Sally Dorst and Jensen Wheeler Wolfe

00:04 I am Jensen wheeler wolf and I'm 48 years old. Today is July 3rd 2009. We are in Foley Square in New York City. And Sally is my boss at Glamour magazine and my friend.

00:23 My name is Sally Dorst. I am 70 and yes, I'm still working. Today's date is July 3rd 2009. We are in New York City Foley square and Jensen is a freelancer in the research Department of Glamour magazine. Whom I'm very pleased to say I hired years ago.

00:47 So Sally and I realized that

00:51 When we're putting this together that she came to New York in 1961 and that in 1959. That's when they broke the ground to create Lincoln Center. I saw that online too and so 59. They broke ground 60. I was born and 61 she came so we figured out I was approximately 9 months old when she came to New York and

01:21 Moved by Lincoln Center at that point was that the first apartment? No, I actually was over on the east side and in 61 Lincoln Center was still a construction project to me. But what I realize since I came to New York from Florida by Ohio having graduated from the University of Colorado. I came to New York for all the cultural opportunities and I knew about Lincoln Center because I had read that Not only was it begun in 1959 but Eisenhower turn the ceremonial shovel of dirt on May 14th, 1959 and May 14th. A number of years earlier is the day I was born so I felt like Lincoln Center and I were destined to to share a life but in the early days, I was not a westsider in the seven.

02:21 Please I moved to my current apartment. Only reason I can afford it. It's about 10 Mi 10 blocks. Sorry north of Lincoln Center makes it very easy to pick up last minute tickets to relive the event that I had gone to see if I walk home at night. It also makes it very easy since I have an extra bedroom to entertain guests who come from various places because they want to see things either on Broadway or at Lincoln Center and one of them years ago gave me a plaque that I have in my bathroom that says Lincoln Center just like a traffic sign, you know that you would see another gave me a little plaque that's on the chest in my entry hall that says Lincoln Center Hotel Sally doors manager and they even gave me stationed here he with the same thing. So, you know, I do have a lot of

03:21 Interest but Lincoln Center is one that

03:25 Is very special to me.

03:28 So you came here?

03:31 For what reasons? Did you come to New York and then you became interested in Lincoln Center or was this part of the journey getting out was part of the journey. I first probably at age five or six my parents. I suspect read EB White's Stuart Little 2 me and the minute I heard that story. I knew I was coming to New York. One of the first things I did when I got here on the 4th of July weekend in 1961 was go to the sailboat Pond just like Stuart Little had only I didn't have quite as fancy up sailboat, but did you have won my I have a much younger brother who when I was ready to leave to come to New York. He and Daddy went to the dime store because he felt I wouldn't have any toys to play with in the bathtub. Of course. I never played with toys in the bathtub, but his were always falling in so that's

04:31 I happen to have a little toy sailboat. Oh, that's great. That's crazy. And then and then you found your way to Lincoln Center in the beginning. It was Carnegie Hall where I cut my teeth on music and I remember hearing the Bartok concerto for orchestra and like, you know life in my mind is divided between before I heard that and after I heard that in the early days in the 60s, you could get Rush tickets for the Philharmonic for a dollar at was one night. I think it was Monday or Tuesday and they handed them out at 6 and the concert didn't start until 8. So you'd have time to eat your sandwich cuz we were all poor then and you know, you didn't go out to dinner if you were going to spend $2 on a concert, but then you know as Lincoln Center as the various building started opening and the various cultural.

05:31 Who started moving up there? I ended up spending in our beginning to spend more and more time at Lincoln Center always see no getting there by Subway or walking or whatever. I keep reading. All these articles that have come out about its 50th Anniversary that now it's finally going to be easy for the people to get to it because it's been so car-centric and I wonder what these people are writing about because sure it's a confusing Street to cross where Amsterdam and Broadway, but all you need to know is to be on the Amsterdam side and you don't have to cross anything and you can do that when you get out of the Subway or but in any event I can I mean I can remember very clearly things that I just always loved from pretty much each of the different places. So you have some of those

06:31 Concerts or theatrical performances that you went to their just memorable for you. Let me start with Alice Tully hall because at Aleister Crowley and I've tried to go back in the archives switch her really hard to find since this is all pre-digital. I heard the Bartok string quartets, and I don't think I'd ever really heard a string quartet before and then nothing like starting at that. Difficult end, but they especially V, you know has always been a favorite and I can remember the first violinist string breaking. I don't remember which quartet it was and I know the second violinist always hands.

