The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 47

section peoplehomeentertainment Friday, March 5, 1982 The ballet: Dancing to a new tune Analysis INSIDE Action Line .....2 Ann Landers ...2 On Ruth Gene Austin ....4 TVradio 6 ..7 Soap operas 7 Lee Winfrey ....8 Overseeing the transition will be an informal holding company of business and civic leaders who have been consulted for advice. And it is David Brenner, a senior partner in the audit firm of Arthur Young Co. and chairman of the board of the ballet, who will have the most clout. Brenner's is a familiar face in the city's financial trenches. Last year, as chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, he called on the city's public school system to slash more than $70 million from its budget.

And for the last seven years, he has been an offi-(See BALLET on 4-D) not retrenching as revenues dwindled but even in the ballet's darkest hours, she had managed to rally support. This time she failed and, embarrassed by a publicized vote to place her on a leave of absence, she resigned. For the first time since its origin in 1963, the ballet widely considered the nation's finest outside New York City faced a future without Barbara Weisberger at the helm. It also faced, and continues to face, a $1.4 million debt. And the shape of things to come, to a large degree, will fl By Rick Nichols Inquirer Stall Writer Three weeks ago, a 10-ton dumpster appeared on Fairmount Avenue outside the rehearsal studios of the troubled Pennsylvania Ballet.

With its winter season cancelled to resolve money problems, the staff figured some housecleaning was in order. A defunct refrigerator went out the door, and an old water cooler and a couple of typewriters, and boxes of ticket stubs and programs from 1968. If local trash pickers had not come by, the dumpster would have overflowed. Before Q. used as promotion for magician-comedian Harry Anderson; that's Harry on the left A Houdini who pulls hats out of be dictated by measures the board and the company's new president, Charles H.

Rannells, take to cover that debt and to shore up the ballet's sagging finances. Those measures already are under active consideration and, if the people now in charge have their way, the operating style of Philadelphia's premier ballet is certain to shift profoundly. The changes will run deep and, although there have been promises all around that the artistic direction of the company will not be tampered with, some wonder if that too might be forced to bend. show, he makes appearances on network and cable television. He has appeared as a guest star on Steve Martin's "Twilight Theater" and has made two appearances on "Saturday Night Live." "Perhaps it was more of an op-tion to me than it would have been to a lot of kids as an occupational choice," he said of his vocation.

just never considered anything else. By the time I graduated from high school, I was already making a good living on the street. "I don't know if it's respectable," he said, laughing. "I don't know what a respectable profession is. But I've always thought it was the way to do things I wanted Miller read from his "Death of a to So he The cleanup was finishing on Feb.

25 even the shabby walls were repainted by crews of idled dancers when the ballet's board of directors got into the spirit and ushered out the company's pioneering founder and its guiding light, Barbara Weisberger. Mrs. Weisberger's style had come under criticism in the past she was in hot water with some directors for your very eyes a picture Profile knew were involved in scams. I was exposed to that manner of making a living: picking pockets, running hustles and jam auctioneering. "So as a kid, I learned magic, basic sleight of hand.

I did the shell game on the streets because it was ready cash. But that was too rough a hustle. It ultimately became a street magic act." Anderson, bespectacled and studious-looking, walks onstage in a '20s-style suit, replete with thin tie and suspenders. He wearily The scrape of a metal claw at the end of a crane, clutching, lifting and removing chunks of concrete and twisted steel that had been the building next door, provided a sad but suitable background accompaniment. Madeline Sherwood, who starred as "Maggie the Cat" when Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened here in 195S, said, "I have to be positive.

I cannot let myself believe this theater will be destroyed. Twenty-five years after I first played it, the Morosco, like myself, is older, more beautiful and well worth preserving. The Morosco, where plnvs Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon made their Broadway debuts, is slated to fall to make way for a luxury hotel, to be named the Times Square Hotel. The same fate awaits the Helen Hayes Theater directly behind the Morosco on West 46th Street, where the wrecking ball was knocking down the shell of another building yesterday to clear more ground for the hotel. Protesters gathered outside the Morosco for an all-night reading of the seven award-winning plays that were first presented at the theater, to dramatize their hope that State Court of Appeals Judge Jacob D.

