The first time actor John Schuck saw "Annie," he had to be dragged to the theater. "I went grudgingly," he admits. "I really didn't want to see a show about a kid and a dog and that sappy no-eyes cartoon. I hated the cartoon."
Then the unexpected happened. "I was captivated in the first 30 seconds," he recalls. "There was something very appealing about the toughness of these kids scrubbing the floors and singing 'It's the Hard-Knock Life.' "
By the time the character of Daddy Warbucks came on stage, the show had thoroughly won him over. "I said, 'I can do that part,' " he continues.
His reaction proved correct. Schuck has now portrayed Annie's bald, wealthy adoptive father in five separate productions beginning with the one in which he made his Broadway debut (as the replacement for Reid Shelton, who originated the role) and culminating in the 20th anniversary revival, which begins a pre-Broadway run at the Mechanic Theatre on Wednesday.
Schuck's name is hardly a household word, but his toothy, strong-jawed visage has become familiar to television audiences from five series in which he played roles ranging from Rock Hudson's right-hand man, Sgt. Enright (in "McMillan and Wife"), to a robot ("Holmes and Yoyo").
Baltimore theater audiences, however, knew Schuck before any of this -- not to mention before his big break as "Painless" the dentist in Robert Altman's movie, "M*A*S*H," or his first screen kiss (in 1972's "Hammersmith is Out" with Elizabeth Taylor, no less). That's because the 56-year-old Boston native spent three seasons as a member of Center Stage's former resident acting company.
"They were three of the happiest years I ever had," Schuck says of his 1964-1967 tenure at Center Stage.
That tenure began as a fluke when the struggling New York actor got a call from a college friend, William Bushnell, who was then executive director of Center Stage.
The theater needed some wigs delivered from New York and Bushnell asked if Schuck would bring them down on the bus. While he was here, Schuck was cast as the Cardinal Inquisitor in Bertolt Brecht's "Galileo" (which Center Stage originally produced 26 years before it opened the current season).
"I never went home," he says.
Schuck remembers Baltimore fondly and in impressive detail -- from the address of his apartment (12 W. Mount Vernon Place) to the time hot weather forced Center Stage to open the windows of its Preston Street theater during a performance of "The Lady's Not for Burning" and oomph-pa-pa music, as he puts it, wafted in from the Deutsches Haus Restaurant across the street.
Changing Baltimore
The city in those years was a place where "liberal social ideas and Southern traditional attitudes toward blacks were at loggerheads and the dam was just breaking loose," he says. "It was an exciting time because Baltimore was emerging into the 20th century and a real business middle class was taking over and revitalizing the city."
At Center Stage, just 2 years old when he arrived, Schuck appeared in approximately six shows a season, playing everything from the lead role of the Vagabond in George M. Cohan's "The Tavern" to a chorus member in a musical called "Lady Audley's Secret."
Peter W. Culman, hired as managing director during Schuck's last season, remembers him as "a real team player" who believed in the concept of a resident company -- a concept economics has largely rendered a thing of the past at regional theaters.
Baltimore actress Vivienne Shub, who was also at Center Stage with Schuck, calls him "one of the warmest actors, just totally giving and very dedicated to his work." She also praises him as "a very creative, inventive actor. He could bring ideas to a role."
A spontaneity
Creativity continues to be important to Schuck, who comes by his theatrical career rightfully -- his English professor father still acts in amateur theater and the legendary actress Katharine Cornell was a cousin. In this revival of "Annie," Schuck tries to provide creative input "on a nightly basis. There's a reason for that, too. I think you would do it under normal circumstances, but acting in 'Annie' is not a normal situation.
"You're dealing with a brand new talent and no matter how talented the Annies are, they're inexperienced. It's easy for them to lose concentration, become tired, and you need to be inventive to attract their attention, keep them off balance, so it doesn't become this rote performance night after night -- a pause here and a vocal attack there, just changing the line reading. One of the things I like is that there's a spontaneity that happens that otherwise wouldn't."
Recalling Schuck's original 1979 audition, Martin Charnin, director and lyricist of "Annie," says, "I remember he got the job without a lot of competition. It was quite apparent he could sing it and had the style that he could play it."
