Corpus Christi Caller-Times from Corpus Christi, Texas • 61

Rock Opera Is Set For Corpus Christi Seeing Broadway From Other Side I By MARY CAMPBELL NEW YORK (AP) Patti Jo the 22-year-old female lead of the musical had seen one Broadway show In her life before she went on the Broadway stage herself That show was She had gone to It after been hired as a replacement for Melba Moore to see how it went Miss Moore had grown restive in a show about black people which isn't militant and left It But Patti Jo says she the militant type She had been gingmg in nightclubs The rock opera Christ Super will make its way to Corpus Christi Sunday August 8 for one performance in Memorial Coliseum The Original American Touring Company will perform music from the opera plus Grace Lord's Prayer" and other original and traditional works at 7:30 pnt The show is being sponsored by the Seirtoma Morning Club for the benefit of Opportunity Bouse The show portrays the last seven days of Christ in a contemporary approach The rock opera was written by two young Englishmen Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tom Bice They are planning additions for the opening In New York sometime this fall In the work Christ Is seen as a human being rather than a spiritual figure and an analogy between Jesus and contemporary rock stars has been drawn The score Is drawn from rock Jazz and traditional Broadway show music The live choral presentation is one of the first in the country since until this spring Christ Superstar" existed only on records and tapes This company Is not associated with the American Rock Opera Co which produced a choral version of the rock opera and performed 22 of 177 scheduled presentations early this year before copyright holders filed a suit and enjoined the company from continuing Its tour A suit seeking an Injunction against the Original American Touring Company lost out in federal court and the group Is continuing Its crosscountry tour A panel discussion will be held immediately after the performance here The panel will consist of representatives of the clergy youth organizations ami the cast along with audience participation Tickets at $4 $5 and $8 are available at the Corpus Christi Savings Kiosk In the Padre-Staples Mall or by mail from the Sertoma Morning Club PO Box 7243 Corpus Christi 78415 knew I be in hard rock forever but I'd never done any ballads or commercial tunes before It was a challenge but I hesitate In going into Then Smith brought Ms own managers Mr and Mrs John Gherman around to hear Patti Jo three times AH were disasters first time I even sing All us girls had turns of doing a solo and that night I get to sing They have heard me anyway because the band was so loud Then I got fired from that place and a number of other disappointing things developed But I had saved my money That was one thing in my favor I invested in arrangements" THE NEXT time only Mrs Gherman came to a strip Joint where Patti Jo was singing between appearances by strippers She says was the first time I ever heard my arrangements played with mare than a piano When the band started my first tune I even recognize it I fought through it thinking the next one has to be better The next one was a little bit worse It was really The third time Patti Jo says went into a lounge where there was no more than enough room for a piano and a very thin person I get into what I was doing I Just have enough room This time the tunes were played much better but all I could do was stand there and sing I The Ghermans signed her anyway and got her a 10-day Job in a Catskill resort last summer with option to renew She says proudly took the whole Then it was back to Miami and engagements in better clubs During the day without her managers knowing she worked as a switchboard operator then a file clerk A reporter far Variety reviewed Patti nightclub act last winter in Miami especially liked the songs from and said Patti Jo should be on the Broadway stage Somebody showed the review to producer Philip Rose and he phoned the Ghermans ands to Patti Jo Then came a quick trip to New York two auditions and the words Patti Jo screamed when she heard Patti Jo says that Cleavgn Little who rinys Purlie helps her and gives her advice He tells her on stage be aware of everything going on Be observant listen and respond to whatever is there Respond as it comes And She tries to do it Patti Jo says but the relaxing part easy know my stomach is always going to turn a couple of ENTERTAINMENT I SUNDAY JULY 25 1971 TRAVEL: 6 ENTERTAINMENT: 1-4 PATTI JO IN NEW YORK APARTMENT HAPPY OVER DREAMS she is new female lead in Broadway musical 'Purlie (AP HwwUrtum mta) The Jazz Show Will Rise Again Says Promoter THE DAY after the long weekend ha said pve a check for $21000 to the city for police It bounced today They said going to 'take criminal action Whatever money got now is going to be paid back to the public The city later always paid all my bills I won't go under I'm going to pay every Asked why he thought the young people broke into the festival Wein said a dgflanin of authority of any kind Even if the concert had been free somebody is telling them free The fact giving it to them makes them mad Who are you to let them sit on the SECTION Rooks Art: 7 HOBBIES: 5 threatened audience members many broke chairs' i HOURS AFTER the audience was told to go home and had left young persons were still dancing around on the stage tearing up music arrangements and pulling keys out of the grand piano The Rev Norman the Jazz priest said to one of them are you doing this? destroying the mu- The young man said '1 am the Father said then hear you sing like Dkmns The concert had been canceled Just before its intermission by Wein City Manager Cowles Mafiory and Police Chief Frank Walsh who wen afraid that fighting would start and people would get hurt Around midnight the police decided to cancel the Sunday and Monday concerts as well Wein was bitter about that He said town was peaceful Sunday morning The festival could have gone on on a concert-to-concert basis I By MARY CAMPBELL AP Newsfeatares GEORGE WEIN producer of the Newport Jazz Festival which was canceled this year half way through its third concert said festival will continue Where and under what structure we don't know yet Maybe in a different area or form going to recreate it somewhere so fans who