Lydia DesRoche has trained dogs, kittens, goats, chickens, rats and snakes for Broadway. She believes you can train fish. I asked. She, or more accurately her trainees, have worked with the likes of Nathan Lane, F. Murray Abraham, Stockard Channing, Megan Mullally, James Franco, Chris O’Dowd, Marisa Tomei, James Earl Jones, Rose Byrne, Lea Salonga, Elizabeth Ashley, Annaleigh Ashford, Johanna Day, Julie Halston, Matthew Broderick, Byron Jennings, Mark Linn-Baker, Kristine Nielsen, and Reg Rogers. These animal actors have been featured in The Rose Tattoo at Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Odyssey at Shakespeare in the Park, and on Broadway in: You Can’t Take it With You; It’s Only a Play; Once on This Island and Of Mice and Men. And to think, not one of these Broadway fur or feather babies attended Yale or Julliard. Not bad.
Lydia and Guillermo, an Eclectus parrot, doing a Zoom interview with the author
And not bad for DesRoche who has become a sought-after animal trainer across media, but especially in theatre, where, for a long time, the entire field consisted of one man— Bill Berloni, who at 19 trained his first dog while apprenticing as an actor at Goodspeed Opera. That dog, Sandy in the original production of Annie, was the first live animal used in a Broadway show. Enter DesRoche, his female counterpart, clearly benefiting from Berloni’s legacy, as more and more shows pursue the inclusion of live animals. In Berloni’s case, he came to animal training by chance and developed his skills over decades, even earning Tony recognition for his contribution. DesRoche comes to Broadway out of decades of animal training. So how did this seemingly sane, funny (Can I say “gorgeous?”) woman end up living on the Upper West Side with a menagerie of seemingly incompatible critters for roommates?
Lydia with client, Milton Photo: Miriam Berkley
DesRoche grew up in New Orleans, spending much of her time in her mother’s pet shop. (She taught her hamster to fetch.) They spent three months of the year in her mother’s home country of Honduras, where little Lydia connected with farm animals, developing close friendships with goats — until they were dinner. She carried a chicken under her arm all summer; the locals called her, “La Gringa Loca.” That she would become one of the most highly sought-after animal trainers, especially in the performing arts, might seem inevitable, however the road was circuitous. She started out as a highly sought-after aerobics instructor, at the prestigious Vertical Club which catered to celebrities and other affluent, work hard/play hard clientele. There she interacted with a wide swath of the Broadway community, from actors to producers. In her spare time she became increasingly involved in animal rescue, even co-founding a rescue group, A Cause for Paws, which got a lot of attention, in part because she recruited her colleagues, other fitness instructors as volunteers. At that time DesRoche focused her interest in animal training on modifying the behaviors that might prohibit shelter dogs and cats from being homed. DesRoche found many of the skills that made her a distinguished aerobic instructor translated to working with animals: observational skills, communication, patience, quick reflexes, understanding the potential and limitations of each client.
Above all, she found herself endlessly fascinated by the ever-evolving field of animal training, and even now, at the top of her field, having been mentored by some of the biggest names in the biz, she continues to read very widely, and to take workshops and attend conferences. That only increased during the pandemic, as many more educational opportunities were suddenly accessible from home. With all that expertise, her most important insight is the basic tenet of acting: the importance of listening, being present and reacting to each individual animal.
