Let the Dames Begin!

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See and hear director BOB DAHDAH explain how he helped create “Dames at Sea” HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKM32oaet_w

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SPEAKING OF COSTUMES: Dames at Sea, with the sparkling words of GEORGE HAIMSOHN and ROBIN MILLER, the memorable music of JAMES WISE, and the inspired direction and choreography of, respectively, BOB DAHDAH and DON PRICE, was quite possibly the most perfect Cino show. Thanks to generous gifts from DAHDAH, PRICE, NORMA and SANDRA BIGTREE, GARY FILSINGER, and DAVID CHRISTMAS, we can share something of its spirit.

The cast with director BOB DAHDAH; JOE CINO in a special “Dames” apron; choreographer DON PRICE.

KENNY BURGESS’ program design.

DAVID CHRISTMAS and BERNADETTE PETERS; GARY FILSINGER and JILL ROBERTS; NORMA BIGTREE as “Mona, a Menace.” (1st and 3rd photos by CONRAD WARD)

The mirrored wall; the “A Simple Wedding” finale was multiplied to look like a full Hollywood chorus.

The famous “Breadline” and “Wall Street” moments from Mona’s number, “That Mister Man of Mine,” showing the imagination director BOB DAHDAH and choreographer DON PRICE brought to the script, which had been rejected worldwide before BOB saw the gold in it. (Photos by CONRAD WARD)

BERNADETTE aloft; one of many CONRAD WARD posters for the show; two cute kids pay homage to the show on the street beside the Cino’s location in the Peculiar Works’ magnificent perambulatory tribute to early Off-Off, “The West Village Fragments” in 2006!

Treasures! Sisters NORMA, SANDRA (who played “Ruby”) and JEANNE,
on WSYR (Syracuse, New York) in their girlhood trio, “The Bigtree Sisters.”

NORMA BIGTREE’s own sheet music for her blues solo.

From GARY FILSINGER’s own wall comes this marvelous caricature (by one Jimmy Newcomer) of the Dames at Sea cast. One of the most marvelous things about it is that it contains SANDY BIGTREE as “Ruby,” so we now have images of all three Caffe Cino “Rubies!”

Three Caffe Cino “Rubies!”

DAMES AT SEA, Waterford, Virginia, 1976, one of thousands of productions.
Photo courtesy Sharon Cooper.