Yesterday was the Birthday of Hal Prince.
He would have been 96!
I feel this loss every day.
Midday, as I was rushing from a meeting and on my way to teach a class, my phone began to blow up – first with texts and people reaching out about Chita, then about Hinton.
Two Broadway Legends, gone within the same 24 hours.
Our Map, our Community, our World – shifting dramatically and forever!
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on January 31, 2024
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2024/01/31/chita-hinton/
1931-2023
I do not remember the exact moment that I met Joanna Merlin. But I cannot remember my life without her!
She lived her life as a Guardian Angel in human form to those of us who knew her and to the Community at large.
Casting Director.
Actress.
Mother.
Teacher.
Friend.
Talent…
Grace…
Incandescence…
Always and at every turn!
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on November 17, 2023
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2023/11/17/joanna-merlin/
It has been said that in Jewish Tradition, when someone dies on Rosh Hashanah that they are a “Tzaddik,” a Righteous, Holy, and very rare Person.
“Tzaddik” comes from the Hebrew word for Justice.
NPR reporter Nina Totenberg further clarified this tradition on Twitter: “A Jewish teaching says those who die just before the Jewish new year are the ones God has held back until the last moment bc they were needed most & were the most righteous.”
What a challenge this year 2020 seems to offer.
Will we choose Hope & Faith over Despair?
Be sure to click on Page 2 Below to Read the rest…
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on September 19, 2020
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2020/09/19/tzaddik/
HAL PRINCE
January 30, 1928 – July 31, 2019
HAL PRINCE and me at the Opening of CANDIDE
I was HAL PRINCE’s Casting Director for the better part of a decade.
We worked together on his revival of SHOW BOAT from its inception throughout its many productions all around the world. Our production of SHOW BOAT premiered at the North York Performing Arts Center in Toronto 26 years ago. I also worked with HAL on the most recent Broadway Revival of CANDIDE, as well as KISS OF THE SPIDERWOMAN, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, and PARADE.
This year alone, we have found ourselves saying goodbye to countless theater luminaries, including DIAHNN CARROLL, CAROL CHANNING, ANDREW ZERMAN, KAYE BALLARD, PHYLLIS NEWMAN, VALERIE HARPER, BILL ESPER, DORIS DAY, E. KATHERINE KERR, KATHERINE HELMOND, MARTIN CHARNIN, MAX WRIGHT, ALAN WASSER, ALVIN EPSTEIN, ERIC LAJUAN SUMMERS, TONI MORRISON, RIP TORN, GLORIA VANDERBILT, ANN CRUMB, TIM CONWAY, GEORGIA ENGEL, LUKE PERRY, ARTIE GAFFIN, MARION MCCLINTON, KYLE RENICK, RON LEIBMAN, RENE AUBERJONOIS, and So Many Others… But even among so many shattering losses to our Community this year, this one stands out.
HAL PRINCE died on July 31st at the age of 91. There will be a Celebration of his Life at the Majestic Theater next Monday December 16th.
I have never known a professional life without him in it, and the loss to the theater community is perhaps the most profound imaginable.
You see, (more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on December 9, 2019
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2019/12/09/hal/
A Silly Picture of my Partner and his GrandMother
My Partner’s GrandMother has a Significant Other.
His name is FRED.
They have been together as long and as sincerely committed as my Partner and I,
And though of an earlier generation, they have been as completely accepting of our Same-Sex Relationship, and Same-Sex Marriage, as any post-modern-thinking Friends we have — Right from the Beginning!
GrandMother just turned 91.
And a few weeks ago, FRED, a very healthy 85-year old who did everything for her and on whom she depended, suddenly and unexpectedly died.
My Partner went out to California for the funeral service,
And that night, GrandMother had a stroke.
So here is this woman who uses a walker and has trouble getting around.
She is fiercely independent, insisting upon no help from Aides and CareGivers.
And suddenly, unexpectedly, she finds herself alone.
She is frightened. She is sad.
She has a stroke and is now in rehab.
She only wants to be home.
We are figuring out how to get some help in — an Aide a few hours a day and what she can afford, as in this country, there is very little provided to care for its Aging Population. Our CongressPersons, of course, continue to get their salaries and their elitist Health Care Plan for Life. But for the rest of us, whom they are elected to serve, there is little.
