In Trainer's World, Every Dog Has His Debut

By Jane Horwitz
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, December 3, 2008

You can take the dog out of the hunt, but even one of the theater world's most in-demand pet trainers can't always take the hunt out of the dog.

The ill-fated show was an early-'90s New York preview of "Nick and Nora," and actress Joanna Gleason's character was sporting a fox stole. As the dead animal's beady eyes stared right at the production's wirehair fox terrier, it wasn't long before the onstage canine attacked its furry target. The audience laughed, the actors smiled, and Gleason -- an anti-fur person -- happily surrendered the stole.

The animal trainer in question, Bill Berloni, remembers the story fondly. Over several decades of working with "drama dogs," he has learned to roll with the pooches.

Berloni is now in town for twin traveling productions: "The Wizard of Oz," which runs through Sunday at the Warner Theatre, and "Legally Blonde," which comes to the Kennedy Center Dec. 16.

Berloni is sitting with Princess, the 11-pound cairn terrier who plays Toto in the touring production of "Oz." It's midmorning, but "Toto" is dozing. Princess is a theater dog and, as Berloni remarks, these types just aren't morning people.

Princess, who's nearing retirement age at 8 1/2, is a puppy-mill dog who was rescued by the trainer. Berloni is also the man behind a Chihuahua named Frankie, who plays Bruiser, beloved pet of law student/sorority queen Elle Woods, in "Legally Blonde." (There's also China, who plays the bulldog Rufus in "Blonde," and all these dogs, we should note, have understudies.)

The key to putting pooches onstage, the trainer says, is "acclimating them to the theatrical condition" -- from backstage noises to laughter from 1,000-plus people. Plus, "it takes me a long time to find a cairn terrier who's calm," Berloni says. Nor, he adds, is it easy "finding Chihuahuas that think they're Great Danes," which playing Bruiser requires.

Early in the development of "Legally Blonde," Berloni says, "we had this very outgoing Chihuahua" named Chico. The little guy made his big entrance in San Francisco. "When the overture began, [all the tween and teen fans] started screaming." The pooch, says Berloni, "hit the deck." He eventually did what he was supposed to do onstage, "once he figured out nobody was gonna hurt him," says the trainer. "We just altered the learning process."

Another issue at "Legally Blonde" performances has been girls bringing itty-bitty dogs into theaters in carriers a la Elle Wood. Not good. The dog onstage would bark on cue and hear a distracting (never mind illegal) chorus of replies from the audience. Now theaters screen for clandestine canines.

Not that this was the career Berloni always had in mind; rather, like a lost mutt with a keen sense of smell, this career seemed to find him.

Thirty-two years ago, at 19, Berloni was a young acting student working over the summer at the legendary Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Conn. Because no one else wanted to do it, he was assigned to find and train a dog to play Sandy in a new little show called "Annie," based on the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie."

He found his Sandy at a pound, a lanky mutt slated for oblivion. He saved the dog, and through hit-and-miss efforts and lots of treats, got Sandy to do what needed to be done. Berloni and his employers realized he had the knack.

From there, it was on to the Kennedy Center, then Broadway for "Annie" and Sandy, a dog who took the name in real life. Berloni has trained all the subsequent Sandys for every "Annie" tour and revival. And there have been many other shows, including the ill-starred sequel, "Annie Warbucks" (as well as an earlier sequel attempt at the Kennedy Center, "Annie 2," in 1989).

Berloni, in other words, has become the go-to guy for any stage show that needs domestic critters hitting their marks (in terms of blocking, that is) and taking their cues.

Berloni lives on four acres in Haddam with his wife, Dorothy -- who often works with him -- as well as 24 dogs and two llamas. He has made it his policy to use only rescue dogs for his stagework. "I do a temperament test to see . . . if they would be happy doing the work that we do," says Berloni, adding that he also looks for "aggression triggers."

All the dogs he rescues and trains return to the Connecticut home in their retirement, unless someone from a show they worked in adopts them. "We advocate rescue, and the philosophy of rescue is: If you're rescued, it's for life," he says.

Sometimes the transition from Broadway to a spread in Connecticut is a letdown for the animals. "They get used to being with this extended family of 30 to 50 people [in a stage show]," Berloni says. Once out of the limelight, "they're very needy for a month or two" before they adjust.

In Berloni's recent book, "Broadway Tails: Heartfelt Stories of Rescued Dogs Who Became Showbiz Superstars" (written with Jim Hanrahan), the theater stories are also tales of dogs who recover from awful abuse and neglect. "Animals have affected my life in such a profound way. They taught me to be a trainer," Berloni says of his charges. "I admire their courage and loyalty . . . and forgiveness."

It's a lucky fellow who finds his life's work at 19.

"I was blessed in doing dogs for live theater," he says. "And -- knock wood -- nobody else has figured it out."

Scrooge and The New Economy

The economic downturn lends new resonance to the folks doing Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas," a Ford's Theatre production staged at the Lansburgh through Dec. 28 (as Ford's is under renovation).

This is the fifth time Ford's has done this version, and Mark Ramont's second time directing it.

Ramont recalls encountering a desperate man begging recently on the streets of Richmond. The director gave him some change, but the pain he saw in the man's eyes made Ramont pause. "I said, 'Would you like something to eat?' and he said, 'Yes sir, I'm so hungry.' . . .

"This is exactly the type of person that Scrooge would walk right past."

"If you look at the people in 'Christmas Carol,' " Ramont continues, "the only person who's extraordinarily well off is Scrooge. Everyone else is really struggling to get by, and yet Christmastime inspires in them this sense of generosity and goodwill."

Actress Kimberly Schraf plays Mrs. Cratchit, the wife of Scrooge's much-abused clerk. "This play is just filled with achingly decent characters who are hit hard," she says.

Rehearsals were at the Church of the Epiphany at 13th and G streets NW, where the homeless are often fed, Schraf notes. At times, going to work there was "a little bit out of Dickens. . . . We wend our way through these people and go up a rickety flight of stairs to an old gym and we start doing 'A Christmas Carol,' and it feels immediate."

Elliot Dash plays the Ghost of Christmas Present as an 8 1/2 -foot-tall (on stilts) Caribbean spirit who carries inside him two urchins named Want and Ignorance. Dash sees his job as one of turning a dark story toward the light. "I think that hope starts to begin with Christmas present. . . . I think that especially in our time now, where we're facing the worst recession that we've had in quite a long time, that this should absolutely be a story that is consistently joyful."

For Ramont, it's a question of balancing the story's darker elements with its offer of redemption. Says the director: "If we can make the dark side of the play apparent early on, and make the incredible poverty tangible for the audience, then it will mean even more when the change happens and Scrooge awakens to the need to give."