PERRY AT THE CHERRY, which opens a four-week run in Carmel on June 6th, may sound like a one-man show, but lead actor Len Perry says he swore off solo stage work after coping with eight characters and seven lightning costume changes in a 1996 Cherry Hall show called 21A. "The title referred to a bus line - seven passengers plus the driver. It had won first prize at the Louisville Actors Theatre Festival. We cut a real bus in half and put it on stage at the Cherry Center. I had to have a dresser standing in the wings to tear off one costume and push me into the next . . . I asked her please to also whisper my next line, just so I’d remember which character I was meant to be turning into. Wonderful experience - but never again!"

THE DEATH OF BESSIE SMITH

Instead, PERRY AT THE CHERRY will offer a kind of retrospective of past performances from the long and varied career of one of the Monterey Peninsula’s most versatile character men - plus a second half consisting of monologues and songs by Len and accompaniment from pianist Hal Harris. "Conrad [Selvig] had a slot to fill, so I asked him to lunch. We sat at this very table; I had some of the show on paper and all of it up here in my head. He listened - and, thank God, he bought it.

"I won’t tell you too much, but we start with a very quick slide projection panorama of my acting career - run through very fast - before we get down to the three specific scenes. "First is Edward Albee’s THE DEATH OF BESSIE SMITH. It’s a powerful piece which I first did Off Broadway. Dierdre McCauley will play opposite me. Next is an original skit by Susan Touchbourne. Very funny. Susan’s a rising Hollywood screen writer. I won’t tell you more than to say that the title is THE TAMING OF THE SHREWD - and don’t forget the ‘D.’ Lynette Graves is my leading lady in this one.

"The first half will end with a scene from ADVISE AND CONSENT - boy, that’s pretty timely what with the release of these secret McCarthy tapes. I love the scene: I gradually break down on the witness stand." Helping spark the breakdown will be Robert Colter, Steve Harris and Harrison Shields.

Off stage and on, courtrooms are familiar territory to Len, who started his professional life as a New York and Hollywood actor, but soon moonlighted as a Los Angeles area court reporter. He began acting professionally when he was awarded a contract for summer stock at the Gristmill Playhouse in Andover, New Jersey. In the fall of that same year, he went into rehearsal in New York for the title role in an off-Broadway production of CRAWLING ARNOLD by Jules Feiffer. After a tour of dinner theatres of the South as one of the many clergymen in SEE HOW THEY RUN, Len took on the lead role of Uncle Sid in a summer theatre production of TAKE ME ALONG - the musical version of AH WILDERNESS!

THE TAMING OF THE SHREWD

When he moved to Los Angeles, Len was promptly cast as the Old Actor in THE FANTASTICS, a role he played for fifteen months. It earned him the attention of a movie talent scout and ultimately a role in the Julie Andrews bio-musical STAR. But court reporting became a necessary financial stop-gap - one which Len mastered so well that he started teaching court reporting classes - and ended up marrying one of his students. "We moved to Santa Barbara and opened our own court reporting business. Theatre became something I did in my so-called spare time," he recalls.

"My first effort at directing and acting was Odets’ THE COUNTRY GIRL - a terrific play. My wife and I went to the final week of the L.A. production. I asked that company if our theatre in Santa Barbara could rent their props when they closed. So we went home loaded down with boxes full of stuff, including the slippers worn during the Los Angeles run by Jason Robards." Halfway through rehearsals in Santa Barbara, Len’s two fellow leads had to be dropped and their roles re-cast with actors from Hollywood. "It worked, but it was a major struggle."

When his wife died, Len moved back to Los Angeles, but away from theatre. "I trained as a massage therapist and worked at various Los Angeles country clubs. It was one of my clients - a judge - who introduced me in a roundabout way to the Monterey Peninsula." The judge/client first asked Len, "Seeing you’re trained and certified and the courts need reporters, why are you doing massage?" "I told him it was a question of wanting to help people. Except in adoption cases, courtrooms are nothing but negativity, fuss and argument. I felt like I’d had enough of that." The judge then asked if he’d ever seen the beautiful Monterey Peninsula.

"On his advice, I went for a weekend - up Highway 1 through Big Sur and into Carmel. I took one look and said: ‘This is where I’m going to live.’ I’d kept my court reporting certification, so I moved into a condo near the Salinas law courts and did reporting, till I found a job through a newspaper ad that really involved caring." Specifically, caring for an elderly man in the final years of his life - the kind of work in the "real world" offstage Len Perry insists is the only sound basis for a satisfying career in acting.

Another newspaper notice, this one about some MPC auditions, brought him back to the stage after a fifteen-year absence. "It was for THE FANTASTICS! - the very show I’d done for nearly a year and a half in Los Angeles. That didn’t keep me from being sweaty and nervous. Conrad was directing. I didn’t know him from Adam. I didn’t know anybody. . . I chickened out and was halfway out the door when Conrad called me back. I read - and got the part - went on from there to do a Ku Klux Southern colonel in LAST MEETING OF KNIGHTS OF THE WHITE MAGNOLIA and then played the alcoholic Doc in COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA.

"They used to give out these awards called ‘Barbs’ back then. I guess they couldn’t decide whether I had played a leading or supporting role in KNIGHTS - so they gave me both awards - and then announced I’d won another one for SHEBA. It was crazy, but I knew I was back in theatre!"

Len’s favorite role of all time is the old actor preparing to play Lear in Ronald Harwood’s THE DRESSER. . . But the performance he’s had the most fun with came his way when he answered a desperate phone call from Phil Clarkson, who was directing THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at the Indoor Forest Theatre. The actor cast in one of two butler walk-ons had just walked out. Would Len take on the bit part? "I agreed - and Phil finally asked me to do both butlers. What an opportunity! My make-up for the second was so total that nobody could believe it was the same actor - and the reviews tended to focus on my two walk-ons."

Far more traumatic was a later cry for help from the same theatre. Marcia Hovick’s Sunday matinee of Ibsen’s AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE suddenly lacked a cast member who was marooned by floods which blocked all traffic between Salinas and the Monterey Peninsula late in the 1990’s. Undaunted and determined the show must go on, Marcia grabbed Len from the audience, pushed a script into his hand and told the rest of the cast to nudge him into something like the right blocking while he read the role of Aslaksen in a play he’d never seen or read before.

Another first - and last - for Len Perry.

ADVISE AND CONSENT

Negativity or not, Len's legal experience will pay off in forthcoming performances of PERRY AT THE CHERRY. In the ADVISE AND CONSENT segment, stage manager Shirley Fischer will play the silent role of court recorder and she'll do it at the keyboard of Len’s worn but authentic old court reporting machine.

Len Perry in 21A The MPC Players at Cherry Hall 1996