A passion for enduring 42 years in a hateful job

Pere Garcia (Girona, 1946) knows the secret to enduring 42 years in a job as a payroll specialist, a job he absolutely hated and which he readily describes as odious. He handled payroll and employment contracts. His was a particularly unpleasant department because "I always had to side with the company owner," and if an employee ever came to me, "I also had to agree with them and navigate any conflicts." He acknowledges that his loyalty to the company, which began at age 16 after finishing secondary school, was also largely due to the fact that the company, the prestigious Cànovas consultancy in Girona, "was excellent, as were the owners, department heads, and colleagues." However, the determining factor in his long tenure was his great passion for his leisure time: musicals.

From zarzuela to the Little Shepherds

The obsession must have stemmed from his father, a railway worker, who took him to every zarzuela (a Spanish operetta) that played at the Girona Municipal Theatre when he was little. His mother, who worked at the Grober factory, was more into football. Pere Garcia quickly realized that his fluency in talking about theatre, film, and musicals wasn't useful for acting, where he had a few unsuccessful attempts. So he satisfied his itch by becoming a devoted fan of musicals, collecting records (he has a discography of some 2,000 recordings). And this last endeavor wasn't exactly easy, because amateur actors aren't very disciplined when it comes to learning their lines. When his son Jordi turned three, he sat him at his feet while he acted as a prompter. He enjoyed it so much that he wanted to take the plunge into acting, and over the years his son has ended up playing almost all the roles in the show. The family legacy continues.

Go see naked actors at Bocaccio

García has a wealth of anecdotes, such as when in 1970 he made his first trip to London, organized by the Bocaccio nightclub and the Gauche Divine of Barcelona, ​​to go and see Oh! Calcutta! and Hairwhich had caused a great deal of controversy because it featured full nudity of men and women on stage. "We went to London to see theater just as one might go to Perpignan to see banned films." The following year, Bocaccio's trip took him to New York for the first time. On the excursion to Niagara Falls, he met Núria Feliu, who recommended the play to him. Folliaswhich was about aging actresses who meet in a theater. "I was blown away. It was a stunning musical with a hundred people on stage." That's where his admiration for the composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim began, a name he knew from the film credits. West Side StoryGarcía, who had seen Sondheim at the Aribau cinema in Barcelona 15 times, each time requiring the train journey from Girona, sent Sondheim an admiring letter in his rudimentary English to a London theater where a new work had premiered. To his surprise, both Sondheim and the director, Harold Prince, replied with gratitude. This marked the beginning of a correspondence that continued for years. García kept Sondheim informed about productions of his musicals and radio and television programs where his songs were being played. When Mario Gas staged a production in 1995, García was thrilled to learn more about Sondheim's musical. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet StreetSondheim asked to see the play in the company of a certain Pere Garcia, whom the programmers at the Poliorama in Barcelona didn't know and had to locate by calling the Girona City Hall. Sondheim died on November 26, the same day Garcia died years ago.

With Fotogramas at Sara Montiel's wedding

García was a fervent admirer of the magazine Frameswho has now turned 80. "Back then, it was a window of freedom with great names like Joan Sagarra, Jaume Figueras, Maruja Torres, and Àngel Casas." The magazine raffled off a trip for readers to attend Sara Montiel and Pepe Tous's wedding, accompanying photographer Pilar Aymerich and journalist Maruja Torres. García suspects he was rigged to win, since he was a regular reader of the "Míster Belvedere" advice column, Jaume Figueras's legendary film section. "I was more excited to meet Maruja Torres than Sara Montiel, who by then had lost the glamour of her early days and had become a 'firecracker' who sang with a cigar and appeared on variety shows."

García was able to retire at 60, and now that he has just turned 80, he acknowledges that these last 20 years have been the best of his life. "I've been able to indulge my passion for musicals, but I also go to the cinema two or three times a week and I hardly miss a theatrical performance in Girona or Salt." He's seen shows in London about thirty times, a few times on Broadway, and twice a year he goes to the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid. He gets into many theaters for free as long as he writes a review. He's also been a radio contributor since the mid-70s, sometimes with his own segments. He currently has a program on Radio Girona FM with the bookseller Guillem Terribas.

The swan song on Broadway

García always told his family that before he died he wanted to return to New York, so for his 80th birthday they gave him what he himself describes as "his last trip to Broadway." His wife, children, and first grandchild will accompany him. They already have tickets for two shows. Chess and Ragtimewhich is perhaps the last great musical, a genre that Garcia believes has already sung its swan song. "There's a terrible crisis on Broadway. In recent years, the great playwrights have died, and there's no new talent. The current scripts are bad, the choreography is repetitive, and the music isn't creative either."