Fuchsberg would grant an extension of an injunction issued earlier. Yesterday afternoon when the protest began, and before Marshall's stay, the state court order was the only thing standing between the Morosco and the wrecking ball. The planned hotel designed by Atlanta architect John Portman, who (See THEATER on 4-D) drags behind him a chair and a battered carpetbag full of tricks. "The comedy comes from the bunko situation," he said, explaining his act. "Seeing a magician, somebody who is a bald-faced liar by his very nature 'I know something you don't know is funny.

"That's where the comedy starts, and then it's all just my own attitudes toward life and saying generally, 'Just kiss I've been doing offbeat variations of magic tricks for a long time." After originally working the steets, he polished his act on the college circuit before making his professional debut in nightclubs. Now, in addition to his Vegas By Vicki Greenleaf and Stan Hyman Special to The Inquirer Harry Anderson is a self-professed cheat. A hustler. He learned it on the streets as a child. Now it is a way of life that pays the bills.

He is matter-of-fact about it all. "I grew up on the streets," said Anderson, 29, a magician-comedian who hustles Las Vegas audiences and who will be appearing here tonight and tomorrow at the Comedy Factory. "I was very transient as a kid. I traveled with my mom his parents were divorced when he was 41. When I was real small, many of the adults I Pitying the glut-stricken oil nations Not only is the worldwide oil glut reducing their incomes, but also they're quibbling over whose fault it is.

Art Buchwald. Page 2-D. A play and a party for drama's sake Louise Bodine played a key role in the Philadelphia Drama Guild's annual fund-raising gala at the Annenberg Center. Ruth Seltzer. Page 3-D.

Master strokes for siding House siding can be successfully painted, but it's important to use high-quality paint and prepare the surface. Gene Austin. Page 5-D. 2 doctors, 3 lawyers, 3 policemen Maud Adams fills the role of a doctor on "Chicago Story," NBC's most expensive new series this season. Lee Winfrey.

Page 8-D. I 4 A Broadway plea: Don't bring down the house rabbits do and establish financial freedom. After a while, it becomes like anything. It becomes the only thing you know because you spend all your time doing it. There are a lot of things I'd like to try, but I'm too old to get started.

I'll keep doing this." His humor has always been a little off-key, and his act, by any standards, is quite unconventional. During one of his funniest tricks, he takes a $5 bill (a donation from a trusting; volunteer), shreds it, makes it disappear and then reappear intact. Then, with a deadpan manner, he drops his trousers to display a grappler that operates by moving his knees (See MAGICIAN on 4-D) Associated Press Salesman" at protest yesterday By Beth Gillin Inquirer Staff Writer NEW YORK The actors had planned a dramatic protest yesterday, but they were upstaged by the sound effects provided by the demolition crew next door. While a wrecking ball sounded a mournful cadence in the background, Jason Robards Christopher Reeve, Elizabeth Ashley, Lauren Bacall and other Broadway stars gathered on a makeshift stage in front of the Morosco Theater. They were there to protest the planned demolition of the theater to make way for a luxury hotel.

Producer Joseph Pp, wearing a hardhat, stood on a platform in front of the Morosco on West 45th Street and told hundreds of cheering noontime spectators that the protest would continue until the Morosco is saved. A state appeals judge had said he would rule on the fate of the theater today, but U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall yesterday stayed any demolition "pending receipt of a response and further order" by himself or the full court. But Papp was unimpressed by Marshall's action. "It hasn't changed the situation at all," he said.

"The consensus of opinion around here is that the IU.S.I Supreme Court is not going to hear this case. We need a stay with meaning, one issued here in New York that will take a new look at things and consider the alternatives," Papp said. The actors read selections from plays that dealt with loss and greed, death and regret, as a veil of snow shrouded the pile of rubble next to the Morosco. i 'r vis Jtr x''' 0 ill1 Stage personalities hear Arthur.