Passing it On

BY STEPHEN BENSON, ACTOR, DIRECTOR, TEACHER, NEW YORK CITY, NY
Before there was a World Wide Web, there was Tony. He intertwined us, gathered us together, and kept us up to date. There are people I have never met (some of you writing on this page) whom I feel I know because Tony knew you and loved you. Tony introduced me to many things (how to speak verse, how to approach a scene, how to make a moment work), but more importantly he introduced me to people who have stayed, like him, lifelong friends.

Where hadn’t he been? He turned up everywhere, telling stories of adventures in far-flung lands – East and West Coasts, Canada, Monaco, Africa. And what hadn’t he done? He was teaching, directing, doing a radio program, adjudicating amateur theatre, always seemingly just coming back from an opening, a conference, a meeting, or a rehearsal. And his telling you of it made you wish you had been there with him, just to drink it all in, and be with him in the midst of it all.

He knew what made theatre work. “It wants to be this way,” he would say, the play speaking directly to him about how to make it come alive. He put his stamp onto a production, one of action and spectacle and unexpected tenderness.

And he loved it all. He seemed never happier than sharing time with others, going to an endless number of student rehearsals, watching an audition piece, giving generously of his time, his patience, his knowledge. He leaned into you to share an especially tasty bit of humor; he stood out in a crowd of students, striding his way to class with purpose and flair.

After one performance of mine he attended, he came up to me and said, “I think there’s a little bit of me in there.” And there was, not just in the accent and the character’s relish of language that I had tried to capture, but also in his dedication to the work and his appreciation of actors, for I had learned that too from him.

He was there contributing to momentous events in my life. He took a chance by casting me in my first Tufts major production, the legendary A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Four years later, he presented me with my Tufts diploma, in a pub around the corner from the Stanhope Hotel in London. He flew to Minnesota to stand by me at my wedding. And 25 years after he gave me my first acting lesson, he cast me in a production of The Beggar’s Opera, and I was able again to see him take command of a production, singers and musicians hanging on his every word, ingesting the confidence and encouragement he could instill in a performer.

Eighteen months ago, he and Linda hosted a dinner for my wife Meg and me, along with several former Tufts classmates still living in London. There we all were, graying, older, more experienced, but all of us still professionally involved in theatre and the arts. And I thought, without Tony and Linda as models, would we still have gathered together so happily 30 years after school? And how many of us would have pursued lives less full of creativity and camaraderie, not knowing that it was possible to make a life in the arts, not imagining that relationships could be forged and made to survive and prosper, no matter the length of time or distance?

Theatre owes a huge debt to Tony. Because of his work, thousands of students have made the theatre dear to them. Audiences have been enlightened and enriched. Plays have lived again, because of the way they spoke to him.

I will be directing college students next month. If I can influence a life as Tony influenced mine, I’ll only be passing on what was given to me, what I have been taught is the practice of the theatre and the love of the people who do it.

I know there’s a little bit of you in there, my friend.