New Trier PAD Stories: The Best I Ever Was

by Duane N. Burghard

© 2020

(Author’s note: This essay is part of a larger project I am currently working on about my experiences in the New Trier Performing Arts Department. Eventually, I hope to combine these stories into a larger collection as a tribute to this incredibly special time in my life, and to the unbelievably talented and special people who shared it with me.)

New Trier’s PAD (Performing Arts Department) is well known, and for good reason. It has been producing major Hollywood and Broadway stars since long before I was born. From classic era stars like Charlton Heston (Class of 41) and Anne Margaret (Class of 59) to modern era ones like Oscar nominee Virginia Madsen (Class of 79) and Emmy winner Rainn Wilson (Class of 84), New Trier has consistently been a talent incubator for actors, singers, dancers, musicians, and artists of all kind. The Performing Arts Department was THE reason I wanted to attend New Trier, and I have always felt VERY fortunate to have been a part of it from the fall of 1979 until the late spring of 1983. 

I am, of course, NOT one of those Oscar, Emmy, Tony et al winners. In fact, while Performing Arts consumed essentially ALL of my non-academic time during my four years at New Trier, after I graduated in June of 1983, I never acted on stage again (although I have, and still do, use many of the skills I learned … and in ways I never imagined at the time). I joined the US Navy that summer and, while that was a “dramatic” change in my life, it was a very different kind of drama. In any case, I never became the household name that I had dreamed I might be back then, but there was a reason for that too; I wasn’t that good. Now, to be clear, I’m not intending to be unkind to myself when I make that observation. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that I was consistently thought of as having significant talent, but among the many important “life lessons” that New Trier’s PAD teaches all of its students are these two; first, show business is NOT, in ANY manner, shape, or form, a meritocracy; and second, simply having talent isn’t nearly enough to succeed. Those were hard lessons for me (and for many others who were far more talented than me), but I remain very grateful to have learned them so early in life. So what does it take to succeed? Well can’t just be good, you have to be very, very, very good … like top 1% good … AND then you have to be really lucky on top of that. I was good, but I wasn’t top 1% good … wellll, except maybe once, and that’s where this story begins.

I owe my very best moment in Performing Arts to two people. The first is Suzanne Adams … aka “Mrs. A”.  It is impossible to overstate the influence that Mrs. Adams wielded in the PAD at New Trier. Despite her diminutive stature, she was a performing arts giant. She was a lot like Hepburn. Which one? Both! She had the looks of Audrey Hepburn (who she did actually somewhat resemble) and the talent of Katherine Hepburn … and that is exactly how I have always described her. Mrs. A’s many talents were RADICALLY broader than I can ever do justice to here (someone really does need to write an entire book about her), but her ability to recognize real talent and art was unparalleled. The world owes Mrs. Adams thanks because she was one of the key people who helped stars like Virginia Madsen and Rainn Wilson realize their incredible potential. WE (her former students), on the other hand, owe her thanks because she did the same for ALL of us … she made us into MUCH better artists, and better people, than we otherwise would have been. 

One of Mrs. A’s greatest gifts, however (and the one that’s particularly relevant to my story here), was her ability to cast the right people in the right roles at the right times. There is absolutely no question in my mind that, if she had wanted to live a different life, she could have been one of the most famous and successful casting directors of all time (for the record, I’m also convinced that she would have been bored to tears with such a life when compared to the truly extraordinary one she chose). She had the uncanny ability to observe a person, and then search through her encyclopedic mind of plays and roles and think, “this person would be great in this part,” … and she was NEVER wrong.

The second person I owe my best stage moment to is Carolyn Novak (now Carolyn Novak Rans). It’s hard to describe Carolyn in a way that you’re going to believe, but to describe her as merely beautiful would be like saying that the Pacific Ocean is a small pond that separates San Francisco from Tokyo. In a school with significantly more than its fair share of beautiful girls, Carolyn was WAY above and beyond the crowd. How beautiful was she? Let’s put 30 seconds on the clock shall we … and go! She was so beautiful, the police used her to stop traffic. She was so magnetic, even plastic was attracted to her. Her beauty was so shocking that every time she took a shower, she was a fire hazard. Get the picture? She was a walking, talking apex of human evolution, the most empirically attractive human being any of us had ever seen. 

