ABOUT RICHARD
Richard Hester’s career as a stage manager and production supervisor spans forty years. His credits include everything from the off-Broadway premiere of Harold Pinter’s Mountain Language to the hit Broadway musical Jersey Boys. For the latter after serving as its original Production Stage Manager in La Jolla, CA, and in New York, he spent sixteen years staging and maintaining productions of it both in the US as well as all over the world. After more than two decades, he continues to tour with Patti LuPone as well as with Mandy Patinkin for their concerts, both nationally and internationally. Twenty-three years ago, with Bernadette Peters and Mary Tyler Moore, he helped found and produce Broadway Barks! an annual animal adoption event that ever since then, has helped thousands of dogs and cats find forever homes. His first book, Hold, Please: Stage Managing a Pandemic is now available on Amazon and at many other online booksellers.
And so, it began. Broadway shut down. Instead of sitting in a darkened theatre every night watching Jersey Boys, Richard Hester, like many other people, found himself sitting on his sofa glued to the news, As the days that followed unfolded and turned into weeks and then into months, we all experienced a profound seismic shift. The virus spread, infecting millions. We lost friends and family. Our economies shut down. Our jobs either stopped or changed in radical ways. The senseless murder of George Floyd forced us to take a hard look at who we are and how we treat each other. The Presidential election, drove the country so far apart that it threatened to destroy Democracy, itself.
Hold, Please chronicles it all from the particular point of view of a career Broadway stage manager living in Manhattan. Part journal, part blog, these essays attempted to make sense of the crisis and what it was doing to us. By the end, everything had changed.
“I’ve watched Richard create order out of chaos for years, so it comes as no surprise when he was able to do it again with these beautiful posts. Together they create a powerful reminder of where we’ve been as well as a thoughtful and compassionate guide for moving ahead.”
Bernadette Peters
VOICE OVER
STAGE MANAGEMENT
There are stories everywhere. Sometimes they are in the way that the dying light falls on a building and sometimes they are in the spoken word of an Aboriginal elder and sometimes they are in a carefully crafted Broadway show.