Such is the Disgrace of every American CongressPerson.
Life ahead was looking somewhat bleak to her before she had the stroke.
91 years old, somewhat infirm, and having just Lost her Partner who was her Everything, and the Person she depended upon…
One is almost forced to ask, “Is it Worth it?”
“YES!” comes the answer.
Life is Life!
If we are wondering if we have served our purpose and completed what it is that we came here to do, and if we are still alive, the answer is, “No!”
There is more to Do!
And perhaps we see life a certain way.
Perhaps we do not see ourselves as ever becoming elderly and infirm.
Perhaps we see ourselves with hips and knees that always work,
or sight that never gives out,
or lucky enough to have a heart that’s not broken.
And if we are fortunate enough to enjoy these gifts longer than others, then Yahoo!
But for most of us, we give up things as we age.
We gain things, also — Wisdom, Perspective, Understanding…
I remember a song I learned in Catholic Grammar School which named the Gifts of the Holy Spirit; the lyrics went:
The Miracle of our Daily Bread
“Wisdom,
Understanding,
Counsel,
And Fortitude,
Knowledge and
Piety,
Fear of the Lord,
Gifts of the Spirit,
Working within me,
Helping me do things in just the right way…”
These Gifts seem, for the most part,
more alive in the elderly than in any other demographic of friends I see.
And so, Yes!
There are So Many Gifts we receive,
Even as we are called upon to give up so many of the comforts we have known.
And so, while one might be tempted to ask,
“Is it worth it?”
The answer comes — an unqualified and resounding, “YES!”
The telephone that still hangs on the wall in GrandMother’s Home
GrandMother is a Marvel!
She worked for the telephone company so many years ago — back in the forties when it was the way one may see in old movies, connecting plugs into a switchboard to put calls through, connecting the entire town with one another.
And she has lived into the age of SmartPhones dominating the culture.
She went to work at a Pharmaceutical Company back in the Fifties, when the workforce was dominated by men — on the wall of the warehouse, the men had an enormous poster of a naked woman with her legs spread wide open. Upon arrival, she pointed to it and unapologetically announced to the Foreman, “I want that taken down!” There were few enough women in the work force back then that no one had dared to comment on it. She took a step further and told them, “If that’s still up there tomorrow, I will bring an equivalent size photo of a naked man with his legs spread in the same position and I will put that up there! Equal Rights!”
This Woman is Awesome!
And even now in her old age and frailty, she lives a Life of Outspoken Courage!
And YES, this Life is worth Living!
Every Moment!
Whatever we do without…
Whatever we may compare ourselves to, in riches or beauty, or status…
Whatever we may lose along the way…
It is Always worth it!
Let us respect the Inestimable Value of Human Life!
Let us remember that this Life we live — this Precious and Valuable Gift —
Is the Greatest of All Wonders!
No matter What!
When we have been together with our LifePartner for Decades,
Or our Pet has been by our side for ten or fifteen years,
It may be hard to think of Life as worth Living when they have departed.
Too Painful?
Perhaps. Who would deny that?
But even a Life fraught with Pain and Challenges and Confusion, and Ailments and Knees that don’t work quite the same way as they once did, and the Loneliness of our Signifcant Other gone before, leaving us with that hole in our hearts that cannot ever be filled in this Lifetime…
Even that Life is still US.
Here.
Present.
Living
In a Physical Body.
Some Body
With skin and bones and musculature and a Beating Heart…
Our Soul — bruised and battered.
Whatever it is that makes this 98% Water and 2% Dust get up and walk around
And See
And Think
And Experience the World around us…
And we are Here!
With Other People!
Constantly interweaving our Stories…
And with the Ever-Looming Possibility of Love
In all its Infinite Forms!
Worth It!
And it is So Worth It!
YES!
This Gift of Life
On Whatever Life’s Terms
Is Unquestionably
Unequivocally
Uncontestably
Unambiguously
Unmistakably
Undeniably
Irrefutably
Incontrovertibly
Indisputably
Indubitably
WORTH IT!
# # #
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on February 3, 2019
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2019/02/03/worth-it/
Our Beloved Friend, BRENDA
A BRIEF THOUGHT:
Our good friend BRENDA passed away
after a rather brutal battle with cancer.
