There’s a party at the back stage door in Heaven today and it looks a little like this photo from my husband’s book launch/90th birthday party from December 10, 2016. I can see Hal Holbrook, Charlotte Rae, John Iacovelli, Susie Walsh and Jimmie Greene standing eagerly at the gate to greet their old buddy Alan Mandell.

“What took you so long?” Charlotte says. “Come on in!”

Jimmie, Alan, Charlotte, Susie and John had all worked on the pristine production of Endgame at the Kirk Douglas Theater only a few months before in April and May of 2016. It was my husband’s last show, to which I occasionally drove him to rehearsals and performances. Alan directed as well as starred in the role of Hamm, and John designed the beautiful set for this Beckett play which Jimmie had done more than his fair share of performances in as Nagg.

Alan, as so many people have written since his passing on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, was a theatrical legend. His close association and collaborations with Samuel Beckett himself were legendary to those of us who listened avidly to his tales. Who better to have played Ham than Alan Mandell? Three of the cast members in the Douglas show were either 89 or 90.

Because of my chauffeur duties for my husband, before rehearsals started, I was privileged to be at a small luncheon and a visit to Alan’s home prior to a short drive Charlotte Rae’s apartment for coffee and pastries. I am so happy I wrote about that day then because my memory is not so effective at a decade’s distance. You can read that post here. To sit with luminaries of Lincoln Center and so many films and TV shows was heady, and yet quotidien at the same time. I felt fortunate to be there to listen to their stories. Jimmie and Alan had worked together as early as 1961 in Lincoln Center and Alan had the unique perspective of box office manager.

But what I looked forward to about our coffee was to be a fly on the wall to listen to stories about Beckett and his previous productions. I was not disappointed. We arrived at Alan’s house, a beautiful, modern home filled with an eclectic collection of art, sculptures in ceramic, metal – beautiful, varied in style and whimsical in the way that Alan and his work has always seemed to me to be. On the table in his living room, where we paused for just a few moments was a green bound book, well worn, which he referred to. It was Beckett’s Notebook on Endgame. He immediately shared with us two stunning facts (forgive the lack of precision in my quote)-

Endgame was Beckett’s favorite play.

Do you know why the characters are named the way they are?

No.

Clov is similar to clou, the French word for nail. Nagg is like nagel, which is the German word for nail. (I’ve since looked it up and it is actually referring to the human nail or elephant nail) and Nell is also close to nail. Hamm is short for Hammer. The play is about a hammer and three nails. The use of sound and percussion in the play, the rapping of his fingers on the can to summon Nagg and Nell is integral. Beckett referred to the play as a chamber piece.

Fascinating! We soon moved to the car and drove a short distance to Charlotte’s apartment.

I want to quote from Jimmie’s chapter of his book, A View From The Wings about Endgame. Better from the horse’s mouth as it were.

“Attending a play at the Ahmanson Theatre one night, Els and I ran into Alan Mandell. ‘I’m going to do one more play before I retire,” he told us. “Barry McGovern and I are going to do Beckett’s Endgame at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.’ He and Barry had apeared together a couple of years earllier in a very successful production of Waiting for Godot at the Mark Taper Forum.”

“‘That’s great, ‘ I replied. ‘I did Endgame back in New York in 1984. I played Nagg.’ Little did I know at the time that I had unwittingly planted a seed in Alan’s eighty-eight-year-old mind.”

Greene wrote more about Alan’s intuition as a director.

“Alan wisely limited the rehearsal time to about five hours a day. There were no typical eight-oout-of-ten days until we moved out of the rehearsal room and onto the main stage. His decision to rehearse fewer hours than usual was made at first out of consideration for the advanced ages of three of his cast members. It soon became clear, however, that a shorter work schedule without a meal break was appropriate because of the instrinsic structure of the play itself.”

When they moved into the theater, Jimmie wrote about John Iacovelli’s considerations for the older actors “in the cans.”

“John obviously had his actors’ comfort in mind. The interior of each can had a seat, a backrest, and two sets of handles bolted to the inner walls. Space had been made on the stage for two motorized lifts which elevated Nagg and Nell so that whenever they had to ‘enter’ on stage, only their upper torso would be revealed.

Escape areas as well had been cleverly designed to enable Nagg and Nell to leave the cans and retire to their dressing rooms when they weren’t needed on stage.”

I was also a huge fan of Alan’s work with Reza Abdoh, his larger than life performances and his gentle nature co-existing in the same body. The body that allowed him to tap dance well into his 80s.

Phyllis Moberly’s post on facebook today was how I learned that Alan was gone. He’s been much on my mind lately and I am so sorry he’s left our sphere. We are much the worse off for losing his talents among the living.

Wouldn’t I love to be at the door watching him tap into that heavenly party?