But here’s the truly amazing thing about Carolyn; as incomparable as her beauty was, her outward appearance wasn’t what made her special. In fact, she was universally dismissive about her appearance. If someone walked up to her and said, “you’re the most beautiful person in the world,” she would graciously smile and say thank you, but that fact wasn’t a point of particular interest or value to her. It was one of many things that made her unique, but what made her special was that she was one of the most friendly and approachable people I’ve ever known.

A few months into our senior year, in year four of advanced acting classes at New Trier (side note: just getting in to Mrs. A’s senior class was a coveted thing), Mrs. A assigned Noel Coward’s Private Lives to me and Carolyn. I just about fainted. I had never read Private Lives, knew nothing about the play, and to this day have NO idea how Mrs. A knew we could play these roles (again, her abilities to pair people with roles was simply beyond the scope of mere humans), but I thought, “hey, worst case scenario, I get to hang out with Carolyn for several weeks.”

For those who don’t know, Private Lives centers on Elyot and Amanda, a divorced couple who have both remarried and find themselves in adjacent rooms (sharing a terrace), on their honeymoons … with their new spouses … only to discover that they’re still in love with each other. Now, not that I need to point this out here, but the fact is that Carolyn and I had never been married (either to each other or anyone else) … which shouldn’t be that surprising when you remember that we were both just 17. In fact, while we had been fairly instant friends, and had known each other for a couple of years, we had never even dated one another (which is a good thing because she would have been WAY out of my league AND I would never have approved of her dating someone like me at the time).  The point is that neither of us had ANY obvious frame of reference for playing these characters … so again, how Mrs. A saw that we could portray an older, divorced and remarried but still secretly in love with each other couple (i.e. people in a VERY complex relationship) is WAY beyond me … but it also became quite obvious, right away that, somehow, we did know these people and their relationship VERY well.

Of course, looking back on it now, at least part of our stage relationship isn’t THAT hard to understand. Actor Andrew Lincoln was once asked in an interview about his performance in the movie, “Love Actually.” His response to the question and his feeling about his performance in the film was quite dismissive. Essentially he said, “my role was to pretend to be secretly in love with Keira Knightley … which required absolutely no acting talent whatsoever.” So yeah, that part of my playing Elyot was pretty easy. But the rest of him? The angst, the passion mixed with frustration, the love mixed with irritation, I don’t really know how I knew so clearly how Elyot would feel, but I did. As for how Carolyn found her perfect and flawless Amanda … well, you’ll have to ask her where that came from, but however we did it, and wherever it came from, the chemistry we had on stage was pretty instant, and pretty obvious.

On one of our very first rehearsal days, Carolyn and I grabbed some stage time (our theater class had a raised and lit stage which the students would take turns using). We wanted to run a few lines, do some blocking, and basically just get a feel for performing together on the stage … but as we rehearsed, something happened. After several minutes, we realized that Mrs. A was standing a little ways off, quietly watching us … and she wasn’t alone. A number of the other students in the class had broken off their rehearsing and discussing in groups to watch us (probably at least in part because they had noticed that Mrs. Adams was standing there, watching us intently). When we realized this, we (rather self-consciously) stopped, and looked over at her. And she smiled “that” smile at us, and she had “that” look, and when she spoke she had “that” tone in her voice … and it was the smile and the look and the tone that every acting student at New Trier for generations craved and prayed for, the ones that she reserved only for when she REALLY liked something. And with that big smile, and that adoring look, and in that totally magical, slightly trembling tone she said, “ohhhhh! You two HAVE to do this for more than just this class.”

What she was referring to was called Forensics (for those who don’t know, it is essentially “acting competition” at the high school level). But performing Private Lives in competition meant performing significantly more of the play, which meant a lot more rehearsal time, and a lot of Saturdays (which started insanely early) traveling all over the region to compete. It was a fairly major commitment, but Mrs. Adams clearly thought it was “that good,” and it was more time hanging out with Carolyn, so I was in … and amazingly, so was she.

