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No, there's always something that works, no matter how bad the play is. It will be the set, or one acting performance is outstanding. Or the ushers. [Laughs.] There's always something that happens in a theater on opening night that's exciting.
ARE YOU A GOOD CRITIC IN TERMS OF PREDICTING WHAT'S GOING TO BE A HIT?
Good God, no. I go to the theater and I love the thing. I think it's a smash hit. I pick up the paper and realize I've seen a bomb. [Laughs.]
WHEN YOU DRAW PEOPLE, ARE YOU WORKING FROM HAVING SEEN THEM IN PERSON? DO PEOPLE POSE FOR YOU?
Yes. In most cases, people sit for me. Up until about five years ago, plays opened out of town--New Haven, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia--even as far away as Chicago. But in recent years they open cold in New York. In many cases, I don't get to see the show at all until opening night. But I do the drawings from costume sketches, scenery designs. I copy those, and then I put the characters in. They either come up here, or I go where they're rehearsing. So I have to kind of invent a drawing.
ARE YOU FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE IN THE THEATER?
Yes, it's a big family, actually.
YOU PUT NINA, YOUR DAUGHTER'S NAME, IN ALL YOUR WORK.
I put it in the day she was born, in 1945. I did it for the next three weeks. I thought the joke wore thin. Then I received mail from as far away as Alaska. I didn't realize that I was being scrutinized like that. So I put it back in.
WHERE IS THE REAL NINA NOW?
She's in Austin, has two children. I didn't realize it's a terrible thing to do to a child, to make a celebrity of her. People would say, "Oh, you're the Nina!" She doesn't get that in Texas. But after a few years, she realized that it was just affection. And it was impossible to stop it by then.
If I could have stopped it, I would have, to make her life a little more comfortable. She's accepted it now, and she's very proud of the fact I put in her name. That comes with being an adult. But as a child, that was rough.
HOW DO YOU MAKE IT TO 98 AND REMAIN IN SUCH GREAT SHAPE AND WORK EVERY DAY? WHAT'S THE SECRET?
The secret is genes, I think. I had nothing to do with it. [My parents] lived to 91 and 93. I've never exercised. I have no special diet. Anything that's given to me I eat.
ON A BAD DAY, DOES DRAWING EVER FEEL LIKE WORK TO YOU?
No, it's a luxury. Work is something you don't like to do.