The black-and-white television series I Love Lucy was one of the most watched shows in history and is still syndicated all over the world today. Set in a New York apartment building, a couple, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, have many comedic adventures over six seasons with their best friends and landlords Fred and Ethel Mertz.
For Chicago audiences we now have I Love Lucy Live re-enacting two of the famous episodes "The Benefit" and "Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined." making the audience at the "Desilu Playhouse" part of the act. Set in a Hollywood 1950s studio, fans are transported back in time to witness a behind-the-scenes taping.
William Frawley originally played Fred Mertz, who now gets an Illinois treatment courtesy of out actor Curtis Pettyjohn. Everyone may love Lucy, but find out why Windy City Times loves Fred!
Windy City Times: Curtis, tell our readers about your background.
Curtis Pettyjohn: I grew up in Springfield. I went to college in Bloomington and then in Champaign, Ill. I went to San Francisco for the American Conservatory Theater. I came back to Illinois after moving away for 15 years. I just came back in the last two years. I'm revisiting a lot of places. We were wined and dined at Gibsons. That was my first job as a waiter, when it was Sweetwater many years ago. I had done a lot of commercials, some television shows and theater.
I moved back and the opportunity to do this show presented itself. It has really been wonderful.
WCT: How did you hear about it?
Curtis Pettyjohn: Through a friend who plays Bill Parker in the show. Greg Franklin talked to a mutual friend and found out I was back in town. Things were crazy because we did a lot of the process using electronic medium. I was auditioning through email.
WCT: Acting is a whole new world.
Curtis Pettyjohn: It really is. They had held auditions here but I had missed those. It has been great. The director is Rick Sparks, who was a Chicago actor many years ago before he went on to Broadway.
WCT: How did the show come together?
Curtis Pettyjohn: The producers put together sets for the apartment, the Tropicana and one of the hotels. Back around 2000 they toured them around the country. They went to casinos, state fairs and even the Mall of America. They were put out for people to wander around in and people came out of the woodwork. [About] 170,000 people came out to see it in the East Coast! After that response they leased all of the rights from CBS for all of the episodes.
WCT: They can change the episodes in the show, then. How brilliant!
Curtis Pettyjohn: Yes, and this is one of the experiences—that from the top on down, everybody is nice. What is lovely is that they have created a valentine to Lucy. I call it a love letter. They wanted to honor the work that was dome by these people. We are not trying to portray any of the real people. We are actors doing the characters. It's a way of honoring them and, as a result, you saw what happened in the house tonight.
WCT: How did you capture the essence of Fred?
Curtis Pettyjohn: We watched many episodes. Rick, the director, told us not impersonate them. No one is ever going to believe they are watching William Frawley or Lucille Ball. What we are doing is to interpret the character that they played through the instrument, which is us the individual. I played Pappy Yokum at age 16 so I have played older than myself since the first community theater that I did. Frawley was about 10 years older than I am. He had arthritis.
WCT: I didn't know that.
Curtis Pettyjohn: You wouldn't necessarily know, but it is a different energy. It is a heavier, more grounded energy than I tend to have in my own life. To see the comic timing that these people had was great to learn from. We even took bridge lessons! It is a matter of taking all of the elements and really grounding them so we had a strong feeling of who we were and what we were doing.
WCT: Fred is such an adorable character.
Curtis Pettyjohn: He gets to say the meanest things but they aren't really that mean.
WCT: You were in the show Shear Madness for a long run before this?
Curtis Pettyjohn: I opened the company here at the Blackstone Hotel. I went to Boston and Philly to learn the show then we opened it here. I did that show for three and a half years.
WCT: What part did you play?
Curtis Pettyjohn: Initially I played Mikey, who was the younger cop, and I understudied Tony the hairdresser. I did get to go on and do that role sometimes. It is kind of wild being on Michigan Avenue again.
WCT: Your partner is a doctor?
Curtis Pettyjohn: Yes; Dr. Sandeep Agnihotri is a chemical engineer and a research scientist.
WCT: He's a smartie.
Curtis Pettyjohn: He's left-brain and I am right-brain; between the two of us we make a full brain!
WCT: I read you have two kids.
Curtis Pettyjohn: That is a little bit of a fudge; our children are four-legged. Not all of us choose to have children but now it is becoming a possibility for gay people. I think that is wonderful that I can walk down the street and hold hands with my partner these days.
Don't miss the chance to see I Love Lucy Live at the Broadway Playhouse, 175 E. Chestnut St., now extended by popular demand to March 3. Visit www.BroadwayInChicago.com or call 800-775-2000 for this brand new block of tickets.
