Odds and Ends – 3

Buy Cino T-Shirt HERE, Cino Book HERE.

WILLIAM ARCHIBALD, who directed a couple of LANFORD WILSON plays at the Cino, wrote a Broadway and Hollywood hit, The Innocents, knew everyone there was to know, and told us dishy, sniggering stories about them in between rehearsals. We all drove him nuts begging him to demonstrate his parlor trick: he was able to burst into tears at the snap of your fingers.

JANE LOWRY appeared in one performance of JEAN-CLAUDE VAN ITALLIE’s War with Gerome Ragni and John Coe before a fire closed the Cino for some weeks. JOE CINO immediately began producing at La Mama. Why War was not moved there, I don’t know. The fifth “Cino at La Mama” show was a Van Itallie piece, America Hurrah, mounted by War’s director MICHAEL KAHN. Read all about the fire and Cino at La Mama HERE.

A rare KENNY BURGESS poster not for the Cino.

Adam James in a Peculiar Works reading of his uncle’s 1967 La Mama play, Tom Paine.

CONTINUITY: In Las Vegas, Toni Ann Cino and Steve Cino Jr. with JOE CINO’s great-nephew, Joe Cino the third. Steve says, “Bet you people don’t know that in the family, your Joe Cino was called, ‘Joe, Jr.’”

MERRILL HARRIS was inspired by her love of the Cino to open and run women’s coffeehouses in Tennessee.

MERRILL HARRIS cannot remember the name of the coffeehouse in Memphis from which she saved this “FEMU.”

MICHAEL WARREN POWELL was the lucky co-star of three fine actresses as his incestuous sister in LANFORD WILSON’s Home Free. In 1964 he played it at the Cino with both MAYA KENIN and JOANNA MILES. In 1967 he toured the UK in it with CLARIS NELSON.

DONALD L. BROOKS provides this envelope, signed in JOE CINO’s hand, which contained lighting designer Don’s cut from the basket passed among the audience after a performance of BOB HEIDE’s Moon, 1967.

MICHAEL SMITH was some lucky lad’s leading lady in prep-school as Guenevere in The Once and Future King. MICHAEL’S CINO MEMORIES.

An archivist’s burden. A photo of an unidentifiable actress in an unidentifiable show, flanked by four Cino posters and flyers in the only (dreadful) available copies. JOSEF BUSH’s French Gray, DAVID STARKWEATHER’s You May Go Home Again and his The Love Pickle, plus TOM EYEN’s Frustrata.

KENNY BURGESS’ doors for the Caffe Cino, thought lost after one was displayed in a glass case at the 1985 Lincoln Center Cino Exhibit turn out to be in the possession of BOB DAHDAH. Photo, JAMES D. GOSSAGE.

JIM JENNINGS and BOB DAHDAH sit before the doors being interviewed for Mark Waren’s proposed documentary about the Caffe.