A priority of her training philosophy is to understand, appreciate and work with and not against the given circumstances of each. Humans often impose unrealistic expectations on their dogs. For example, people adopt purpose-bred dogs, then want them to behave in ways alien to their genetic code. “We’ve made it bad for them to be who they are, to do what they are bred to do. Dachshunds are bred to bark and hunt badgers. We bred that useful skill into them and now complain when they do what we bred them to do. Hey, if you don’t have badgers for them to chase, you better make sure they have some other outlet for that energy or they are going to follow their genetic imperatives. Lap dogs were bred to sit on the laps of people to attract fleas away from them. So why be surprised if they have separation anxiety when they are kept from your lap? Great Pyrenees were bred to fight wolves and to keep them away from the sheep. They are bred to guard and protect, but now their charges are not sheep but, say, children. They will protect those kids at the cost of their own lives, but if other children approach they may be perceived as threats and could get bitten. These are not bad dogs. They are doing doing exactly what we bred them to do. Many breeds are meant to chase birds or vermin, to run free for hours a day, to work, and now they are kept on a short leash and expected to submit to all kinds of procedures like being groomed. Their needs extend beyond food and water. They need adequate sleep— 20 hours a day for a puppy, 14 for adult dogs. They need to feel safe. And they need time running off leash. If they don’t have these things, it’s no wonder that they become aggressive— towards other dogs and even their owners. And, I mean, do you really want an Anatolian Shepard as an animal companion in the city? Of course, uninformed or misguided choices are commonplace and understandable, and lack of understanding about the specifics of a breed keeps me in business.…”
Grace with Jake upstage By permission Lydia DesRoche
The point is to understand and respect the features of your dog’s breed and work with that, not against it, providing sufficient and appropriate mental and physical stimulation. In one case, DesRoche fitted an obstreperous and freakishly strong pit bull with a specially-made pulling harness that would work the dog’s muscles in a balanced way. (Caution: Weighted vests can stress joints and unbalance muscles.) “If they are properly fitted, they can pull weight behind them and use their bodies naturally and comfortably to get energy out. That dog used to drag my laundry to my friend’s place to get washed. It was a nice arrangement!” For some foraging dogs it means a variety of games and puzzles, and making them work to dig out treats.
Conventional training often depends heavily on corrections but DesRoche believes the better method is to reinforce good behavior. If a dog barks at the sound of an elevator and the owner says, “Bad dog!” just giving that measure of attention may have the opposite of the desired effect. Many are flummoxed by the idea of rewarding the dog for “doing nothing.” But rewarding the dog when he is manifesting the desired behavior— being quiet— is more effective in the long run.
DesRoches was “discovered” by a resourceful company manager who found her trick group on the site Do More With Your Dog, which offers certification for different levels of trickery and even helps you get your dog into the movies. (Check out the site; it’s a gas!) DesRoche was invited to audition for the 2014 production of Of Mice and Men with her then dog Blue, a pittie mix she rescued from a Harlem junkyard as a pup who was then fourteen years old. Fortuitously, it turned out that one of the producers was an ex-client. This was DesRoche’s first big break into the business of show.
In the play, the farm hands keep pressuring the old man Candy to end the life of his beloved old dog because he can’t move easily, or perform his herding tasks anymore, and because he smells awful. Eventually the dog is taken out and shot, foreshadowing later events. DesRoche needed to cast two old dogs—an understudy was required— that looked like they were on their last legs; “Essentially the dog had to lie down and look decrepit.” Blue was a natural. “He loved interacting and performing, but he loved car rides more than anything in the world and he got to ride in a pet taxi each day. It absolutely extended his life. Probably gave him another year.” Ironically, Blue had too much difficulty getting up and lying down; “He was too decrepit to play decrepit.” It became a distraction and so Blue had his Margo Channing moment when his understudy, Eve Harrington, I mean Violet, rose to the occasion; at a mere ten years of age, she could look decrepit but get up and lie down at a speed appropriate to the play’s pacing. Fortunately Blue continued on as understudy, and every night a wrangler would run through the scenes with him in real time downstairs from the stage on a simulated set.
Violet from Of Mice and Men
In all situations, a big part of the training is really conditioning the animals to not respond to stimuli. DesRoche taped the scenes and the audience sounds and played them over an over again, starting at an almost inaudible level, increasing volume until the animal performers are inured and blasé. At that Violet succeeded absolutely. DesRoche also sought to make her so comfortable and familiar with the actors that she didn’t react to them, so Violet was a constant presence in The Green Room. Unfortunately that provoked two unexpected outcomes. First, Violet became smitten to the point of obsession with actor Jim Norton and would climb the fire escape to the window of the actor’s dressing room and make lip smacking noises until he put his head out of the window— a stalker! Secondly, Violet became so friendly with the actors that she would greet them onstage. Eventually she had to be sequestered in her own dressing room until her scenes, but since the actors missed a canine presence, DesRoche’s Jack Russell Grace was volunteered as a substitute Green Room mascot.
