LISA KIRCHNER


LISA KIRCHNER
Guitarist at the College Campus, 1978-1979.

Hi Eddie

I was the singer in the Campus Coffee Shop on NBC's Another World for over a year, from circa 1978-1979. It all began in November 4, 1977 when I was doing a show called Out of Our Father's House, at Riverside Church in New York City, appearing in the role of a ballad singer with guitar. We did Out of Our Father's House at Riverside Church, at the White House during the Carter Administration, and on WNET Great Performances. The production was directed by Jack Hofsiss, who had won the Tony Award as Best Director, for the Broadway production of Elephant Man. Jack was involved with NBC and was working with Paul Rausch, an icon in Day Time Drama and Producer of NBC's Another World . One night Jack told me that I should call Paul Rausch, as he been in the audience, and had said to Jack, "I want her on the show". I called him at Another World, and an appointment was scheduled for me to audition for him in his office. I brought my guitar and sang as many songs as he requested. He seemed very pressed for time, and looked at his watch, so I did not know if I was going to be cast at all. I was asked however to fill out some paperwork. Shortly thereafter, I received my first call to report to the set. A night or so before the date, someone was sent to my home from SCORE Productions to teach me the song I would be singing on set in a day or two.

Mel Bernhardt, director of the 1978 production of Da! on Broadway, was directing the episode on my first day. "So what are you singing today?" Mel asked. I sang the song I had been taught and he said, "What is that?" I answered that it was the song written for the show by SCORE Productions. "Sing something else" he said. I had just finished writing a song which was in my head, called Will He Be? It was the first thing I thought of so I sang it and Mel said, " Do that one". That was the beginning of a run of recurring shows for which I would be scheduled as needed, and on which I continued to sing my own songs. There were shows for which I was paid, and yet I had not been on set on those dates, and that is how I discovered that I had appeared in dream sequences I had never seen.

After a while, I was invited to join the cast in the limo that picked the upper west side actors up at Argo Coffee Shop on West 72nd Street. It was a nice chance to get to know various actors with whom I was appearing, and I was happy to have that ride with my guitar, all the way out to Brooklyn. The actors I talked with most, included Richard Bekins who rode out in the limo, and Kathleen Widdoes, whom I later met again on the set of The Guiding Light, when I was a recurring under-five in a week of appearances as a chorus member. The run of shows I did on Another World, ended at some point in 1979, or perhaps even 1980, and some years later, I received a royalty check from Broadcast Music Inc, which indicated that there had been re-runs of Another World in Australia. And indeed, the re-runs were on Australia's Channel Nine and Ten.
- Lisa Kirchner, New York City © 2017