All-City High School Chorus and Theatrical Troupe

(Simultaneous) Well, 'West Side Story' truly inspired me. But the early movies, the early musical movies that would, that would come on, those were also very inspiring. And I'd, I'd watch them all the time, from Elvis Presley, all the time, watch Elvis Presley movies, so, you know.$$The dances.$$(Singing) "You know that can't be true," you know. And I, you know, all of that stuff, I just loved it, 'Jailhouse Rock,' all that stuff. But anything that would come on that had music to it, any movie musical, I would, I would watch, but it was particularly 'West Side Story' that said, "Boom, I want to do that; I want to do that." Yeah, because they were flipping; they were singing; they were dancing. And you know, they had regular clothes on, and it wasn't like they were in tights and leotards. It was, it was really fascinating to, to watch. And so, two years later when I was twelve, there was actually an audition for 'West Side Story' [Arthur Laurents] a high school audition. I wasn't even in high school yet, but I called in and asked if I could audition anyway, and they said sure. This was the first time they're gonna have this all-city production, you know, of (simultaneous)--$$(Simultaneous) And what year was that?$$That was in '72 [1972] I believe, yeah. And I, I, I, I, I had called and said, "Well, I'm not in high school, but can I come and audition anyway. I'm in eighth grade." And they said, "Well, sure," and so I came down. And there were all these high school students, I mean like over a thousand kids waiting to audition for this, which was gonna be a, a premier of this, or maiden venture, for 'West Side Story' that was going to take place at the Civic Opera House [Chicago, Illinois]. So, I went down, and I'd never, remember, I've never had any training before; it was all self-taught. So there were all these people that were there. And some of them were really good, and some of them really weren't so good. But there were a lot of folks there who had some training before. And the choreographer said, you know, she called a number of us up to come and do what she did, just kind of replicate what she did, and I said okay. I didn't know what an audition was at first, but I found out real fast. So I went up there and did that and came and sat back down. I said, "Hm, I don't think I did really well." But on the sheet for the audition, the, the publicity sheet, it said they were looking for acrobats. And so, I raised my hand amongst all these thousands of folks, and I raised my hand. I said, "I thought you were looking for some, some acrobats for the show." And she said, "Well, can you do any?" You know, now there's a panel of judges up there as well. And I looked around, and I said, with my little young self, I said, "Well, yeah." They said, "Well, come on up, and let's see (laughter)," and so I, I came up on stage and did all my little 'Bozo's Circus' ['The Bozo Show'] tricks (laughter), and I got this great applause, and next thing you know I was a Shark.$$Amazing.$$Yeah, and that started everything off. And she asked me if I wanted a scholarship at the school where she was teaching, which was Sammy Dyer School of Theatre [Sammy Dyer School of the Theatre] here in Chicago [Illinois]. And I said sure. I went back home and you know, parents [Betty Mason Boglin (ph.) and Ernest Duncan], everybody was so, so happy that I went off and did, and this was all on my own. Nobody's pushing me to do anything. I just went out there and (simultaneous)--$$(Simultaneous) Curiosity--$$--and did it, yeah.$$--and talent.$$Yeah, and I think that's when they found out this boy's got something. Yeah, so, that's how it all started off though.$This was at, also at a time when the company was getting ready to take off in its first European tour, and I needed to get a, a program together for that. So actually, it wasn't the first European tour with the, the, the first tour we took that was kind of outside, you know, across the water somewhere was Hawaii (laughter). So the company actually went to Hawaii for three weeks and, and performed at various universities and auditoriums that they did, that they had there. So that was one of the first things that, that we did, and came back, did a full concert of which Oprah Winfrey, when she came here for ABC [sic.] (laughter), when she came here for 'The Today Show' ['Today'], one of the opportunities that she thought would be good was to host the Joseph Holmes Dance Theatre [Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre] in a, in an event for a fundraiser. So, she hosted the event. And this was prior to Joseph's [Joseph Holmes] death first. And then after that, she did another event for us in which I was the artistic director. And this is when we had our performance at the Auditorium Theatre [Chicago, Illinois]. And she was just so impressed, yes, really, really impressed with the company. So, there is, there is that connection as well. And before you know it, the critics started coming out to see the company when I was there, 'cause everybody wanted to know, "Okay, now that Joseph is gone, what is this company gonna look like under [HistoryMaker] Randy Duncan's direction?" Now they had seen some of my choreography, some of my own choreography on the company, in which they really enjoyed. And then so everybody was coming out for this first concert after Joseph's death at the Auditorium Theatre. There were concerts before that and in between that time. And on the night of Joseph's death, actually, we had a, a, a performance in a really big, College of DuPage [Glen Ellyn, Illinois], which was just tremendously sad. Nobody knew but me at that time. I wouldn't tell the dancers until the end of the performance. But I had to keep it to myself 'cause I didn't want anybody, you know, falling out on stage (laughter) at all. But, but anyway, everything just started rolling from that, that day forward, and we started getting more funding. The critics had come out to see the performances and thought, "Wow, this guy has got something here." And I got some really, really good press, very, very good reviews, glowing reviews as a matter of fact. And folks said, "I want to buy into his dream." And so that's really what started happening. So we started our European tour. We went to France.