WESTBROOK, Maine — The seem of impassioned, felt-tipped markers squawking and scratching above poster boards crammed the air within Danny Cashman’s dressing space a several hours prior to a taping of “The Nite Show” at the city’s undertaking arts centre previous thirty day period.
Cashman, who hosts the late evening tv method, was in a hurry, hunched above a batch of cue cards, struggling to complete them before showtime. But he saved finding distracted.
A musical guest was late, then took way way too lengthy at seem examine. An additional experienced to be picked up at a resort just as a neighborhood television information crew confirmed up to interview Cashman. Two enormous cups of espresso then arrived, each loaded with cream and sugar, even even though Cashman can take it black. He drank one particular in any case. After that, Cashman called a radio station and did a dwell promo location for his exhibit.
Then there was his hair.
“Ugh. It appears to be like like I stole a hippy’s toupe,” Cashman stated, glancing in a mirror.
Concerning the interruptions, he held scribbling absent at the cue cards, harried but clearly obtaining a ball.
“I adore this,” Cashman, 46, claimed. “I continue to love carrying out all of this.”
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Regardless of the love, Cashman is contacting it quits, pulling the plug on the country’s only domestically developed late evening television talk show, which he commenced 27 many years — and pretty much 700 episodes — ago as a 19-yr-outdated college freshman in Brewer.
Cashman is performing it now because, he explained, it’s just time — and also because there’s not more than enough time.
Splitting life in between internet hosting “The Nite Show,” operating a working day occupation in community relations and becoming a dad to 9- and 12-year-previous daughters has come to be as well considerably. One thing has to go, and that’s the present, which can easily increase 40 several hours to his by now stuffed weekly timetable. Cashman not only hosts the show, he does the reserving, writes most of the jokes and even sells the industrial slots which pay for it.
As Cashman started the clearly show that evening in Westbrook, his oldest daughter manufactured her stage debut as a squirrel for the Penobscot Theater Organization in Bangor. He wasn’t there to see it.
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“That didn’t really feel good,” he reported, a week later. “I know perform can generate those people forms of predicaments. But that’s function. This is the demonstrate. It doesn’t spend my home loan.”
Even though Cashman is apparent-eyed about his final decision, offering up the exhibit signifies providing up a childhood dream arrive legitimate.
It was born when late-night time tv communicate demonstrate host David Letterman moved into the 11:30 p.m. time slot on CBS in 1993, heading head-to-head with Jay Leno on NBC in a struggle to fill the void still left when Johnny Carson retired. For teenage Cashman, Letterman was the distinct winner.
“I watched him each and every evening. I was rest deprived. That was the era when Drew Barrymore flashed Letterman on his desk, when Madonna went on the present and wouldn’t end swearing and wouldn’t go away,” Cashman explained. “As a child who favored tv and liked to chortle, Letterman created it appear like it was a little something anybody could do.”
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By 1997, 19-year-outdated Cashman was the mascot for the Bangor Blue Ox slight league baseball team which experienced a demonstrate on WBGR, Bangor’s community WB Community television station. There, the bold teen created connections, then hustled and talked his way into his individual display, which was taped at a Brewer theater.
The demonstrate lasted two several years, heading off the air in 1999.
In the meantime, Cashman graduated from the University of Maine in 2000, then brought “The Nite Show” back for a calendar year on Bangor’s UPN affiliate in 2001. Cashman then labored in community radio for a spell ahead of having a job as Gov. John Baldacci’s assistant press secretary in 2005.
In 2010, however pursuing his soon after-hours tv dream, Cashman partnered with Husson College’s New England University of Communications to make a slicker, extra experienced edition of “The Nite Display.” Taped at the faculty’s state-of-the-artwork broadcast facilities at the Gracie Theater, Cashman’s 50 percent-hour plan now airs weekly on broadcast stations in Portland, Presque Isle and Bangor.
It’s the only nearby, late night communicate clearly show of its kind in the place.
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Taping dozens of times a yr, each in Bangor and at other destinations all-around the state, hundreds of communications pupils have helped make Cashman’s demonstrate considering the fact that then, with numerous likely on to expert careers in tv and theater.
“NESCom will article photographs of learners all the time who are performing at some significant tour, the Grammy Awards, the Tremendous Bowl or the Olympics,” Cashman reported. “I often look at them and say, ‘That human being worked on “The Nite Present.”’ It seriously is a powerful supply of satisfaction for me.”
The demonstrate capabilities a stay band and a common late-evening combine of comedic monologues, zany pre-taped sketches, musical performances and guiding-the-desk interviews with attention-grabbing Mainers and famous people — an eclectic blend that has included Patrick Dempsey, Ed Asner, Gov. Paul LePage and Noel Paul Stookey.
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On the night of the Westbrook taping, Cashman delivered his monologue standing on a tile procured from David Letterman’s New York Town theater. He then confirmed a taped sketch parodying the very long-managing tv exhibit “Law and Order,” where by he pretended to arrest Maine broadcast icon Bill Green.
Afterwards, Cashman called two gals up from the viewers and persuaded a person to hit the other in the confront with a pie. He then interviewed Westbrook basketball legend Lisa Blais Manning ahead of introducing Tom “Bones” Malone, who was sitting in on trombone with the house band. Malone was after component of Letterman’s band, as well as a member of the Blues Brothers band.
At one particular position, amid the merriment onstage, Cashman stated to the viewers that the Westbrook visual appearance was to be his last road taping, as he winds down the demonstrate.
“It’s the initially of several lasts,” he explained, in advance of emotion overcame him for a instant.
Cashman won’t formally finish the demonstrate until eventually upcoming spring, but he devised a extensive exit ramp, so as not to surprise the university. He also desires time to tie up every single unfastened end and rejoice every single “last” on his list.
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When the Westbrook present was about, Cashman raced to the foyer, wherever he shook hands and took selfies with supporters as they remaining the auditorium. Numerous stood in line to get a non-public second and say they’d miss him.
“You do good do the job Danny Cashman,” one particular male bellowed on his way out.
Later on, the visibly spent host sat in his dressing home, coat off, with a bottle of h2o, amid a stack of expended cue playing cards. A colleague breezed in, giving him a brief hug.
“I guess I acquired a minor misty there onstage,” Cashman said. “I’m sensation it — it’s hard to allow go of a thing you like.”
Cashman then picked up his cell phone, and checked his messages. There was one particular waiting: His daughter’s two-line phase debut as a squirrel went nicely.
He didn’t overlook her 2nd functionality.