07:20 His violin to the first violinist and then quickly and when they kept going but it was the combination of hearing that music for the first time plus realizing how they survived, you know, a common ordinary disaster was exciting. I also was lucky enough to see no, that's not how the stylite that would be the Vivian Beaumont. But it I was telling I also heard a couple of really special Murray Pariah recitals and Murray Pariah pianist from Forest Hills Queens who now lives in England has been a Grammy award winner and you know, one of the finest pianists probably ever but certainly that is living today. I feel very lucky that I started hearing him.

08:11 Probably first as a soloist with the Philharmonic, but then at his various recitals. So that was a memorable thing. But then we go to the Vivian Beaumont. I think it was in the basement. That's what they call the Forum. Maybe Peter Brooks Carmen set in a bowl ring with sand and gravel very practically sitting on a what a bull ring. Like, what do you mean a bowl with hair? Like it was as SquarePants, you know, that was all over land and grow a fighting full balls because of The Toreador for the whole day. I get it now. They took away almost all of the characters except for the the main Carmen Don Jose Kayla.

08:58 I'm missing somebody else but and they took away most of the music that offer fans would be familiar with but boy, did they distill it into something. That just was the sexiest thing. I think I probably ever seen anywhere and I can feel you know, I just still have images from that particular performance. I kind of felt the same way the first time I saw that current South Pacific Revival, we know what the original cast Paul's a lot and

09:34 Kelly was Kelli O'Hara from the light in the Piazza was the first I think she's out on maternity leave now, but the minute the curtain open the chemistry between the two of them was just so you know probably had goosebumps and one of the things I think, you know a really exciting performance does it makes time stand still and you forget, you know, all your cares all the problems with work all the things that you haven't done and you you become a part of their life. I know, you know during the 60s early 70s the Vietnam War was raging around and I think Fontaine and the Reyes the prime dancers with the Royal Ballet. They were coming every year in those days to the Metropolitan Opera and they got me through the Vietnam War was something

10:34 It wasn't that I didn't worry or that I ceased being concerned about what in the world are country was doing but you got those necessary moments where you were transported into a different different time a different era and I remember one.

10:53 Wednesday matinee Romeo and Juliet that I convinced one of the people I was working with and this is what I was over at Time Life books that we could play hooky and we could go to the matinee. Now there were no particular tricks. I'd seen the two of them do Romeo and Juliet countless times. There was just something magical about that performance and the friend that I took with me cuz I hadn't really seen that much ballet. Even she knew that she'd experienced something special and when the news came that knoweth had died. I got a call from her in Boston thanking me for insisting that she come to that particular performance. She said, you know, I haven't had many moments like that but I still remember it. So those are the things like probably 30 years.

11:53 25 baby. Yeah. Yeah. So I also remember hearing John Vickers do the lead role do Peter Grimes in the Opera Peter Grimes with the Metropolitan Opera. I've never been much of a vocal music fan, but and I had a subscription next to last row and Family Circle because I quotes thought I ought to expose myself unquote and there were many that I stayed for an act and then I would leave because the exposure wasn't transporting me anywhere. But this Peter Grimes was just out of this world. I get Shivers just telling you about it. Now I also but I'm not just you know a traditionalist. I saw Tommy The Who at the Met my brother who 16 years younger. It is a big Roxanne said I had to go for him and I was kind of curious cuz I'd seen with him Tommy The Who over at Fillmore East?

