I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [36]
So I found myself following Pete to the upper balcony and into the follow spot booth. It was hotter than the Sahara, crowded with several big metal cannon-shaped lighting instruments. Inside each were several rods similar to railroad spikes—carbons, I think. Electric current heated them red hot, and, when brought together in the barrel of the light cannon, they glowed brilliantly, and the glow, magnified by a fat lens, projected a light beam down to the stage. There was a wheel with colored cellophane gels at the end of the lens, and by turning the wheel you could tinge the light beam with varied colors, iris the beam to a pinspot, or open it up and spread it wide to cover the stage. The carbons would burn out, and at intermission, Pete would replace them with fresh ones, reloading the cannons.
Within a week, I had memorized the whole show, the dialogue, the songs, everyone’s entrances and exits. Pete let me aim the beam during some of the ballads. Hooray. How I loved it. I was going to be a stagehand.
Over that summer of changes, I celebrated my fifteenth birthday and by September had grown to six foot one and weighed 145 pounds—a broomstick. It was time to return to New York. Paul delivered me to South Street Station with money in my pocket and my bag crammed with food. I signed up for every meal the porter announced and wolfed down snacks in between. Didn’t take a berth, sat up, and noshed the night through. By the time I reached Penn Station, my pockets may have been lighter, but my stomach bulged.
A sophomore, and back at Bishop Dubois High School, I felt so worldly. I’d been to gangland Chicago on my own, and was going to be a stagehand.
In an alley in Chicago, outside the Shubert Theater, 1949 (image credit 3.8)
September also found me back at the School of American Ballet, taking a full schedule of classes. Near the end of the month, Eddie Bigelow, a member of the New York City Ballet, who doubled as a kind of odd-jobs man and gofer—helping out in every aspect of production—came to me after class. “D’Amboise, come with me. Mr. Balanchine wants to talk to you.” I followed him into a room, where Lincoln Kirstein, Jerry Robbins, and Balanchine had been auditioning.
Balanchine said, “Oh, well, we are making bigger the company. Maybe you would like to join?”
I was astonished, stunned, standing there grinning, speechless, thinking, “I can’t do it. I have to finish school.”
“How old are you now?”
I squeaked, “Fifteen.”
Balanchine sniffed a bit and declared, “Maybe you should talk to parents and let us know.”
The Boss’s response was an immediate HOORAY! Pop was less enthusiastic. “If you want to play around with all those highfalutin people for a few years, fine. But if you intend to be involved in theater, you better be a stagehand. It’s the most amount of money for the least amount of work. And let me tell you, the greatest prima donna in the world can’t function unless the little guy who pulls the rope opens the curtain.” Pop always rooted for the underdog. He was a Yankees fan, but so perverse that in a competitive game, if the Dodgers were losing, he’d switch sides, dump the Yankees, and root for the Dodgers. Great, I thought. I could please both. Dance in the ballet, earn money, and eventually enroll in the stagehand union.
So I dropped out of high school and joined New York City Ballet. It was October and we were preparing for a three-week season at City Center. At my first rehearsal with Jerry Robbins, he called out, “Hey you! The lamppost with feet and teeth!”
THE BOSS, PART 2
From the time I was fifteen, I had been taking SAB’s professional class, where Balanchine often taught. Small, unassuming, he radiated energy and total command. If ever he had any doubts (which he did), he never showed them. He wore small, open-necked polo shirts, short-sleeved, with black pants, and, like everyone else, smoked all the time. Visiting ballet celebrities flitted in and out of his classes, and occasionally Maria Tallchief, Vera Zorina, and Alexandra Danilova would be at the barre