As for the critical reception of Violet, much to DesRoche’s discomfort, she was the performer most lauded by Ben Brantley in his New York Times review:
Though Mr. Franco musters a single, perfect tear for the play’s tragic climax, I only came close to shedding one. That was in the first act, when a dog (a real one) is led offstage to be shot because it stinks. That dog seemed to have true fear and bewilderment in its eyes. It felt, well, human, in a way none of the people did, and my heart sank when I knew it wouldn’t be coming back.
Grace takes her bow at the curtain of It’s Only a Play
Later, when another show was casting, the stage manager remembered Grace and that is how she was recruited for her own stage premiere in It’s Only a Play. The dog mauls various characters offstage (for which Squid, another of DesRoche’s clients, recorded the “bark-overs”) and then buttons the show by being seen for the first time at the curtain call, running onstage and leaping onto the chaise next to Megan Mullally. What could go wrong? (Nothing did. Grace is a pro.)
DesRoche wanted the opportunity to work professionally with other animals but when the opportunity came along to work with rats for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, she was “beyond terrified.” So of course, she did it, housing seven rats at a time in massive cages in her own home. She trained Grace, a Jack Russell Terrier— a breed bred to hunt vermin— to run to a spot away from the cages when they were let out. Rats have short lives— one or two years, and when one of them died, DesRoche was shattered, and also concerned about the response of the other rats. She ordered a whole cooked Bronzino (not making this up) to treat them and cheer them up, but the rats wouldn’t come near the food— or her. She burst into tears. Then the rats did the most unexpected thing; they came out and ran over to her and began licking her tears, trying to console her. It was a revelatory moment for her, grasping the depth of their capacity to empathize and offer comfort.
Toby and her castmate from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Toby the Rat, featured in The Curious Incident… was cross-gender cast. “He” did 500 performances and then developed tumors, as they do, and was replaced. Toby was, as it happens, a caffeine junkie who would go to extremes to get her fix. She would knock over a vase of flowers and as DesRoche rushed to right the situation, Toby would dash over to her coffee cup, knock that over and imbibe the spilled contents. The ruse never failed.
Our conversation strayed to the seemingly expansive rat population in the streets and DesRoche explained that poison was not an effective method of curbing the growth. “Rats will have larger litters when their numbers are threatened. So will raccoons. And since there will always be garbage, there will always be rats. The better strategy is birth control. And poison and poisoned rats pose a threat to other creatures that might eat them, like owls. Or dogs.” So how is birth control performed on rats? They ingest it the same way they ingest poison, delivered through those creepy boxes we see all around the city. (Knowing this it seems both imprudent and inhumane to not provide birth control rather than poison, especially since the latter is ineffective long term.)
In the London production of The Curious Incident…, Toby the Rat never made an appearance, however in the New York production, “he” was trained to poke “his” head out of his carrier when the young protagonist opened it and to kiss the boy. Which he did. Most of the time. It was sometimes a source of tension to keep Toby in check so he would not distract from the human actors sharing the scene. Then there was the time Toby ran amok. The night Julie Andrews was in the audience, Toby must have caught wind of it and perhaps hoped to get a shot at an appearance in the Mary Poppins sequel. (I’m guessing “he” didn’t read the trades and was unaware that Emily Blunt was now in the role.) That night Toby not only popped “his” head out, but even emerged in “his” entirety and ran up to the boy’s shoulder, and around his back and down his arm and up the other arm and around his shoulder— gnawing the scenery and making for an uncomfortable moment with an actor who felt rodentially upstaged.
Generally, DesRoche notes, a focus of training is ensuring the actors are not in fact upstaged, at least as much as possible; here less really is more. This is achieved, as you might imagine, by providing high value rewards— like chicken (not for the chickens, of course) so they learn to not react but instead to wait quietly for treats. Getting kittens to sit complacently on the desk of the character played by Kristine Nielsen in You Can’t Take It With You may not seem a great feat, but add James Earl Jones as Grandpa and actual fireworks to the scene and it becomes quite a challenge.