12:53 So I was there probably even then one of the older people in the audience and then you know, I was one of the people at Einstein on the beach the Wilson glass. I keep hearing so glass say if everybody who says they were there were there. No, the opera house would have exploded with people but I was there and I have the ticket stub to prove it and I still remember Andy degroat's spinning Cheryl Sutton doing the knee plays out in front or what's happened to Cheryl Sutton, but the first 45 minutes, I thought my God, why did I let my friend talked me into this nonsense and then just all of a sudden I was, you know, again transported into something that I never imagined would be possible and you know, I've followed

13:47 Philip Glass since then, you know Ganda almost everything that he's done love the works at him that Jerome Robbins choreographed his glass pieces at New York City Ballet. So I guess that kind of thing with the opera house. I also I mean, I mostly go to the opera house for dance these days, you know, I will try the strange offers. Let's put it that way like the Berg Lulu and I'm looking forward to the nose is coming with Shostakovich this coming season New York State Theater was where you know City Ballet and then where ABT used to have their seasons and I think because I kind of cut my teeth on the Royal I I learned what I liked and I learned, you know what to pick and choose I always try to see the new things.

14:47 Season Once and make up my own mind, but I'm Jerome Robbins is my real soulmate in terms of choreographer. He's the late Jerome Robbins now, but fortunately New York City Ballet, which is primarily thought of is a balancing company also keeps Robinson the repertoire and dances at a gathering is the ballet. He choreographed that I would take to the desert island provided. Of course, I could cast it myself if it's a dream, you know people from different companies, but I also I guess became a real devotee of Cynthia Gregory American Ballet Theater dancer from watching ABT at Freddy's at New York State Theater. They also had Seasons at city center and we can't leave them out in terms of my cultural involve involvement but most

15:47 It's been at Lincoln Center then.

15:52 Where what have I left out? Well, I I I know Dances your true love and that you see lots of dance. So there's probably some memorable performances used ballet ballet in particular this probably some performances that are worth mention. I also like modern dance. It's just that it's hard when you have limited money and limited time to see everything that's out there, but it'll do standing room or you know, those dollar tickets were talking about way back when well, there are no longer any longer because now I've seen

16:30 So much dance that I tend to go for either the choreographers work or the person who's dancing. I do an awful lot of Standing Room on the grand tier stand in this day and age a real bargain $26 2:30, depending on when you're going and you're standing where people have paid right behind where people paid 90 or more for a seat. So I don't do Family Circle fans anymore. I used to do that but not anymore and I did have you no subscription throughout the years to various things. But I remember once getting a call from Lincoln Center wondering why I hadn't been subscribing lately and I said, well, you know, I explained I go for either the work or the dancer.

17:23 And this man said, oh you're in St. Ste B. And I said, excuse me. I said single ticket buyer and I got a laugh because in the work that I've been doing at that time. We had a lot of abbreviations going around STD and those work sexually transmitted disease. So I heard the bee is Addie and was very relieved when I found that I was a single ticket buyer. And I said, well, yeah, that's that pretty much describes me. But yes, I mean, I do have a lot of special dance memories and I also saw Martha Graham though. She often was not at Lincoln Center. She would be in a in a Broadway Theater or she just didn't come in. The audience is the large enough audience has to be at the Lincoln Center houses, but had a good friend.

18:17 The white William Carter who danced with first on York City Ballet and then with American Ballet Theater and also with Martha Graham and also did Spanish Flamenco. So he was at a man of many talents and he kind of broadened my appreciation for all the different forms of dancing, but but at

18:44 That's the Fontaine RAF and the RAF Murrell park with the world a lie. There were just you know, some really magical moments. Yes. I do believe that nariah continue to dance long after he should have stopped. I understand why it was so important for him. But for those of us who really got to see him not that long after he defected, you know, there was a, you know, a real change another dancer, I grow to appreciate was Yvonne Nagy who was a principal with American Ballet Theater never one with the technical abilities that either under a f or a Baryshnikov or many of the current dancers today have but he had his Hungarian. He had a a bearing a presents a musicality and was the most wonderful partner. You don't have to have

19:44 Sweets that are

19:46 You know Ariel, so to speak or be able to do teen turns and land perfectly to make people shiver on stage. I mean, it's more than it's more than just the tricks through my friendship with Bill Carter. I was able to go to a lot of rehearsals and even to go to some company classes and you would see people in rehearsals or especially in the class or just outstanding and when they got on stage they were a cipher they just didn't have that Charisma or that presents and you would see someone who was having with struggling in a class or struggling in a rehearsal who just became a live on stage. So it was interesting to get to see you know, that you're saying not about technique and sometimes it's about the character. You know, he is someone really can create a cat.

