Letter: Ed Dennehy was theater royalty
Sue and Ed Dennehy are seen in this undated family photo. Credit: Flynn family
No one knows how art works, least of all artists, but it feels so good when it does. Trusting the creative process is part of an artist’s training.
This is what Long Island actor and director Ed Dennehy taught me by example during our long friendship and professional collaboration [“Actors Ed and Sue Dennehy, together onstage and in life,” Obituary, March 6].
“Once I get off script, the worst thing this actor could do is think,” he would say. “Feeling the role is when the magic begins.”
I collaborated with him as a writer. There were no egos; we served the work with childlike curiosity and enjoyment. He dared me to work hard.
He earned the distinction of Long Island theater royalty for 50 years in theaters across the country, in hundreds of roles that included Scopes trial defense attorney Clarence Darrow, Mark Twain and an elderly Bette Davis — after his wife helped him shave his legs. He retired home to Long Island and settled in Huntington.
He told me he had one more role he dreamed of: Irish writer James Joyce. That evening I began writing, and two days later we had a working script. He read it, smiled and said, “I’m coming out of retirement.”
“James Joyce: A Short Night’s Odyssey From No to Yes” opened at the Conklin Barn in Huntington a few months later, on Halloween 2014.
Joe Beck, Bethpage
