This is my long-lost pal, Artie Gaffin. I met him in Boston through my friend Dali and we clicked immediately. Soon after, he left his native Manhattan and moved to Los Angeles to work with various theater groups. In fact this photo was taken on the morning after I’d endured a one-man performance by Stacy Keach in Solitary Confinement at the Pasadena Playhouse, which Artie was stage managing. (Much more dramatic and exciting than the play, however, was the all-night adventure that began with our post-theater dinner being interrupted by a waiter who said Artie’s partner Danny had been rushed to the hospital with a severe back injury. This is in the days before cellphones, and all the information we had was part of the name of the hospital. Thus began a multi-stop drive around LA until we found him and arranged for his painless return home.) The last time I saw Artie was when his production of M. Butterfly passed through Boston and we got together. Years after that, while watching the Tony Awards, I was happily stunned to hear Nathan Lane accept his prize for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and acknowledge “Stage Manager Arthur Gaffin.” We had a lot of laughs, a lot of fun. UPDATE: Happily, Artie and I are back in touch and laughing all the way again.
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