author, Kenneth Roberts, originally wrote about Arundel and Arundel was the greater name for this entire area. There is a lot of history.
George: Yes, in fact, I wrote the article in our music notes, [or just 00:13:43] our playbill, and I did some research about the … We wanted to do music or the arts through the history of Kennebunk and Kennebunkport and Arundel. There was an Arundel Opera Theater and there was also the Kennebunkport Playhouse. It was rich in history for the arts in the area so we hope we’re just carrying that on.
Lisa: Who have you had this past summer?
George: Ronan Tynan, an amazing sold-out show. Linda Eder blew the roof off the place. Frenchie Davis from American Idol, she did an amazing show. The biggest surprise I will say was John Davidson. I’d known John for years and he and I, our paths have crossed before we even knew each other. The only time I was in People Magazine, John was on the cover. I was cast in the … I did the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas National Tour. That’s why we were in People Magazine. I stayed in LA for a year after we had closed. My mom and my sister and my brother-in-law came to visit and for some reason, I don’t remember how we got tickets to the John Davidson show. He replaced Mike Douglas in his talk show. I’ve always been aware of who John was and my mom always loved him and we had the Hollywood squares thing and then that’s incredible.
I’d got cast in the off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks and they were advertising Aaron Carter who was a teen pop idol. I thought it would be fun to go into the show. I’m sitting there watching the show before I started rehearsals and John Davidson walked out and I thought, “Oh my god. I’m gonna be working with John Davidson.” I started rehearsal and you’d go into the show a week later, he and I became fast friends so when he found out that I was doing this, he called and said, “I’d like to do my show up there.” I thought he would stand with a guitar and sing. I booked him on July 10th, a Sunday night. I was so proud of him and so blown away by the talent. He’s 75 years old now and we had about … I forget how many people were actually there but there were people that just came thinking, “Let’s just come and see what the venue is.”
I’ve had people say if they had to pick their top 10 shows, he’d be in the top 3. It was one of those old stars that they don’t make anymore and I know that sounds cliché but it’s actually true. The whole studio system of people that they … John was at the end of that and to see him, he didn’t just sing, he performed that night. It was fascinating to see him hold the audience in the palm of his hand and be [able to 00:16:23] temper what he was doing and see the audience go with him. It was fascinating to watch and like I said, people have said they would come back to see him in an instant. He’ll be back by popular demand.
Lisa: It seems to me that the best performers and maybe there aren’t many of them, maybe you’re saying that this is the old fashioned kind of performer, are the ones who don’t just go out and offer a show. They interact with the audience. They read the audience. There’s an energy that goes back and forth and people leave feeling differently than when they came in.
George: Yes. I did a show off Broadway in 2000 called Pete ‘n’ Keely. We were a fictional couple but it was kind of like a Steve and Eydie type duo and Pete ‘n’ Keely were bigger than Frank and Judy and Steve and Eydie and then we got divorced because our lives did not gel like we thought. We had separate careers that tanked so we were brought back together for one night on NBC sponsored by Swell Shampoo for the Pete and Keely reunion special. That was the show. It was kind of like Kiss Me, Kate in the way that you saw us on stage and off stage so during commercial breaks we’d have fights. They’d say 3, 2, 1, “Hi, we’re back and this is my …”
They thought to boost business to bring in three old stars and asked them to do their acts from 1968. The last one was Charo. I was excited to meet Charo only because of who Charo was and growing up watching Charo. It was fascinating to watch her temper her act from 1968 to a matinee audience. She actually slowed some things down, because it’s an older audience and she just … You could see her temper what she needed to do. Got the same reaction for each show for an older more hip audience or an older matinee audience to watch her temper the same exact show but get the same reaction from different audiences. It was fascinating. That’s what John did, just to see him perform and if he felt it was slipping, he would just bring them right back up.
Because those people were so well-rounded. They were trained in a way that schools are not training kids today. It’s fascinating to watch kids coming into the business and see that they’re not getting what the old stars did. That’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.
Lisa: I think it’s actually … It’s something that I think about a lot because I believe that there’s this performance aspect of what’s going on now. I think it’s great that we have YouTube and we have ways that we can push ourselves out into the world but when we are instead of just pushing ourselves out there and saying, “Look at me, here I am, here’s my selfie,” if we are able to actually have a back and forth with people, then that really raises the conversation to a different level.
George: Right.
Lisa: I think that that’s the piece that if we could really get to that, that would make everything richer for all involved.
George: Yes. Also, I think because of social media where it is now, the show Glee, which I was a huge fan of, but I think everyone thought they could be stars. The studio system wasn’t that way. You worked your way up and you had start from the bottom and pay your dues to get to where those people ended up and I think that’s been inverted in some ways. People want to just be a star instead of doing the work. It’s funny because people have said to me, “What was your goal?” I said, “I wanted to be in my 40s and 50s and be respected and work all the time.” I reached that and thought, “Now I should have gone a higher aspiration.” It’s about the work and making the work speak for itself and not just being a star. A lot of people get confused by that. I went to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh back in 1994 There were really five schools that would kick people into the business. It was NYU, Julliard, Carnegie Mellon, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music was coming up, and Northwestern. There were five schools. There were only ten in my class, only four people graduated. They would weed you out.
It’s fascinating now that every college has an arts program that they say is so great and they’re kicking all these kids. Now, what used to be maybe 20 people coming into the business every May when they graduated, there’s now a couple of thousand, probably tens of thousands because every school has these arts programs and they can just come in and … The jobs are not there for everyone coming into the business now. That’s why it’s gotten so tough. A lot of the kids don’t have the training that is really needed to make it. The business is so strange too. They can get a break, have a hit show and then they don’t work for the next 20 years. It’s such a fickle, bizarre business. You have to have it in your blood unfortunately. People say to me, “What do you tell kids?” I say, “If you have an option, take it. If you want to go into show business but you also want to be a doctor, be the doctor because it has to be everything in your system to want to do this. If you have any doubt, don’t do it.”
