Rainbow was my first union show and it was all new. We had no wing space and they threw together some tiny cramped dressing rooms, but it was fun.

Early on in pre-production, we had been invited to  the studio of Nancy Potts to go through bits and pieces  of costumes she had from other shows. She said she would make me something special as I was the father and she said it needed to be colorful.  After all, we were the Rain Beams from Rainbow Land. In the first stage of the costume designs we were all to have helium balloons pinned to our clothes so parts of them would float around us. Luckily, that idea vanished. So finally at first dress/tech,  I got to see my full costume. It was colorful and I loved it—until I put it on. It was hand painted very heavy canvas and in a minute had rubbed my nipples raw. They got me a t-shirt, then a heavier t-shirt, then a much heavier t-shirt  to put underneath, but by fourth preview my nipples were raw and bleeding. The union costume assistant whipped out a rule book and read (in a snotty fashion) that I had to wear what I was given to wear, bloody nipples and all. I consulted with the Equity deputy (Meatloaf) who said unless it got destroyed—wink, wink—I had to wear it.

I ripped it in half and gave it back to the assistant who turned purple and left. The next night I had a truly beautiful hand-painted rainbow poncho made out of China Silk, which couldn’t have been more comfortable.

We were under a Favored Nations-Sliding Pay Scale contract, so when we opened and the reviews started coming in we had better ticket sales and bigger pay-checks. The script was initially written as Act 3 and Act 4 instead of 1 and 2. It took over where Hair ended with the soldier levitating surrounded by us, the Rain Beams. It was a  sweet pretty show, with a lot of beautiful music. Every note was choreographed, making for an active night.

The set was by the late Jim Tilton who had worked for many years in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.  Jim created incredible pieces from a hand-painted traveling curtain for a London street scene for My Fair Lady, to the tawdry beauty of Gypsy, to a mysterious building of wooden slats and shadows for Ballad of a Sad Cafe. His work was always memorable.

Our set for Rainbow was a spiral ramp starting on the stage, wrapping around the theater and the balcony and up to the third floor level of the stars in the sky. So, by the end of the the show, (we were singing the names of constellations as we travelled upwards- Casiopia, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor etc.) we were three stories above the stage.

I was one of the first up the ramps and  I’ve blocked out the memory of how scared I was or how I got back down on the floor for curtain call. There was a three story brass fire pole, but I didn’t use it. Audiences really loved the show and the finale. Before the traveling star song was a group of songs that I thought were the prettiest in the show. “Heliopolis” was a big anthem of a song. It felt a little like singing “Let the Sun Shine” for the way we drew the audience in with us and the heart-felt spirit of the song with its beautiful harmonies and lyrics about mankind and the earth. We would then transition to “It’s A Rainbow”, a song that ended with with a shower of big round silver sequins that twirled and sparkled their way down from the sky onto us. I remember being mesmerized by the beautiful view looking up to see this raining down on us. Plus, there was a fantastic rainbow lighting effect through the glittering rain.

We ran for three or four months with many write-ups about Vietnam and world unrest and politics and what the show was saying about all that and critiques galore. So along with these distractions were the constant bulletins about who was in the house. Celebrities and potential backers for a move uptown or to London. On Broadway Dude was busy flopping around tearing up theater seats and laying down dirt floors and getting bad reviews and finally closing. So, we were the big deal hot property, if only for those few months.

One night word got to us that Dick Clark and Cat Stevens were in the house to maybe invest or move the show up town We had a song near the top of the show called “Welcome Banana”. I sadly have no memory of what was meant to be happening during the  number,  but this night I was assigned the basket of bananas to distribute in the house. I found Dick Clark and, coming up with nothing better, I dumped several dozen bananas in his lap.

Check out the New York Times review of Rainbow from 1972.