As we worked, we quickly got very comfortable with each other on stage. Carolyn had incredible instincts and a natural ability to improvise and/or play off of me. That last part (her ability to improvise and play off of me) wasn’t that much of a surprise because, about a year earlier, I had drafted her (in a very impromptu way) to do an audio promo for my radio show. I needed a voice actress and she was there (in the hall at that moment) and I thought she would be perfect for it … so I gave her about a 20 second overview of what I wanted, and then we recorded the 30 second spot, into my recordable Walkman, in one take, and she completely nailed it (it was perfect) … so I knew that she had innate ability and talent, but it was something else altogether to work with her on this level and see how easily her abilities “scaled up” (incidentally, we used that spot to promote my radio show for more than a year). Plus, everything she did just seemed logical to me. As we went on through the creative process, there were all kinds of bits and blocking that we didn’t even discuss, we just naturally did it, and it worked. We weren’t just playing characters, we were in a “zone” with them, and by the time we formally performed a scene for our class, we were already ready to take the larger and longer version “on the road” into competition … and Mrs. Adams agreed.

I participated in Forensics competitions every year I was at New Trier (performing in categories like one act plays, humorous interpretation, original comedy, etc.), so I knew what to expect in terms of the experience (generally, it’s a fun day of watching other kids perform, and then they watch you, while judges “grade” the performances, and at the end of the day, there are two categories of people; the kids who had fun, and the kids who had fun AND won). What I was unfamiliar with was the response we would get. From the very first performance, the judges ALL seemed to love us. And it wasn’t just the judges … other performers would stop in and watch us, or tell us later how much they liked it. I’d like to think that at least part of why people liked it had to do with our actual performances, but I suspect that a significant percentage of them were simply mesmerized by Carolyn and, when they saw me with her later, they just assumed that I must have been on stage with her or something. There is one important side note about all of the positive feedback which we got from our peers that I want be clear about: Carolyn was not only always very gracious in accepting praise, but she was very careful to make clear to others that we were a team … I specifically remember her (clearly and intentionally) going out of her way to do things like look at or gesture towards me, and using the word “we” a lot when responding to others … that made a real impact on me. In any case, we were performing, and winning … regularly. In fact, by the third or fourth weekend of performances, I remember walking into the competitions with almost a bit of a swagger. I had never known what it was like to walk in the door expecting to win, but I did now … and we did. I don’t think we ever finished worst than second in any competition, and the clear majority of the time, we won. We easily made the District finals. 

“Districts” were held at Niles North High School that year. There were over forty teams from all over the region. I remember our bus pulling in and joining the dozens of other school busses in the parking lot. It was the only time I remember feeling nervous/intimidated, and Carolyn noticed it. Minutes before our first performance of the day (there were usually at least two), Carolyn suggested that we duck into one of the classrooms and run through the last few minutes of the performance, a suggestion which included a rather tricky “spin” move (that was always good to practice first) … and, of course, “the big kiss” between Elyot and Amanda. As we approach this very dramatic moment, Carolyn/Amanda is moving away from me. I grab her arm and then aggressively pull her back towards me, spinning her back into my arms (something she consistently did with a magical elegance which truly showcased her training in dance) and then we kiss … and then the judges love it and then we win and .. yeah, you can kind of see why those are fun memories. Anyway, blocking out this move was actually one of the funnier memories I have of our experience together because, apparently, I was initially not “rough” enough in grabbing and pulling her (maybe I was concerned about dislocating her shoulder or something, I don’t know). In any case, I distinctly remember an early rehearsal when she made it clear to me that I needed to “go for it” a bit more so that she had the momentum necessary to (seemingly) effortlessly spin back into my arms. The move and the kiss were THE big moment of each performance and, by this time, we had obviously done it many times before, although, again, as we were not in a romantic relationship personally, in rehearsal she would usually spin into my arms and up to the moment of the kiss and then … we would pause, and then one of us would smile and say something silly like, “annnnd then we kiss,” or “annnnd scene” and then we’d release each other and step away. But not that morning. That morning she spun right in, grabbed my face and kissed me … and she definitely did it with a little more … oomf … and length, than normal. But here’s the funny part; what was weird about this totally unforgettable moment in my life is that she didn’t mean it to be a romantic thing … and stranger still, I understood that and didn’t take it that way (and this is odd because, under almost any other set of circumstances or with anyone else, I probably would have). No, this was clearly a, “let’s settle down, get centered, get into character, and go kick some ass” kind of kiss. I’ve literally not ever had another moment like that in my life. It was like in one of those movies, you know, the ones where the ridiculously beautiful girl kisses the slightly awkward guy and then, boom, all of sudden he completely has his shit together and he’s OK … well it turns out that this is actually a thing! This works! Who knew?! (I mean, other than the beautiful girls of course). And then, after that perfect moment, she slowly and gently let go of my face, relaxed in my arms, looked at me and said (in a completely normal voice), “you OK?” And amazingly, just like that, I was actually, completely OK. It was bizarre, but somehow, she had instantaneously wiped out all of whatever head trash I had going on in that moment … it was completely off my mental map … and it never came back, all day. “Yeah,” I replied. “OK, let’s go,” she said, and we did. 