20:46 Absolutely statue away. Absolutely. No, did you just because it's such a name. Did you ever see Baryshnikov osher? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. He when he first defected. He was with a ABT at the New York State Theater and then their winter season was still at city center and I probably saw almost every performance that he danced that winter season and if he's incredible, no, no question about it. I think it's just, you know, tastes differ dance music theater there such subjective art something. Well. I had a perfect example last weekend I had friends who came up from Washington DC. We went to back-to-back performances of Swan Lake the Friday.

21:44 Night performance just left me.

21:48 Thinking I've seen one too. Many Swan Lake's I don't have to see that this again. They were thrilled by the performance Saturday matinee. I thought well, I probably wouldn't have gone if I hadn't had these friends here, but the Saturday matinee was like, well, this is why you go back to the ballet over and over again. It was I thought a breakthrough for the ballerina. I'm being very careful not to name names. I thought the partnership was just Magnificent the two friends from the Washington didn't do anything for them. You know, that's one of the nice things about living in New York. You can see you can see the same thing over and over but it's not the same thing each time. It's different. Even if you see the same two as principles do the part on back-to-back nights and sometimes that happens when their injuries and your

22:48 Toward the end of the season and they just don't have substitutes.

22:54 Each time there's a different kind of magic that happens on the stage. There's a different kind of on the outs. Sometimes the conductor. It's a slower Tempo and you just would like to Goose him to get that get it so that the dancers didn't have to try to fill the damn time other times Maybe.

23:17 And I know maybe somebody had a fight with their significant other before they stepped out on stage and they can't quite shake it. Sometimes people are thrown in with the wrong partner or the partners experienced the woman doing Swan Lake. This is maybe only her second or third performance and she still focusing on the steps. She can't really let herself get transported into what's happening. It's all it's all something that I very much appreciate. It's one of things everybody and everybody at work and a lot of my friends know that I don't go to movies.

24:01 When I was growing up in the Gulf Coast of Florida, the only kind of culture we had were the halftime shows at the football games and they seriously considered the Sunday movie which changed every week as culture. You went to the movie Sunday afternoon. No matter what was playing with her, you know, you care for it or not. And I saw a lot of great movies. There's no question about it. I'm sure my interest in dance was sparked by all those great Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers Fred Astaire Rita Hayworth and musicals Gene Kelly.

24:50 I would still to this day rather go to a live performance and you know walk out Midway if it's not something that I'm really enjoying then go to a movie and sit in the dark theater. I figure I'll have plenty of time when I retire to catch up on movies when I can't afford the theater or can't get to it who knows or be know when I say theater. I'm including music dance all living thing a there the magic of light imagiste amazing. As you said it I have chills listening to just as you know, I was a performer for many years and just that it what can happen. It's there's so many variables but the magic of being there and what can actually happen is is is so amazing and not not the same as as a recording medium. I'm trying to think if we did theater if there was any any theatrical performance that well I said the Carmen at

25:50 The Vivian Beaumont is offer, right is there any yes, but it was actually more theater and then South Pacific and light in the Piazza. I think most of The Incredibles theatrical experience as I have had really been on Broadway. I I saw the Peter Brooks Midsummer Night's Dream also.

26:16 When I first came I was really interested in theater along with everything else in the Theater prices weren't that weren't that astronomical The Standing Room for for Chorus Line when it first came to Broadway was five bucks. I think for the time they did their last performance The Standing Room was 15, but I saw that many times with the visitors in the great thing about Chorus Line each time. I would go this is over, you know, the number of years that it was on Broadway. I know remember who didn't make it but I never remember who made it for sure and I thought that was a real testimony to the whole point of the story. It was not who won. It was sort of the getting there. That was really exciting.

27:15 As I've been in a working more and more in the research world, not just it at glamour but it other magazines words became less important to me in terms of my interests in the cultural scene. I think music really I really responded to music first and because music is such a great part of dance. A lot of it's done the bad music. I must confess but

27:51 I think that the music and the dance have sort of overtaking where I spend most of my time and where I spend most of my cultural dollars. Just went to Waiting for Godot and to

28:08 Bad Joe Turner's come and gone and the August Wilson Osage County. I've done those in the last year the I was bothered the whole time waiting for Godot by the fact that they kept calling it. Oh, I don't know where they got that different pronunciation. But but it was not the radio. I don't know either but the Joe Turner coming that was such an incredible performance. I read the reviews. I knew it was, you know, it was supposed to be special that it was really fine and sambal acting as well as fine. Solo Parts the same thing with August Osage County. What what a tribute what a tribute to all that the writers and all the people who were out there, you know on the stage should Ensemble. Yeah. I know Harry ensemble.

