In the 1970s, the greater Catholic High School and Mount St. Mary’s communities looked forward to every spring because, if it was spring in Little Rock, it was time for one of Father J. Gaston Hebert’s famous musical productions. Nowhere on Broadway was there such direction, such choreography and such elaborate sets. Really, nowhere on Broadway was there such direction, such choreography and such elaborate sets! Each spring the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and relatives of the assembled musical troupe would gather in the Catholic High gymnasium for a little Rodgers and Hammerstein or Sondheim.
In 1975, Father Hebert dreamed up the great idea of staging “Sugar,” the 1972 award-winning stage production of the 1959 hit comedy film, “Some Like it Hot,” starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and the one-and-only Marilyn Monroe as Sugar. Casting for these grand parts, of course, was quite challenging, given the population from which Director Hebert had to select: the players were students of Mount St. Mary’s and Catholic High. But Father was never one to shirk from a challenge, no matter how difficult. He held auditions and cast the comedic leads.
Now, for those of you not familiar with “Sugar” and never lucky enough to see “Some Like it Hot,” it’s a typical story of boy meets girl, or boy dresses like girl to meet girl—well, it’s sort of confusing. The premise is that two guys witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago, and in order to escape the mob, they dress as women and join an all-girls band, Sweet Sue and the Society Syncopators, headed for a gig in Miami. Little do they know that it is the mob’s plan to escape the Chicago winter and the investigation by vacationing at the same South Florida hotel.
Jim Hathaway, now a Little Rock attorney, was cast in the role of Tony Curtis’ Joe (Josephine), the saxophone player, and yours truly was cast in Jack Lemmons’ role as Jerry (Daphne), the bass player. What should immediately come to mind is how one would go about obtaining the appropriate costumes for two tie-wearing, short-haired boys from Catholic High. The answer is found by turning the page on yet another day in Little Rock.
On our lunch hour one day in February 1975, Father Hebert, in his black priest outfit and Roman collar, escorted Jim Hathaway and me a block away to the ladies’ section at then Pfeiffer-Blass (now Dillard’s) to buy bras, pantyhose, dresses, high heels—everything we would need to turn two out-of-luck male musicians into extremely frightening-looking female musicians. I will never forget the looks on the faces of the women in the ladies’ “unmentionables” department when two teenage boys were escorted in for a fitting by a Catholic priest. It brought more laughter from the three of us than any of the laughs we got in our fabulous three-night run of “Sugar” in March 1975.
Now, where is that wig?