Editor's Note: Students and adults who have worked with Gregg Brown in theater endeavors throughout the years are encouraged to comment on this story:

 

At any given time, Gregg Brown can take you on a trip down Bridgeport High School Theater memory lane. From “The Matchmaker” in 1974 to “Barnum" in 2017, he has directed a plethora of stage shows. He remembers each one, their featured student actors and a line of behind-the-scenes musical and choreography directors, set designers and costumers who brought it all to life.

 

“I think what makes me most proud is that many of our students did go on to act on other stages; a few of them making ‘The Great White Way,’” he said. “But even those who didn’t go on to Broadway, work in film or teach, the experience certainly taught them self-confidence and to be able to go out there as leaders in this country and work in their respective fields.”

 

It all started in the early-1970s when BHS Senior Class President Phil Stevens reached out to Brown, soliciting his interest in directing the senior class play.

 

“He knew me from directing shows in community theater. I started directing Stage Crafters in Bridgeport back in 1972-73 and for the old Arts Center,” Brown said. “I talked with Phil twice on the phone, then met with him. Then Alice Rowe called me. I didn’t know her then, but we hit it right off and have been friends since – for 47 years.”

 

Obviously, Brown came on board and worked with Rowe and the BHS senior class to present the three-act comedy, “The Matchmaker.”

 

“We were still in our infancy stage,” Brown said. “We borrowed scenery from the Arts Center and lighting from Stage Crafters. It was quite a production and we rented all those turn-of-the-century costumes.”

 

Brown remembers the excitement generated while unpacking those costumes.

 

“You would have thought it was Christmas,” he said.

 

“The Matchmaker” was the only show through the years which was not a musical. Rowe remembers why.

 

“None of the boys wanted to be in anything they had to sing in,” she said.

 

The show starred Anne Kuhn (Case), who played Dolly Levi, and Hank Gloss in the role of Horace Vandergelder. Now a resident of Jenson Beach, Fla., Case has fond memories of the play and said it was a fantastic time in her life.

Throughout the decades, a handful of shows seemed to come together almost effortlessly and one of those was “Bye Bye Birdie,” presented by the senior class of 1977 and starring Tim Rokisky as Conrad Birdie.

 

“It fell together like a week before it opened. It just began to melt together,” Brown said. “It didn’t happen with very many shows and I’m not knocking any other group, but sometimes you just had a group that stepped right into it.”

 

In those early days, the shows were presented on the old stage which used to be located adjacent to the gymnasium.

 

“After three or four years working on that stage – which I called the hole in the wall – I decided to move the shows to the gym floor,” Brown said. “That’s when I decided to do three quarter round; the actors played on all three sides – left, center and right.”

 

That required even more work.

 

“We had to bring in scaffolding, especially for people seated in the front seven rows or so and use bleachers as well as chairs on the floor and on the right long aisles.”

 

The first show presented in that fashion was“My Fair Lady,” featuring the class of 1980 and starring Becky Timms.

 

“It was wonderful. We rented the whole wardrobe and our characters were so good It just connected and was a wonderful play,” Rowe said.

 

Timms went on to perform in ‘CATS’ on Broadway. Her older sister Cindy, who two years earlier had starred in the BHS production of “Pajama Game," went on to do an International tour of “West Side Story."

 

Along came “Hello Dolly,” “Oliver,” “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Anything Goes,” the latter starring the youngest Timms girl Sarah, who also pursued professional acting.

 

All those BHS productions were done on the gym floor.

 

“For five years, we took the Masonite and turned it upside down so it wouldn’t be slick and painted it,” Brown said. “Each year, it was a different color.”

 

The new BHS auditorium/theater was built and completed in the 1980s.

 

“We didn’t get everything we wanted because only so much money was appropriated for the new theater,” Brown said. “We kept adding things through the years to make it better.”

 

Among the first shows in the new theater were “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” which – according to Brown – could have easily sunk.

 

“I thought it was too Americana and it wasn’t well written,” he said. “The script jumped here and there and I couldn’t change it.”

 

Brown said he tried to get permission from the copyright company to write a prologue, but he never heard back.

 

One show that did fly high was the 1999 production of “Peter Pan;” a play that took Christina Grisso Woods up on the high wire.

 

“Christina was the most precious, adorable little fairy. She was lighter than air,” Brown said. “I wanted her to get her hair cut real short and she didn’t want to, so she put all that gorgeous long hair up into a wig.”

 

She was the first BHS actor to fly and that required bringing a  pro in to teach.

 

“She had to learn to fly over the course of three days," Brown said.

 

Woods - who was first introduced to musical theater at eight years old when she appeared in Brown's community theater production of "Annie" at the old Robinson Grand theater, said working with and learning from him was one of the highlights of her youth. 

 

"Like many of the people Gregg directed, I had no previous experience," she said. "He had to start from the ground up and I think that is where his talent lies - growing, teaching and inspiring people to do musical theater - and not just do it, do it in the most professional way. The experience and professionism of musical theater he brought as a director is a gift he gave to this community and not something you would find in most small towns." 