29:08 How I'm

29:11 Is there anything we are one of the things I was going to say at when you when you said that you came here seeking an acting career and I remember going to a reading that you and another friend of ours and several others had of the Nightingale and the and the rose the Nightingale and the rose by Oscar Wilde. And when I knew that Christopher wheeldon head choreographed a ballet cuz the same story and I had seen it once I remember saying that I would get us cheap tickets in that fourth ring and we could go see it just to see how another medium would treat the same story and of course he focused on them Saturday Parts, but the Nightingale dancing fabulous.

30:11 That's just wonderful that it was and it was also really interesting the friend who came with us had seen City Ballet when she was growing up during the summers at Saratoga and had not seen it since she was an adult and not seen it at Lincoln Center and I just couldn't believe the difference. So that was kind of fun experience. You know, how how she was reacting to what was on stage? And so do you have particular performances are things that you've attended rather than being in that that you really? Well it's ironic cuz you know because the movie area is where my husband works in Lincoln Center so because they're free and so I haven't seen a lot else at Lincoln Center butt and butterfly.

31:09 See, I don't think that was inconsiderate but the feeling you're talking about I saw a matinee of end but M butterfly with John Rubinstein and I just walked around dazed in Manhattan for hours by that performance. And the guy I was with at the time did not even know he was impersonating a woman until the very very end. I mean, he was so good. It was so wonderful and tragic and I just I stumbled to the city for the next 2 hours. I was just so taken by that I went to this to the same not knowing anything about the story at all. And I was the only person there were four of us together who didn't realize that he was and I see a man playing a woman and I just thought

31:59 I I know exactly you know what you're saying about how ya and the fact that it's a True Story 2 was just I love true stories and I just the whole that piece of it too was just amazing and more recently Osage County which of course being the Chicago and you know, go Steppenwolf. I was very impressed with all that work and all the Ensemble and I do have a funny film story though. Okay, even though

32:26 I did go to a dance film once at the Film Society, but also my brother lives in the Missouri Ozarks, and he told me that a film that he knew that he had been interviewed in about big Smith and Ozark band was going to be premiered at Lincoln Center and the director of the film in the all all the key people except for the band Big Smith. We're going to be at Lincoln Center and they were having a little reception afterwards. So I managed to leave work in time to get up for the showing and

33:11 Sure nuff, you know it was just so funny to be sitting in a theater in New York City where all this Ozark stuff is going on, but I do see my brother at some point and I'm saying my brother and people behind me or think.

33:27 I can over there if that's my cousin, you know back and forth. So we go there we go to the reception afterwards and I see the director in the by the table and I say well, I'm hillbilly Hank sister and he hollers, you know here is Hillbilly Hanks sister and that the film crew come over cuz they were taking snapshots of the or videos of that reception and for Christmas. My brother sends me the big Smith's video, you know, and there's a little trailer with the reception and there I am talking to that you can't hear me or anything, but it's just funny that New York and and the Missouri Ozarks kind of come together and that one little piece so, you know

34:18 How we doing?

34:21 We have 5 minutes left. OK I just the only other Lincoln Center piece that popped up that we both share is mostly Mozart concerts those late-night concerts. That's the only thing that my husband was stage-managing and you came to those are just amazing little Jewels I think and I when I was pregnant, so it was just a wonderful way to spend time cuz I would help I would offer for him at those concerts and it's that great room Stanley Kaplan Penthouse and with windows that fall out over the Waters of of the Hudson and sound is amazing in there in those little tables with little candles in the glasses of wine and they have a single solo performer doing different different musicians and they said it was very special and they were at 10 at night, you know another reason why it's nice to live close to Crazy late night that was packed jam-packed and I

35:21 How many celebrities there and it was just this really neat little thing that happened and only in New York. Yeah. Yeah. You know to have this cello player, you know doing the Box sweet. Do you know it was so. Boxes use Mozart. So wonderful. I've also forgotten that I did hear a number of wonderful Gwen are a string quartet concert usually at Alice Tully Hall.