She defined “Fabulous” — had a sense of style and a Joie de Vivre like no one I have ever known!
When she had been in the hospital a few weeks, this last time, the Doctors took her off treatment — it was an experimental treatment and they had determined that in her current state, she was too weak to tolerate it.
She was suffering, and her devoted wife, MICHÉLE, (who lived in that confined hospital room by her side for three months until the very end) sent me this text:
“Want to work real magic? (more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on December 19, 2018
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2018/12/19/create-a-miracle/
The Drive Home from the Funeral Services
You are gone several weeks now.
Gone?
No.
Transitioned into the Non-Physical Realm.
The Place above this Pettiness.
The Place where DICK CHENEY and I will learn to be friends — and other such Unimaginable Graces
The Place where All is Forgiven.
The Place of Higher Consciousness.
The Place we all reside.
As THE COURSE IN MIRACLES tells us, “’Heaven and Earth shall pass away’ means that they shall not continue to exist as separate states.”
Evidence exists.
Evidence may be accepted or dismissed.
But it is still Evidence.
(more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on November 1, 2018
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2018/11/01/live-out-loud-with-significance-or-my-strong-good-courageous-positive-thinking-magical-marvelous-friend-part-ii/
As soon as the call came through, the airplane cabin was flooded with light coming through my window
There is nothing quite like that call.
When someone is not well, or elderly, or in hospice care, and you get that call from their next of kin.
It may come in the form of a voicemail, their saddened shell-shocked voice asking simply to return the phone call. And of course, you know what’s happened, but they feel it’s impolite to leave such potentially devastating news on a voicemail.
And they are right about that.
It is certainly better to deliver such news in person.
It may come as a voicemail message delivering the news and requiring no return call, ‘She’s gone.’ I’ve been on the receiving end of that one, as well.
It may come as the name of their next of kin lights up on your cell phone screen, and you answer it, even as you are seated on a plane about to take off…
That’s what happened this time.
“This is the call you’ve been waiting for,” she began, her voice a combination of the triumph and weariness of Acceptance, when one has completed that final Journey with a Loved One.
My friend had been in hospice care for several weeks —
My Strong, Good, Courageous, Positive-Thinking, Magical Marvelous Friend!
My Incredible Friend who was so shy about social media and asked to never have pictures of herself posted here.
I shall not go against her wishes, now.
Ah, but how I wish I could show you!
(more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on October 19, 2018
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2018/10/19/my-strong-good-courageous-positive-thinking-magical-marvelous-friend/
Kate Spade: Photo from the internet
Anthony Bourdain: A meme from the internet
KATE SPADE, 55 years old
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, 61 years old
…This Week joining the likes of
MARILYN MONROE, 36 years old
ERNEST HEMINGWAY, 61 years old
VINCENT VAN GOGH, 37 years old
SYLVIA PLATH, 30 years old
VIRGINIA WOOLF, 59 years old
FREDDIE PRINZ, 22 years old
SAWYER SWEETEN, 19 years old
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN, 40 years old
DON CORNELIUS, 78 years old
ROBIN WILLIAMS, 63 years old
When I was in 2nd Grade in Catholic Grammar School, the Dominican Nun at the front of the room was teaching us about Sin and Forgiveness.
“Sister, is there any sin that is not forgivable?” myself or some other curious seven-year old raised their hand to ask.
(more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on June 10, 2018
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2018/06/10/gratitude-and-helping-others/
My Friend, MARK
My friend MARK went missing on August 13th.
Two weeks later, his body was found in a park by his home in Oradell, NJ.
According to the Press, since there was no sign of struggle, it is expected that it was a suicide.
To any of us who knew MARK, this seems incomprehensible.
In an industry of occasionally towering fuckheads, MARK was the rare person who was always always level-headed and kind.
He went out of his way for people.
An Agent, he represented his clients with Grace and Humanity;
He emanated Respect, such a rare and treasured quality,
And in so doing, he won the Respect of everyone, industry wide.
He was a first class Agent,
The kind of man who was just so good at what he did —
Yes, at Agenting,
But moreso, (more…)
Posted by Arnold J. Mungioli on September 2, 2017
https://livethequestionsnow.com/2017/09/02/one-kind-word/
Live The Questions Now 