really love Jazz will be able to hear their music There will be a Newport Jazz Festival next The festival was planned to have seven one Friday night and two each on Saturday Sunday ana on the July 4 weekend At the Saturday night concert approximately 18000 persons who had bought tickets wen sitting on wooden folding chairs In Festival Held Some 18000 more young persons many of them with knapsacks and wine Jugs were sitting on a hillside behind the field They could see and hear police left them alone But several hundred of them broke down a chain link fence and then either broke down or climbed over wooden to get inside the field Some Film on Drug Users Does quarrel with what was done Saturday night But that emergency was over Sunday morning could have announced there would be a Sunday afternoon concert at 10 or 11 Sunday morning and thousands of people could have come any kids in the hills And the police had all night to get help from the governor to see that they come bade There were a number of things they could have done and they chose to do none of them The police were Just happy to see everybody get out of WEIN SAID are conservatively $100000 In the hole We would have shown a profit of $100000 the first time we ever nit that kind of money AH we needed was good weather and we certainty got that Day to day we had exactly the ticket sales we had projected Sunday night would have been our biggest might have been the greatest of all Newport Jazz Festivals Look at the excellence of the musical performances so There was talk among musicians of a benefit concert to help Wein pay his Nils Some musicians told Wein to pav them only enough to get them out of town Also a number of persons who had bought tickets were deciding not to ask for refunds to help lessen the financial Wein said more Important that It means so much to musicians people who come every Wein said that his talent budget was but overhead for items like police system fights The Newport Jazz Festival my business but it Is mo protection rent $150000 Fame Without a Name starting in rock bars and strip including songs from in act and dreaming about Broadway In fact it was a newspaper review of a Miami engagement last winter that brought Patti Jo to the attention of producer Philip Rose and got her the JOb of Lutiebelle the sweet young thing discovered In the Junior choir by sharp-eyed Rev Purlie Victorious When Patti Jo talks about her brief history the themes that recur are determination to become a star and saving money to use to further her career SHE WAS bom in Otter Creek Fla named Ethel Patricia Demps with three older brothers and three older sisters Both her parents died when she was very young Reared by the oldest sister Jane McKenzie Patti Jo as she was always called grew up in DeLand Fla then Miami during high school years She went to Florida AAM in Tallahassee to get and did graduating with a major speech and drama' Demps sound like a theatrical last name to Patti Jo and she couldn't think of another one so when she started singing on weekends while in college she Just called herself Patti Jo She met a man at a college drama festival in Atlanta who tocher to come to New York when she got out of college and help make her a star She arrived In New Yoric found out he had something else in mind and turned around and went bade to hqy in Miami npt pausing to see even one of id Broadway ay shows IN MIAMI performing she met a young singer Barry Smith who gave her some adv'ce a music teacher get an arranger quit singing hard rock work up an act get a manager all to get better bookings and make more money That advice she took She says my determination and Ms encour-: made it I started investing my money Into an act No one had ever suggested anything like this to me I turn some people away from dabbling in hard drugs When he first read the script for Panic in Needle Schatzberg turned it down because it seemed too topical That early version of the screenplay included the involvement of hippie life-styles and a Mack-white factor that seemed to date the story choose the subject at Schatzberg says honestly chose me After I read an early version I heard A1 Pacino was interested and watted to play Bobby So I read the script again and saw that it could be changed to something want to Pacino who zooms to screen stardom in this movie had been known chiefly to New York theatergoers as an award-win being in films and I told him that I but that I would like to and that was the start of it" The film la her fifth Her sixth may be a sequel to Its makers reportedly are considering a fellow-up and Miss North is willing to go the route again she says like IAS one night and the next day I was In loss he sakl He went there recently to play his first major role in a motion picture whose original title is: of a Police Chief to a District It was produced by an Italian company and has to th law and the Mafia than and $130000 is was By FRANCIS TAYLOR Hwrtwm Hw iwvm Director Jerry Schatzberg whose stunning movie Panic in Needle opened two weeks ago in New York is neither for nor against drugs Though the film is thoroughly anti-drug In portraying the life of a heroin addict in New York City Schatzberg takes no position on the question of narcotics Except that he considers add brain-damaging And except that he considers heroin brain-body-and-soul damaging point is that he sermonize and he allow the film to preach It have to The daily life of the young addicts is so horrifying it reaches so effectively into the viewers consciousness that the movie surely helps home The daughter of an American father and an English Mother she spent most of her life in England so she says she feels English She has been an actress about tour years Before that I was a model-clothes and that sort of thing Then I met the man who was to become my agent and he asked me if I had ever thought of How Time Has Changed Your Looks 1 I i I i since everyone else is out there doing their fait and you have to depend mostly on your face especially your eyes to get your Mt across then not speaking is far easier than having to speak since you get nervous about your lines and how to re member them The film was made in London Miss Not Preach ner for off and on Broadway performances Schatzberg had made only one movie before this of a Downfall with Faye Dunaway a not very successful tale