Youngstown Playhouse and family remember Bentley Lenhoff

By Bob Jackson

news@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The curtain came down on Lyndean Lenhoff-Brick’s theater career after what she thought was a bravura performance in a high school play, in which she played the lead role.

“Everyone else was being greeted with congratulations and bouquets of flowers,” said Brick. “My father came backstage and told me, in no uncertain terms, that I couldn’t act, sing or dance. He said I was too literal, so I’d better seriously consider becoming a lawyer because that’s a profession where being literal is appreciated.”

Looking back, Brick sees the fatherly review and advice as both humorous and sage.

“It’s hilarious,” she said. “And he was more wise than I realized at the time.”

Her father was Bentley Lenhoff, a highly regarded theater professional and former director of the Youngstown Playhouse, who died July 8 at age 85. “Exit Stage Left,” a memorial event to celebrate Lenhoff’s life, took place Saturday evening at, of course, the Youngstown Playhouse. In true theater spirit, the programs handed out to those attending were designed to look like a playbill.

Brick; her sister, Alyssa Lenhoff-Briggs; and their mother, Nancy Lenhoff, took time before the memorial to share their memories of Bentley Lenhoff and their thoughts about being back in the place he loved so dearly.

“My father would have loved this,” Brick said.

“He would have been so grateful for everybody coming,” Briggs said. “He really loved the playhouse, and anything that happens here would have been special to him.”

Brick, Briggs and Nancy Lenhoff were among the speakers at the memorial. Also speaking were Bernie Appugliese, current Playhouse director and operations manager; Joanne and Joseph Scarvell; Paula Ferguson; David Jendre and Kadey Kimpel; and Lynn Nelson-Rafferty.

Brick, who lives in the Chicago suburb of Frankfort, Ill., did in fact become a lawyer. She has her own firm, and represents hospitals all across the United States.

“He didn’t give me a choice,” she said, smiling. “I didn’t want to [become a lawyer], but he said that’s what I was going to do, so I did it. I kind of resented it at the time, but now I see his wisdom.”

That was a part of the legacy of Bentley Lenhoff, whose perceived brusque facade masked a soul that his daughters said was one of caring and thoughtful insight.

“I knew him as Daddy,” Brick said. “But what so many other people saw was what an artist he was. We’ve been overwhelmed with how many people have told us how he touched their lives through his art.”

Briggs, who lives in Canfield, said her father’s impact extends beyond individuals who trod the boards under his tutelage in the theater.

“He also impacted the audiences who learned to imagine and think a little beyond the here and now,” she said. “That’s what the theater was for him. He was able to empower people’s thinking and imaginations through creativity.”

Lenhoff had a 20-year run at the helm of the Playhouse, beginning in 1965. Those two decades were considered the Youngstown Playhouse’s glory years. When the Playhouse later fell on hard times, Lenhoff returned in 2004 and brought it out of financial distress.

“He loved coming back here and resurrecting the Playhouse again,” said Nancy Lenhoff. “I’m just so thrilled that they chose to honor Bentley in this way.”

She said her husband loved that the theater is being used by the Purple Cat, a local company that provides workshop services for special-needs adults. The Purple Cat has a theater department and stages one major production each year. This year’s show, “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” was its first to be staged at the Playhouse.

“How wonderful that the theater is being put to such good use,” Nancy Lenhoff said.

Brick said her father was one of those rare folks who was adept at handling both the business and creative aspects of running a theater.

“Dad was good at raising money and generating theater subscriptions,” she said.

He also realized that theater is art, and that art often involves sacrifice.

“He understood that in order to make art, you have to be a different kind of person. You might not be looked at as normal,” Brick said. “He taught us to embrace difference, whether in people or in things, because it’s the difference that makes art.”

Brick and Briggs said their father’s favorite play was Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” largely because of its symbolic use of a unicorn to embody feelings of peculiarity and abnormality often felt by artists. Kathy Appugliese and John Cox performed scenes from “The Glass Menagerie” during Saturday’s memorial. There were also performances by Rodd Coonce, James McClellan and Eric McClellan.

Bernie Appugliese credited Lenhoff with helping to nurture his own career in theater.

“I first came to the Playhouse when I was 9 years old,” Appugliese said. “I met Bentley, and I thought he was the meanest person alive. That lasted for about two days.”

The more time Appugliese spent at the theater, and around Lenhoff in particular, the more the two forged a bond that would span decades.

“He was one of those people who saw in me a future in the theater, and he mentored me,” Appugliese said, noting that Lenhoff took the time to explain to him the intricacies and nuances of theater, both on stage and behind the scenes. “He mentored me while he was in his 80s.”

Appugliese is a playwright and said he sent every play he’d ever written to Lenhoff, who reviewed them and offered suggestions for improvement. Four of those plays have been produced, Appugliese said.

“I think he’s proud of me,” Appugliese said. “I think he’s proud of me as an artist and as a successful performer, but I think he’s really proud of me for reviving the Playhouse and keeping it going.”

Appugliese said when he was cast as Playhouse director, the first congratulatory email he received was from Lenhoff.

“He said, ‘If you are successful, thank me.’ And the other thing he said was, ‘Be careful, because it will consume you.’ You know what? Both came true.”

Brick said her father was active in theater all over the country, sometimes as a performer, but most often as a director.

“But he loved it here,” she said of Youngstown and its Playhouse. “His soul was here.”