INTERVIEW: Ed Dixon explores the highs and lows of befriending another character actor

Ed Dixon has appeared in numerous Broadway shows, including Mary Poppins, Sunday in the Park With George and Les Misérables, among many others. Add in his credits off-Broadway and regionally, and it’s safe to say that Dixon has been a fixture in theatrical show business for almost 50 years. His most recent project is one of his most personal: Georgie: My Adventures With George Rose, which recounts Dixon’s multi-year and ultimately shocking friendship with Tony winner George Rose.

The play, which continues at New York City’s The Loft at the Davenport Theatre through April 15, was written by Dixon and directed by Eric Schaeffer, co-founder and artistic director of the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, where Georgie ran earlier this year.

“I wrote a book a few years ago about the last 45 years in show business, and the George Rose chapter was a big part of it,” Dixon said recently in a phone interview. After being persuaded by a friend to explore that chapter in a theatrical setting, Dixon sat down and began working. “I sat down at the computer and started typing, and I never got up. And I stayed at the computer day and night for nine days, and at the end of nine days, I had the first draft.”

FINE-TUNING THE SHOW

Dixon’s show explores his friendship with Rose, an actor known for My Fair Lady, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. “He had this incredible ability to turn a phrase and to tell an anecdote and to land a joke, so the important set pieces of the show were stories that I had been retelling for decades since the first time I heard them,” Dixon said. “So the major points of his conversation were embedded into my consciousness and into the consciousness of all my friends because they were things that I had talked about for years and years.”

The play unfolds in three sections over the course of 90 minutes. The most difficult part for Dixon was writing the finale when he describes horrific information he unearthed while visiting Rose in the Dominican Republic and the bizarre incidents that led to Rose’s murder. Dixon didn’t provide details during the phone interview, but the scandalous secrets at the end of Georgie are shocking.

“The first section of my play is how we met and all of that, how we came to know each other,” Dixon said. “The second section is all the roles I saw him do, and the third section is what happens once I go to visit him the Dominican Republic, where he was murdered.”

This is Rose’s third time staging a production of Georgie. In addition to the Signature run, he presented a workshop at the Sharon Playhouse in Connecticut. Each iteration of the story has been altered radically, Dixon said. Today’s show has been edited down and, in the mind of the actor, offers the most engaging evening at the theater. “I’m feeling like there’s not an extraneous story, anecdote, joke,” he said. “I feel it’s been a long paring down process that took three years.”

Rose and Dixon could both be classified as character actors, although Dixon said he wasn’t sure many audience members understand what the term means. Plus, some theatergoers might have different opinions on the definition. Here’s how Dixon summarizes the term: “In my belief, a character actor is a person who transforms himself to be the person that you’re seeing as opposed to a personality, like a movie star who basically always plays themselves. A character actor becomes a different person for each role. He becomes that person, and that’s the kind of career that I’ve had. There’s no common thread between any of the major roles that I’ve done.”

Those roles for Dixon have been plentiful, including everything from Eddie in No, No Nanette to Charlemagne in Pippin with Ben Vereen. The actor’s résumé reads like a greatest-hits collection of the best musicals and plays of the 20th century: Sweeney Todd, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Sunset Boulevard, The Iceman Cometh, The Three Musketeers and Mame.

When he first met Rose on a tour of The Student Prince, Dixon heard stories of the British actor working alongside the likes of Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Dame Edith Evans. These stories are reenacted in Georgie. “George was playing the character part in The Student Prince, which is a vaudeville turn,” Dixon said. “It’s the kind of part that you bring in a person who has a kind of shtick that they do, and they just bring that shtick to The Student Prince. Well, George, with his ability for improvisation, just did whatever he wanted, and it turned our little tour of The Student Prince into the showcase for George Rose. It was the only reason really to go see the show. It became the point of the whole evening.”

He added: “I found myself standing in the wings at every performance watching what he was doing. I was in my early 20s and had no idea that I would ever become a character actor. I just wanted to sing high notes, but I was hypnotized by him. I watched every performance.”

Georgie highlights these early years when Dixon and Rose became friends, but it eventually moves into more troubling territory and what happens when an idol lets down his friends, when circumstances shift and unbearable truths emerge.

THE FUTURE

Dixon said he is excited that the show has been warmly received. At the opening-night party at Sardi’s in New York City, Dixon was surrounded by old friends — connections he made over the years in the many productions he has brought to life. Kathie Lee Gifford was there for opening night and praised the performance.

“I’m not the kind of person who works with somebody in a show and then never thinks of them again,” he said. “I certainly meet a lot of people for whom that is the case, but if I connect with someone, I want to keep that connection going. Imagine how many interesting people I’ve connected with being in show business for so long, and I try to keep as many connections as I can. That’s what’s really interesting about life to me. At the opening-night party last night, I was so surrounded with old friends. One of my oldest, dearest friends put money in the show.”

With the positive reviews and feedback from audiences, Georgie may extend its New York engagement beyond April 15, Dixon said. The plans after the Big Apple are unclear, but the actor has set aside the next two to three years for a tour, perhaps even a run in London. “This could be the next several years of my life,” he said. “Of course, when I went in yesterday for the opening, we had no idea what the possibilities were.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Georgie: My Adventures With George Rose stars Ed Dixon and runs through April 15 at New York City’s The Loft at the Davenport Theatre. Click here for more information and tickets.