Followers of U.S. 1’s Preview section are well aware of the bylines of Simon Saltzman and LucyAnn Dunlap. Saltzman has reviewed plays in U.S. 1 for many years — reporting from Broadway and Off Broadway to Paper Mill to McCarter.
This week he was scheduled to review plays at both George Street and Crossroads. But the unfailingly reliable Simon Saltzman show did not go as planned. He alerted us last week that his wife of the past half century, LucyAnn Dunlap, had died. He vowed to be back reviewing soon, but for now he needed an intermission.
If anyone fits the definition of a trouper, it is Saltzman — and also Dunlap, who wrote dozens of feature stories for U.S. 1, most dealing with prominent theater people coming to town for appearances in plays in Princeton or New Brunswick. Her interview subjects included Sigourney Weaver, Marsha Mason, Sandy Duncan, Jack Klugman, Melba Moore, Beth Henley, and many others.
As Saltzman told us in an E-mail, “LucyAnn loved writing feature stories for you and had hoped to compile them in the near future for a book she was in the process of writing on contemporary women in the theater. She was teaching her classes in public speaking at Drew University up to a week before she died and also went to the theater with me up to one day before. She wouldn’t miss a show if possible. We enjoyed our 50 years together in what I consider a marriage made in heaven.”
For the rest of us, that marriage is one tough act to follow. Our condolences to Simon and the rest of the Saltzman family.
