Ben (“IHH’s” set construction chair) and I discovered, while building this massive set, that we are both alums of Glenbard West High School. We got to talking about Doug Quinn, my high school theatre director. His name still echoed in the halls of Glenbard West 10 years after Doug and I left there, when Ben was a student. Doug is a legend. After he left Glenbard West, he was hired at Pheasant Run where he established the dinner theatre that fellow Glenbard West student (and Doug’s main protégé) Diana Martinez ran for well over a decade, before she moved on to run the Paramount Theatre in Aurora.
I never knew him as “Doug,” he was always “Mr. Quinn” to me. He was also the only person of any sort of authority figure that I listened to at the end of high school. Thanks to my drug addled state, brought on by my own thirst for escape from reality, I was far out of touch with life. My poor parents were the main target of my immature rebellion, but I wasn’t selective.
For whatever reason, when Mr. Quinn spoke, I listened.
Mr. Quinn wasn’t exactly a role model. He was paunchy. He smoked like a chimney, crushing Carltons between his fingers to try to suck ANY tar and nicotine out of them. Carltons were to cigarettes what iceberg lettuce is to food. Mr. Quinn had to smoke them, or he’d have dropped on the spot every day. He drank to excess, but only on his time. He would threaten you with a cup of coffee from a Mr. Coffee machine that looked like it had been used for 50 years. It was no more than 3 years old. He ate like a pig, often substituting Carltons and coffee for any sort of nutrition. He rarely went home before 7 or 8 each night. There were always rumors about drug use. He was gruff. He was passionate. He would yell if he needed to, and sometimes he would yell if he didn’t need to. His office was in the bowels of the auditorium, in the set shop. A place NO ONE could get to without considerable effort. It suited him, like a troll living under a bridge. Despite his appearance and mannerisms, no one cared more about his students or his craft than Mr. Quinn.
Mr. Quinn staged HUGE shows. It’s what he did. He made you work hard on them. He made you be as good as what he put behind you, which was beyond spectacular. As a testament to his influence, 6 of the 7 principals from our production of “The Foreigner” have been paid to do theatre later in life. That’s a hell of a percentage. Go to any high school production ANYWHERE and show me 86% of the cast that is going to cash even ONE check for doing theatre. You won’t find it. Four of the six relied on theatre for their living for at least a time, and 3 of them still earn their living from theatre, or education and theatre. Two of those followed in Mr. Quinn’s footsteps and became high school theatre directors, while one is a working circus clown performing off Broadway in New York.
You say you want to move into this set? Every one Mr. Quinn built was built to these standards. He simply built a “real” suite at the Plaza for “Plaza Suite” or a real fishing lodge for “The Foreigner.” Except for the lack of a ceiling, they looked like they existed in the real world. They didn’t look like “sets.”
During the summers, Mr. Quinn was the director of the bygone Before Broadway Players, the community theatre sponsored by the Glen Ellyn Park District. Steve Merkel, Joe Maier and Jean Austin are names currently connected to WDI that I had the pleasure to meet way back then. The BBP did one show a year, eight nights (WEDNESDAY thru Saturday – try opening on a WEDNESDAY night……), in a 750 seat auditorium. Tickets cost $8 apiece. At the end of the group’s existence, the budgets for the shows exceeded $30,000.00 in mid 80’s dollars. You can do the math on how many tickets you’d need to sell to pay for that, (let alone be profitable, and the shows were always VERY profitable) but it’s a LOT. We usually played at least 4 of the 8 shows to sold out capacity. For “Joseph” (pre Donny Osmond) in 1984, we sold folding chairs in the aisles the last 6 shows. We had 180 patrons on opening night. No one knew that show then. It was all word of mouth. Whether it was “Camelot,” where he built a structure connecting the balcony to the stage with a functioning walkway (about 18 feet in the air – for about a 50 foot long run – on EITHER SIDE of the auditorium) or shooting off fireworks from the ceiling of the theatre during “1776,” Mr. Quinn never skimped on the details. I was lucky enough to appear in 4 of their shows, including that production of “1776” and 1986’s “Oklahoma!” where Curly rode a real horse through the audience while singing “Oh! What a Beautiful Morning.” That’s right, a REAL horse. He had one for “Camelot” too. Did I mention he did HUGE shows?
Everything I learned from Mr. Quinn I still use today. This cast has heard some of his more frequently espoused philosophies, such as “what you do in rehearsal is what you do in performance” and “always leave them wanting more.” He helped form the nucleus of my love for this art. I’ve since learned much more than he ever taught me, but no one person ever taught me more.
Mr. Quinn died of a heart attack in 1988 at the age of 33, two days after I completed my stay at Central DuPage Hospital’s Addiction Treatment Center. I had talked to him on the phone while there, and he had promised to come see me, but he never made it over. He never knew that this year is my 20th anniversary clean and sober, but he sure knew me when I wasn’t either of those things….
“I Hate Hamlet,” at its core, is about a ghost who, while alive, was arguably the best Hamlet ever. He returns from the grave to mentor a much less skilled actor about how to perform Hamlet, with all that entails. That ghost is not exactly a role model, and knows he wasted considerable amount of talent in his own indulgences. He expresses regrets in death that he probably never said in life. He seeks cosmic redemption through his protégé. By the end of the show, he realizes that while the student couldn’t measure up to his impossible standards of excellence in performance, he has outgrown his teaching. Every facet of it. The ghost is indeed redeemed, while still being the master.
I have always felt with every show that I have directed that I have a ghost (who was a master) looking over my much less skilled shoulder making sure I get it right, mentoring me. I talk to that ghost as I go through every show. I listen for inspiration. In life, I learn from his failures. This one has been exceptionally poignant to me, because this show is about exactly what I deal with every time I direct.
With the copious help of everyone involved, this show is how I believe that ghost would envision it if he were alive, and more importantly, I think I’ve become the person that ghost would want me to be. Mr. Quinn would love this one.
So…from an “Andrew,” this show is all for my “Barrymore,” Mr. Quinn.
Randall W. Knott
Love this post! Thank you for sharing it. I hope you will encourage as many of the former students and actors to read it as you can.
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