ABSTRACT
I joined the Turnabout Theater initially for three months, but I stayed for almost ten years. The theater was unique. There were two stages, one at each end of the small room. The chairs were streetcar seats that could be turned at intermission so that the audience first faced the tiny puppet stage and later the larger but still small revue stage. The puppet show was always a full-length, sophisticated play, and the revue was a mixture of songs and sketches all of it written by Forman Brown. We were six in the cast. Forman was the MC, and in addition to singing some of his own chansons, he accompanied the entire show. Elsa Lanchester, Charles Laughton’s wife, was the guest star. She and I each did three numbers of our own choice. Harry Burnett, the main puppeteer, Dorothy Neuman (who also directed the show) and two more young actors, plus an occasional guest, played the rest of the four alternating programs. Everything in the show, and even during intermission, was thought out with great finesse and imagination. Charming and clever and even cozy, I think, would describe the Turnabout Theater. A far cry from the fighting spirit of the Peppermill and the Liberated Theater in Prague!