 

It was always easy to know where you stood with Brown, Woods said. 

 

"You knew exactly what he wanted you to do because he took so much time to explain the details when blocking scenes and helping you study and 'become' your character," she said. "You could always tell you delivered your lines correctly if you heard his unmistakable crackling laugh from the back of the audience." 

 

The mark of a Gregg Brown production was "polish," Woods said. 

 

"Every detail had been worked out. He didn't let things go. He worked with and developed the cast through his keen way of translating his vision to them and everything just seemed to come together in the way it was meant to be," she said.

 

There were many individuals who made the BHS shows quality productions. Brown said he had amazing musical directors; too many to mention. Mary Ellen DePue and Alice Jo Hess lent their seamstress and designing talents to the group and Annabel Timms was longtime choreographer. Her daughter Cindy was also part of that process. Rowe was faculty sponsor for every show which Brown directed.

 

“As play sponsor, I coordinated and managed the budget, making sure everyone stayed in line,” Rowe said. “I had my little nose in lot of different things. It was kind of like overseeing all the different areas of the production and making sure people got paid.”

 

For several years, Mary Reppert came on board to help, handling the money and the box office.

 

After directing both senior class and all-school plays for decades, Brown ventured out with his talent, directing plays at other high schools; Liberty, Lincoln, South Harrison and Robert C. Byrd, included.

 

“One year I was driving back and forth from Liberty to Bridgeport and I would try to get my mindset on what I had just finished and put that in the back of my mind and concentrate on what I had to do in Bridgeport and that was ‘The Will Rogers Follies,’” Brown said.

 

That was the year 2000 when he brought in Charlie Dillon, a former student from Grafton High School, to help with the Bridgeport production. Dillon took over as BHS director for the next few years, after which BHS alum Jason Young came on board.

 

“Jason not only directed the BHS shows, but also implemented a Bridgeport Middle School show,” Brown said.

 

After serving BHS for about five years, Young took a position with Notre Dame High School. That’s when Brown returned to Bridgeport.

 

He and Rowe decided it would be fun to do “The Addams Family,” which had just been released for school and community theater.

 

“We read the material, listened to the recording and said, yes, let’s do it,” Brown said. “We began pursuing it in June of that year and held auditions before school started.”

 

It was another one of Brown’s favorite shows.

 

“’The Addams Family’ is a satire and I love satires,” he said. “I love the characters and the dark comic edge to them.”

 

With principals and supporting leads, the show featured 10 actors.

 

“I would work with the principals, then work with the secondary leads, then put them aside for a day and with the ensemble, then come back to the principals,” Brown said.

 

That was another show that was ready to open early, he recalls.

 

Another most memorable show – and the last that Brown would direct – was “Barnum.”

 

“We had always wanted to do that show,” he said. “We took a bunch of kids to New York back in the early-1980s and saw it on stage and it was always near and dear to our hearts.”

 

It was meant to be in the year 2017. Derek Hess was ideal for the title role and a couple of professionals –Bobby Taylor, a former trapeze artist, and Doug Young, owner of the New Jersey School of Circus Arts – were brought in to teach the student actors to juggle, walk the tight rope and a variety of other stunts which made the show.

 

Brown said he could go on and on, reminiscing about shows and the students who starred in them.

 

“There were so many great character actors through the years,” he said.

 

A few more who stand out are Jeremy Thompson who played Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof," Richard Cox, who played Henry in “Gigi” and current Bridgeport Mayor Andy Lang, who was Joe Hardy in “The Damn Yankees.”

 

“Andy was outstanding. At first, he was a little shy and nervous, but then he began to settle down and relax and did a wonderful job,” Brown said. “He has been a quiet supporter of the arts and is a wonderful friend and person.”

 

Lang said during his senior year of 1982 - and since - Brown has been very dedicated to involving young people in theater. 

 

"For a small town that did not have much to offer in the field of arts, he always 

did his best with what he had to work with," Lang said. "His talent in all aspects are great, but Gregg as a person, year after year, kept doing what he loved to do and that's what makes him special to a lot of kids from Bridgeport and the surrounding area."

 

Brown directed plays through the BHS principalships of Bill Moore, Lindy Bennett and Mark DeFazio, all who were supportive of his efforts and the arts.

 

He feels he ruled the BHS theater roost with an iron fist, but it was because it was so important to him to bring the talents of BHS students to light.

 

“He would work on characterization techniques with the main characters – what motivated them to be the way they were,” Rowe said. “Instead of opening and reading lines, he dug a little deeper into why a character would act the way he or she did. He helped the actor understand his or her role better.”

 

Woods said some might have considered Brown strict, but she believes he just had a way of getting the absolute best out of the cast he was directing. 

 

"It was important to Brown to present quality productions – and they all were,” Rowe said.

 

See more photos from BHS senior shows at the gallery link below. You're sure to see some student actors you once - or currently - know. 

View Photo Gallery

Gregg Brown and History of BHS Theater