Within the bygone heyday of dinner theatres, one draw was the possibility to see each new abilities and fading stars in an intimate, reasonably priced expertise. Some fortunate Omaha audiences within the late Seventies and early ’80s obtained the possibility to witness the twilight of a theatre god when Dick Mueller, founding chief on the Omaha Firehouse Dinner Theatre, obtained the legendary Joshua Logan to direct reveals there not simply as soon as however 4 occasions.  

Mueller, an Omaha native, got here “to theatre by way of the backdoor of nightclubs,” beginning out in an all-male vocal group, then performing in summer season inventory, learning in New York, and honing his chops in Midwest theatres. Entrepreneurially minded, he began the Firehouse Dinner Theatre, an Fairness home, in 1972, and enterprise boomed.

Touchdown Logan, finest identified for co-writing and directing such Broadway and Hollywood titles as Mister Roberts and South Pacific, was a one thing of coup. In a current interview, Mueller referred to as Logan, who helmed a complete of 29 Broadway reveals and 11 movies, “the Hal Prince of his day,” through the so-called Golden Age of Broadway.

By the Seventies, although, Logan’s aesthetic appeared passé to tastemakers within the age of Fosse and Sondheim. (He additionally struggled with bipolar dysfunction.) His final Broadway credit got here in 1979, as producer of Larry Cohen’s Trick, and 1980, as director or Horowitz and Mrs. Washington. Neither fared nicely. So Logan more and more went to the place he felt valued, instructing at Florida Atlantic College and directing on the Firehouse.

Mueller mentioned he by no means obtained the sense that Logan was slumming or caught previously. As an alternative, he thinks Logan noticed working on the Firehouse, far faraway from the nationwide highlight, not as a comedown however as an opportunity to maintain his craft sharp. Logan’s Broadway aspirations by no means died, as he campaigned for a revival of a 1916 farce referred to as Nothing However the Fact, inviting New York influencers and buyers to see its Firehouse mounting in Omaha. He was additionally growing a Broadway-bound musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn, earlier than an identical undertaking, Massive River, beat him to the punch.

It was the Firehouse’s fame as a house for brand new work that drew Logan, Mueller recalled.

“Phrase obtained round about this little place in Omaha prepared to do unique materials,” mentioned Mueller. “It was uncommon for a dinner theatre to do world premiere productions of unique materials. In 1975 alone, we produced two world premiere productions of Leland Ball reveals, Purple Dawg and Battle Hymn.”

An agent was the preliminary matchmaker. When Mueller heard that Logan was transforming Cherry, a musical adaptation of 1 his nice directing triumphs, Bus Cease, he traveled to the South to see a workshop Logan was directing with a summer season theatre group. It was not love at first sight.

“I wasn’t blown away,” Mueller mentioned. When Logan requested him afterward what he thought, he recalled, “I hemmed and hawed. Sensing my reticence, he put his hand on my knee and mentioned, ‘Dick, don’t ever do a play except you’re in love with it.’ He let me off the hook so gracefully.”

So Cherry didn’t gentle up the Firehouse, however a couple of years later, in 1978, Logan got here to direct Nothing However the Fact, which he was briefly hooked up to revive on Broadway (although that manufacturing by no means occurred). “It was nice and an enormous success” on the Firehouse, Mueller mentioned, and it led to “10 years of an attractive relationship.”

There was one memorable bump at the beginning. At a press convention with Logan at Omaha’s gilded downtown Brandeis Division Retailer, the place Logan’s memoir Film Stars, Actual Individuals, and Me was being promoted, the primary query got here from a reporter who bluntly requested, “Mr. Logan, how come you’re in Omaha—are you all washed up in New York?” After a collective gasp and an ungainly silence, Logan held his poise and signed copies of the e book.

“I used to be so embarrassed and brought aback that that insult fell on my watch,” Mueller mentioned. “That mentioned extra about that reporter than it did about Josh Logan. However he was a Southern gentleman, able to dealing with the second.”

With the success of Nothing However the Fact and their friendship cemented, Logan returned to direct Charley’s Aunt, the comedy that had helped make his identify on Broadway in 1940. That was adopted by An Night with Josh Logan in 1982, and a retooling of the identical present referred to as I Keep in mind It Effectively, in 1984. For this private revue of reminiscences, anecdotes, and milestones, Logan was joined onstage by his spouse, Nedda, and their daughter, Harrigan, each of whom have been performers.

“They introduced their very own piano participant and used our set for They’re Enjoying Our Music,” mentioned Mueller, who satisfied Nebraska Instructional Tv (now Nebraska Public Media) to doc the present. He mentioned he lent his solely copy of the tape to the New York Theatre Guild when that group staged a memorial service for Logan, who died in 1988 at age 79. After protracted negotiations for the video’s return from the New York Public Library, in whose Logan assortment it ended up, Mueller managed to reacquire it.

“It’s a invaluable artifact of Josh recounting his personal life and profession,” mentioned Mueller. “The attractive set seems to be incredible within the video. Josh owned the viewers.” 

(Name it coincidence or synchronicity, however the man who produced the video, Marshall Jamison, was within the unique Broadway solid of Mister Roberts and assistant-directed Picnic, each beneath Logan’s path.) 

What was it prefer to work with this Broadway legend? Removed from intimidating, Mueller mentioned that Logan “was simply an previous shoe that cherished working within the theatre—he was everyone’s favourite grandfather. He would go to sleep in rehearsals typically, however what he got here up with was all the time sensible and every part he touched turned to gold, so who cared? He was stunning to work with. He cherished working right here, and wrote a stunning open letter to Omaha we displayed within the foyer.”

The dapper Logan directed carrying a sport coat and bow tie, and charmed gamers and patrons alike. He struck up an immediate rapport with Omaha stage legend Rudyard Norton, a pal and colleague of Henry Fonda’s. Solely as soon as did Mueller glimpse one other facet of the well-known director.

“In costume rehearsals I believed he was unnecessarily laborious on the pianist, whom he almost delivered to tears,” Mueller mentioned. “That’s the one time I noticed even a smidgen of him being troublesome. He was a sweetheart.”

Logan’s spouse, Nedda, was his companion and champion. “They have been nice collectively,” Mueller mentioned. Her father, Ed Harrigan, was a stage impresario who’d been the inspiration for the George M. Cohan tune “Harrigan.”

This shut working relationship impressed Logan to suggest a dream Firehouse undertaking.

“He urged doing Paul Osborn’s On Borrowed Time, which he had finished on Broadway,” Mueller mentioned. “He needed to play Gramps, with my son Adam taking part in the little boy. And for the satan half, he mentioned, ‘Perhaps I can get Hank and Jim to come back and alternate within the position,’” referring to at least Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart. To Mueller’s remorse, he demurred on Logan’s provide, partially, he mentioned, as a result of he was “involved about him with the ability to do, a lot much less survive, eight reveals per week. Wanting again, even when he had died onstage, what a good way to go—doing precisely what he needed to do.”

When Logan did finally die, in 1988, it was, serendipitously, across the identical time as Mueller’s personal father handed.

“I used to be in a run of Music Man when my father died, and the day he died I went on with the present,” Mueller mentioned. “I bear in mind standing on the bar afterward, saying, ‘Wow, what a day this has been,’ when any person mentioned, ‘Josh Logan died immediately.’ Not day.”

Nonetheless, Mueller mentioned, “I’m proud to say we have been good associates. What a expertise. What a life well-lived. It was a privilege figuring out and dealing with him.”

Leo Adam Biga (he/him) is an Omaha-based freelance author and the creator of the 2016 e book Alexander Payne: His Journey in Movie.

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