of a fashion models failures as a person and finally as a model Since Schatzberg had been a fashion photographer had known Faye when she was a model and was thought to be in love with her years ago most people assumed the debut film was authoMograph-leal He says it though the life of models in the fashion Industry is familiar to Schatzberg HOWEVER for his second movie he wanted something not remotely related to his own life He found it in especially when he made his first visit to the dusty little park that is hardly more than a traffic island at Broadway near 72nd Street Schatzberg who looks much younger than his 44 years had never met addicts until he began preparations for the movie sitting in that park and listening to them I was he says we went on preparing the movie I heard more and more All of them are going to get straight but always starting Monday or next week or after some event that will never The director consciously decide to include or leave out of the film any mention of the rehabilitation centers in New York where many former addicts are learning to live without narcotics simply use that aspect of the life because it in the he says addicts I saw and heard on the West Side in the Needle Park area speak of the centers and I see how they belong in this particular I HAD raised the question because in New York City most addicts are aware of the existence of programs designed to help them quit the hideous life shown in the movie However answer is acceptable Panic in Needle is so effective that Its few weaknesses are minor But Schatzberg not one to Mde behind excuses recognizes the problems such as the girl being on the street when her lover is busted on information she has given the police was strictly for the director says with a wry grin we did have a bit too much of the needle going into the arm at least some of that shot is too close change that if I could but I little that needs changing in the movie Panic In Needle shows what needs changing the lives of the hooked an education all by itself Band Show Canceled The regular summer Sunday night concert by the Corpus Christi Municipal Band will not be held today because of the danger of Infection by mosquitoes Ferris Arnold band manager said that the Corpus Christ! Health Department has requested the postponement of the concerts until the danger from VEE is over but that he hoped they will be resumed next week 1 By WAKA TSUNODA NEW YOBK Martin Balsam is the man who stopped short of becoming the first nude on Broadway A few years ago the audience saw only his hand the rest of him was off stage he played an actor who stripped in an audition for a nude role in Know I Hear You When the Water's' Balsam also is the man who when he goes into a restaurant the owner says saw you last night On television uh what was the name of the Balsam has appeared hi 33 movies 17 Broadway plays some 40 summer stock-productions and made over 300 television appearances He has achieved star status without playing a single major role in films This year he is celebrating his 30th anniversary In the profession he said believe it Thirty years this summer been pleasurable marvelous and a good portion of it The 51-yearoId winner of an Oscar for Thousand downs" and a Tony for Hear has not only endured what he calls a and hazardous but has gone to the top and stayed there without much socialising on the cocktail party circuit distasteful to me incapable of doing he says of the practice of trying to land a role through friendship know how quickly a dam friendship disappears when one is refused a Job seen terrible things happen: friendships breaking up in seconds" He has always offered his acting ability on the basis of quality alone and that quality Is the product of Actors Studio you really want to cry you try not to cry And if you try not to enr tears come Into your eyes I owe a lot to Lee Strasberg" BALSAM WHO is the son of a New York sportswear manufacturer acting because it was the only wanted to do The earty part of spent appearing in school plays sitting in the balcony of Broadway theaters with an 80-cent ticket and working as an usher hi order to see plays free comes naturally to me My Job is to tell stories and I get pleasure out of doing it starting from A and going to Even when Pm tired if I go out there on stage there they are I accept almost quit many times Not that I wanted to but because nothing was going he said But when he cooled down enough to admit there may be other occupations in the world he not qualified for anything Jobs can come out of the blue after several months of Idleness got a call Egad Igor By PHIL THOMAS NEW YORK ffl Strange things are happening at least in horror movies Back in the good old days the horror film buff had only to glance at the screen see the saturnine features of Bela Lugosi and knew he had a vampire on his hands-or neck Nowadays aU is confusion what with attractive well-endowed young ladies wandering on screen giving no due to their real identity until they pull back their full red lips and show 101 pointy teeth A vampire In clothing And there was a time when the mad doctor easily was identifiable by a deformed creature usually named lurking at his elbow and giggling maniacally Now in the film has been replaced by an attractive young brunette who not only giggle she doesn't even speak know why they let me says Virginia North the tail former model who plays the part 'Jug is more sinister I suppose But I do get to Miss North also find a woman doing the hit unusual reasoning behind it la she says nice to see a pretty girl in a movie" A non-speaking role in a horror show new to the 24-year-old Miss North She once appeared In a play in London called of Love in which she was silent throughout the performance played the daughter of the she said with a laugh go around and do terrible things The people who made the movie saw me In the play and decided I was what they wanted You might say I was ready made for the movie part" In the movie Miss North plays friend dancing partner and to Dr Phibes (Vincent Price) I help Mm to do natty things such as murders All the murders he concocts are horrific He Just kill someone he thinks up terrible things involving bats and rata and that sort of SHE REGARDS not speak in a rola as hit able to ROLE FOB VIRGINIA NORTH IN FILM she helps Head do nasty things inch ss murder A.