We performed twice that day. And it was perfect, both times. And we won. 

It wasn’t the same kiss though …..

Winning at the District level includes the right to compete at the State Championship … if you decide you want to do that. We didn’t. Now, in fairness to us, I remember that there were LOTS of reasons for us to not go on and compete at the State level. First and foremost, it required an entire weekend, and a lengthy road trip to Champaign/Urbana (where the finals were held), which meant that there were parental permission forms, and there were significant costs … and those were just some of the logistical reasons. Personally, Carolyn (as I remember) also had some professional modeling commitments, and I had another show I was already doing (Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost) plus another show that I was auditioning for. My recollection is that we had a very brief conversation about it where one of us said something like, “do you want to do state?” (with a tone that indicated “meh”) and the other replying, “ehh, not really, do you?” and the other saying, “not really,” and that was that. Ultimately, however, I think that the biggest reason we didn’t go was because neither of us felt like we needed any additional validation. Internally (in our own hearts and minds), we had already won. We knew that we had done GOOD work together, and that, combined with the feedback that we had already received to that point, well, that was good enough for us. We had already gotten all we needed/wanted from the experience (interestingly, that’s probably the ONLY time I can say that about a role or performance of mine). 

In retrospect, of course, I wish that we had gone because, win or lose, we would have gotten to perform together a couple more times. But as much as we liked each other and had enjoyed working together, it was clear, we were both kind of done with it after Districts. So that was it, and we were both totally OK with that. It also made that kiss before Districts a really special “this is it” moment for us … and as the years have gone by, I really like that.

Not long after that day, we both graduated, and went our separate ways in life. We never saw each other (in person) again. Of course, we see each other now on Facebook all the time, and I’m very proud to say that we BOTH remember this experience very fondly. To this day she still refers to me as her “stage hubby” or “stage husband” … and I still refer to her as my “stage wife” … and in those precious, beautiful, amazing moments, it really was like that too. Each and every time we performed together, from the moment the scene started until the moment it ended, there was this feeling that was very reminiscent to me of Vonnegut’s “Who Am I This Time?” … we were Elyot and Amanda … and as much as I enjoyed my many other acting experiences with many other VERY talented people, I never had another moment quite like that on stage, ever. It was the best I ever was. 

I never did get that Oscar … but then again, Oscar’s don’t kiss you ……

(Author’s Addendum: Prior to publishing this essay, I (somewhat nervously) shared it with Carolyn (to make sure that she was OK with my posting it here). Her response was as gracious and kind as I could have hoped for. Not surprisingly, she was quick to share the credit for our success (which, out of respect for her opinion, I will note that she felt was also due to my “comedic … commanding stage presence”). She also noted that she too had never experienced anything remotely like the stage chemistry that we had together. Finally, I was truly delighted to hear that she has the same fond memories of, and pride in, this experience as I do. And she really does still call me her stage hubby.)