35:50 I think once they did a it was a quartet for orchestra now, maybe that was at Carnegie Hall.

36:00 Because they've never heard they only did it that one time. There's never been a recording but but they're going Rai. I went from the Bartok string quartets kind of backwards in the Ruff retard got no familiar with the Beethoven string quartets and and was exposed to a lot of fabulous music by going to their concerts. They had a subscription series at Alice Tully hall for years and years and then they also had a series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. So in the 92nd Street Y is a big cultural and seen in in New York and I spent some time there but being a westsider it was awfully easy to wait until they came to Lincoln Center medicine to go easy now. Yeah. Yeah, so I think you can tell that for me a New York is very much a part of the Arts or very much the Arts.

37:00 And such great stuff happening there. Yes and continuing even the outdoor. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's just fabulous. They said with all his friends all these musicians from all over the world and free I wasn't around for that. I was out in Colorado, but you park and we're happy to have that place. So I did my good do you mind if I ask you a question? Not at all. You were talking about your childhood in the Gulf Coast of Florida, you were saying and about culture bear being primarily going to the movies. So had you were you at that point sort of Yearning For more until you talk a bit more about your childhood there sure we moved when I was in the third grade from Ohio to the Gulf Coast of Florida with a bunch of Records.

38:00 You know books in that sort of thing. I felt very much that I was the odd person out in the little town where we moved to in that. You know, I had I wasn't born and bred in the South we listen to classical music at home. I never I don't think at that point. I'll maybe I'd heard of a live Orchestra once but it was always on recordings and there was really never the opportunity. I remember going to the high school auditorium. Maybe when I was nine or 10 hearing some Symphony Orchestra asking my daddy and whispered tones are playing now, so I knew and then when I went to the University of Colorado for that's where I graduated and in Boulder they did have performing

39:00 Serious, but I could never afford those tickets. So it really wasn't it was something that I knew. I wanted to come to New York to hear live music to see live theater to see live dance.

39:17 Now in out in Florida, I certainly I played in the band. So I got an A an appreciation of what you play a little bit. I played the flute and once in awhile, I was already stuck with the flute. I realize that that's not the kind of music that I like. But there I was with the flute played in the marching band, you know learned a lot about Rhythm and movement that sort of thing just by being in in the band but you know, even I don't know how because we certainly didn't sit around at the dinner table and talk about culture but somehow because of the records and you know, that interests that my parents had I knew that I was missing something there that I could find someplace else now on the other hand. I spent an awful lot of time in the Gulf of Mexico on some of the most beer

40:17 Beaches in the world I grew up in Bradenton and Anna Maria Island was where we would go out to the beach. We went any time the sun was out that included when it was much too cold for any of my friends to even think of wanting to go swimming. But but I knew that I was going to leave as soon as I could while you could have gone to Chicago or something you until like V biggest the biggest the biggest artistic Pursuits. You said you had play the flute, but you didn't actually take to that are there other things that you participated in to sort of have another sort of point of entrance for the Arts.

41:05 I guess well, I used to draw when I was little but I never I never figured out I never studied perspective. So I was always much more interested in abstract forms. I had a very brief. With a church choir before the choir director was fired where I was exposed to a little bit of music Siri. I was one of those people who would have loved to learn to play the piano. My mother had had to play had to take piano lessons and resented the fact she had no musical abilities whatsoever.

41:50 We probably could never have afforded a piano or piano lessons, but I always felt that I was one of those people I still Marvel at how the brain can have the left hand doing one thing the right hand doing something else the feet doing something else and coarse the brain is in charge of all this so I would say that in a white artistic interests are pretty much all vicarious, you know, I still go to a museums now and I'll make little sketches in a Sketchbook just to help me remember what it was. I liked so much about a painting. It may be just the relationships. I'm a big angle and edges person rather than circles and that sort of thing. So I'm

42:42 Does that help us? Thank you Sally. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you Sally. Will thank you for doing this to do the Tommy was at Lincoln Center.