Alan Alda close-up at Ten Chimneys

Meeting Alan Alda is like running into an old friend after many years:  “How are you? What’s happening in your life?”

Then you realize you’ve never met this man. It’s Hawkeye Pierce, the character he embodied for 11 years in television’s M*A*S*H that you’re thinking of. The winning smile, the eyes that crinkle at the corners seem so familiar because you’ve watched this face and listened to this voice for 41 years. No wonder he seems like family.

It’s a perfect summer afternoon at Ten Chimneys, the storied residence of America’s legendary theater couple, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, in Genessee Depot. Ten actors from some of the best theater companies in the United States are here to participate in the Ten Chimneys Lunt-Fontanne fellowship program. These elite actors are studying with one of the nation’s most beloved actors in a setting designed for rest and rejuvenation. They will return to their own companies to teach what they’ve learned in Wisconsin.

Since the fellowship program began in 2009, participants have studied Shakespeare with master teachers Lynn Redgrave and Barry Edelstein; Chekhov with Olympia Dukakis; and American Musical Theatre with Joel Grey.

The focus of Alda’s teaching is spontaneity. How do you study spontaneity? And even more importantly, how do you teach it?

Alda says that he uses the games and exercises he learned from Viola Spolin and her son Paul Sills, who developed improvisational theater as a way to help actors develop creativity and self-expression. He sees improvisation as a way for actors to become better communicators, with one another and with the audience.

It’s a happy experience for him to see others blossom during the exercises.

“Life is lived in improvisation, adjusting to changes,” Alda said. “Everything has a twist and turn – it’s not a straight road.”

Alda founded the Center for Communicating Science at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in part to help scientists learn to become better communicators through improvisation.  Scientists are trained to be impersonal, Alda says. Teaching them the games and exercises of improvisation helps them to become more intuitive in how they relate to others.

Even at 77, Alan Alda seems to have the resume of someone much older. His career has gone from the world of vaudeville and burlesque, where he watched from the wings as his father, actor Robert Alda performed, to an award-winning career on Broadway, cinema and television. He is a gifted writer with two best-selling memoirs to his credit, as well as television episodes and screenplays.

He said the secret to the success of M*A*S*H and films like The Four Seasons, which he wrote and directed, was the interaction among the actors when they were off the set. The actors laughed and played jokes on each other all day, so they connected beyond the characters they portrayed. They became less self-conscious, more aware of the other actors.  It was, in other words, the essence of improv.

As he wrote in his 2005 memoir, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, the exercises of improvisation meant playing by certain rules.

“Concentrating on the rules kept you from concentrating on yourself, and as a result, things came out of you that were unexpectedly poignant and funny.”

Alda said he looked forward to coaching 10 of the best actors in the country at Ten Chimneys. He hoped that they would discover something new in themselves. “Working with these actors opens up new horizons for me, too.”

Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne devoted their lives to the theater and designed their home as they crafted their performances, with attention to detail and generosity to their audience.

Ten Chimneys President and CEO Randy Bryant says Alan Alda embodies the same core values as Lunt and Fontanne. “He’s a great teacher and mentor. He’s willing to share what he’s learned and that’s huge.”

As the press briefing concludes in the charming cottage-like building that Lunt and Fontanne called their studio, the sounds of laughter drift in from the nearby pool. The fellows are taking a break from their workshops. It’s easy to imagine how it must have been when the Lunts entertained here, when Noel Coward and Helen Hayes and Lawrence Olivier walked the oak-shaded grounds.

No ghosts, but echoes of bygone days – and the lasting spirit of fun and friendship which is the hallmark of lives well-lived.