Duke stages comeback: Ex-Sox GM tries theater Associated Press
PITTSFIELD - The Red Sox may have fired Dan Duquette, but the team's former general manager has waltzed into a new league still trying to overpower Boston's age-old rival. This time, instead of going after the Yankees on the ball field, he's
doing it with a song-and-dance number as the manager of the Washington
Senators ``This is my first try at anything in the theater,'' said Duquette, who's
taking singing and acting lessons to prepare for his role as Benny Van
Buren, ``It's a challenge,'' he said. ``But it's a lot of fun.'' If he gets stage fright or opening-night jitters, Duquette can fall back
on his home-field advantage. Growing up in nearby Dalton, Duquette was
8 when ``I got my first foul ball at Wahconah Park,'' Duquette said. ``It's a nice place for a ball game and a perfect setting for ``Damn Yankees.'`` The idea of staging the 1956 Tony Award-winning musical in the 111-year-old
ballpark came last summer to Jenny Hersch, a minority owner of the Hersch enlisted the help of director James Warwick, who pitched the idea to an organization working to restore Pittsfield's Colonial Theatre, a century-old former music hall, vaudeville playhouse and movie theater. In return for the Colonial's support, Hersch pledged all proceeds from the play's $10 tickets to the restoration project. The cause helped her to attract top-notch professional actors, musicians and crew. The production quickly became a community rallying point. Hersch rallied
local talent from the Berkshires' arts scene eager to breathe new cultural
and She figured that keeping ticket prices low and staging the play at a
ball field would help make theater accessible to those who otherwise wouldn't
go ``The only missing ingredient was a real baseball guy to be in the show,''
Hersch said. ``Dan Duquette made perfect sense. I knew he was out of work Fired by the Red Sox last year after new owners took over the team, Duquette built a sports camp in Hinsdale, not far from his childhood home. His tenure as GM was marked by an often fractious relationship with fans,
the media and his star players. Duquette has laid low since his unceremonious His biggest regret from his years in Boston? ``I wish we beat the Yankees in '99 (when New York beat the Sox in five games for the AL championship). That was a series I always dreamed about, growing up.'' So when Hersch asked him in November to play the role of Van Buren - who enlists slugger Joe Hardy to win the championship over the Yanks - Duquette didn't hesitate. He was already a fan of the play, having given Jerry Lewis a Red Sox
jacket in Boston after the comedian played the role of Mr. Applegate,
the devil ``The only thing he asked me was whether he'd be able to say the line
`Those damn Yankees,' '' Hersch said. ``I told him he could probably say
it a Duquette, who as general manager called all the shots, has been willing to take direction on the stage. ``Dan has had no trouble,'' said Warwick, who called Duquette a ``rather shy man.'' ``This is all new to him,'' Warwick said. ``Dan Duquette has allowed himself to return to me day after day as a vulnerable child.'' Duquette is reluctant to preview his singing performance, turning down a request to sing a few bars of ``You Gotta Have Heart.'' ``A performer has to save his voice for performances,'' he explained. But his voice booms when he recites some of his lines in rehearsal. ``My players don't play dead for the Yankees or any other ball club,'' he belts out as Van Buren. Duquette figures this was a chance to try something new. ``Besides,'' he said, referring to a recent commercial featuring the
Yankees' owner and shortstop spending a night on the town, ``If George
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