Lisa: I love what you’re saying because it actually jives with something that I feel very deeply and that is that anything that one wants to do, there is something that happens over time, maybe it’s the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours, there’s something that happens when you sit within whatever it is you’re doing, whether you’re a singer, whether you’re a classical pianist, whether you’re a writer, whether you’re a doctor. Really, there’s something that comes about by kind of … I don’t know, I don’t want to say struggling with, sometimes it’s struggling with but working with whatever it is. You’re right, yeah, on one hand, you could be the person who gets a break but then even if you are the person who gets a break, haven’t you maybe missed out on that opportunity to work with whatever it is that you love?
George: Yes. That’s another thing I would say to someone, if you have a job. I think it was John Gilgood said “Never turn a job down. Only turn a job down if there’s a conflict.” If nothing’s going on and it truly is there’s no small roles, there’s only small actors because you never know where doing a small role in something will lead to the next. Networking is huge in this business and that’s because I did work regionally and traveled the country and traveled the world actually doing concerts, just having your name out there and getting people to know that they can call on you. A friend of mine had done a chorus line for five years and then Cats for seven and when his body was breaking down and said, “I’ve got to leave the business,” he said, “I’ve just been on Broadway for seven years. Now what do I do?” It was interesting to think he didn’t have the contacts that I had made traveling so much and I could call people and say, “You know, is there something that I can do in your show or …” Networking is huge in this business and I think the more that you do and the more that you learn, whether it be small or large, it really just builds in the momentum of your path.
Lisa: What it is about Maine do you think that makes us want to come here in the summer and engage in … Whether it’s being in the orchestra up at Bowdoin College or doing summer stock or I know that there are ballet camps around the state or even just being an artist. Well, not just being an artist but being an artist.
George: It’s funny. The arts community is huge up here and I was pleased and surprised to see that. My first experience up here was with the Ogunquit Playhouse in 1987. To see how they have changed that theater because it was truly a two week summer stock theater when I started working there and now it’s a viable great regional theater and then working up at Maine State with Bowdoin College and seeing … It’s just, I think the summer aspect of coming to a great place is, and the vibe up here, it’s palpable of all the arts. I think that’s what attracts people. Does that make sense?
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, it does. I think about some of the … I don’t know, most meaningful times I ever had in the summer were actually at the Maine State Music Theater for example because that’s where I happened to live was Yarmouth so we would go up there and we would watch a summer show. I can even feel it as I’m talking to you now, feel what that was like to be there in the summer, in that theater, watching the actors up on the stage.
George: It’s a great energy and people are thrilled to be here and as simple as it does sound, to get out of New York City in the summer is a blessing. To have this kind of…. These venues where you can come to a beautiful place first of all and do quality work, like I said, the vibe is palpable. Truly, I’ve never seen anything I thought, “That wasn’t very good.” Because you want to do it and you want to be here, it makes the show that much stronger.
Lisa: Do you have exciting coming up for 2017? Are you already working on that schedule?
George: I’ve created a folder on my computer called Talent Search because with the success thus far of the theater, a lot of agents have contacted me with new acts and the people who have been here have talked already. I’m not sure when we’re reopening yet but there will be a full season practically already just from the folder I have of people who want to come here.
Lisa: How late in the fall does Vinegar Hills start closing?
George: We are closing October 8th this year. It’s not winterized. It’s funny because people come in and say, “Why aren’t you going later?” I said, “See that crack in that board right there? Snow will be coming in there.” The new air conditioning system does have heat but to keep it going all … We’re gonna go until October 8th and see how that works. Hopefully go longer into the year further down the line but for now, we’re closing October 8th and we reopen probably some time next June. I’m surmising that, we haven’t discussed it yet.
Lisa: I enjoyed the time that I spent at the Vinegar Hill Music Theater and I encourage people to go to the website for Vinegar Hill which we will have on our show notes page. I think that you’ve had a broad variety of really interesting people coming in for this season and it sounds like 2017 will be no different, really.
George: Yes. It’s funny because I talked to someone last night at a cookout about this. You could bring the people back you’ve already had because some of the shows have sold out and bring them back by popular demand. There were so many people that couldn’t get in. For instance, on Saturday night, The Drifters. We actually, I had booked Larry Gatlin for the 20th of August and he has to have back surgery. His recovery time was right in his date so we tried to find something in October, it didn’t work with his side or our side. I said “We’ll get him in 2017” but I had to find something that would have the same name recognition. A friend of mine, one of the agents said, “How about The Drifters?” I thought, “Oh my god. To have The Drifters here.” They sold out immediately, as soon as I announced it. Ronan Tynan said, “You should have booked me for two nights.” I said, “Who knew? We were thrilled to have you one night.” I think maybe next year we can also do more than one night because people have been saying when you see a show, you want to talk about it, and then just suddenly, it goes away that next day. Maybe we will do two and three night engagements because a lot of people, it could support that.
Lisa: I appreciate your coming in and talking with me today. I hope that people will go to the show notes page and learn more about the Vinegar Hill Music Theater. We have been speaking with George Dvorsky who is an accomplished actor and entertainer in his own right who brings a deep and diverse experience with him to the Vinegar Hill Music Theater. Thanks for coming in today.
George: My pleasure.
Lisa: I enjoyed our conversation.
George: This was fun. I enjoyed it.