As mentioned before, DesRoche acclimates the animals by playing the recordings of the scenes over and over. In this way many learn their cues so well that they will leap into their carriers to be conveyed to the stage in anticipation of their scenes. Toby the Rat routinely leapt into “his” stage carrier unbidden when “five minutes” was called. DesRoche relishes the enthusiasm but it can be a liability at times. The puppy in The Curious Incident… , hearing his cue, tried to run right out onstage and required an attentive SM or wrangler to be on guard. Violet almost ran across the stage in an intimate scene between Franco and O’Dowd in Of Mice and Men.
“It’s important that they want to be on stage. I mean, everyone else has chosen to be there.“
The kittens in You Can’t Take It With You were fairly blasé; “It’s their whole life. It’s all they know. Sitting on stage eating turkey. So to them it’s natural.” (The kittens, by the way, were fired every month as they matured beyond ingenues, but the good news is they were all adopted from the show, as were the puppies and snakes— often by actors, their friends, audience members and even the theatre bartender.) The dog playing Argos in the Shakespeare in the Park production of The Odyssey, enjoyed “his” time onstage a bit too much. As you might recall, Argos is ancient. He’s been waiting twenty years for his master Odysseus to return to Ithaca. He has just enough energy to raise his head slightly when he recognizes his disguised master, and to thump his tail before expiring. In the stage version Argos doesn’t die, but neither should he have a fit of “Zoomies,” taking victory laps around the stage as did Linnea, the actor dog who was a longtime private client of DesRoche. Adjustments were made. And then there were the snakes that were fired from You Can’t Take It With You for being “too snakey;” they were replaced by less animated reptiles. Broadway fur babies all, basking in the limelight…
The old adage that 90% of directing is casting (attributed variously to Robert Altman, Elia Kazan and others), certainly applies with animals, according to DesRoche. “It’s important that they want to be on stage. I mean, everyone else has chosen to be there.” If it’s a source of stress rather than pleasure, DesRoche will replace the animals. It’s clear to DesRoche and all the collaborators when the animals love the attention. Her own dog Grace, whenever they are in a theatre, misses no opportunity to run up on stage. “I think she would love to be on The Red Carpet at the Tonys.”
Sparky and Peapod take a selfie with Lydia
Of course a great deal of strategy is dedicated to the elimination of the unpredictable —as much as possible— and that brings us to poop. (Hey, you were thinking about it.) For dogs, goats, rats, chickens… pooping onstage is not in the stage directions and rarely functions in a way that is dramaturgically beneficial. So a lot of care is given to when things go in, so they come out before “Places!” As with all animal training, anxiety is the enemy of performance. If the animals sense it and they will be unable to perform the simplest tasks, like peeing, much less the more lofty tricks. (“You have to work without expectations.”) With a consistent schedule and relaxed attitude, elimination was generally successfully managed. Except. The. Goats. They had be be fitted with diapers in Once On This Island. “And they are impossible to fit! They have no waist!” It took a genius celebrity stylist to solve the problem by MacGyvering a prototype of a contraption that was part Spanx and had a sock attached to the tail. It was a marvel, however the diapers still sometimes leaked, and all DesRoche could do was to hand rubber gloves to the barefoot actors who had to remove poop from the set which was covered with sand. A new twist on the traditional exclamation of, “Merde!”
DesRoche is involved in casting, training, wrangling, but she is equally an advocate for the animals safety and comfort. The actors were almost uniformly charmed by the animals and sensitive to their needs, but once in a while one might need a gentle reminder not to shout in a puppy’s face when emoting. In one case, an actor had to be disabused of the merits of throwing water in the face of an animal for a laugh.
Lovell from the cast of Once On This Island By permission L. DesRoche
DesRoche sets the tone for respecting the animal scene partners and it brought out the best in the casts. In Once On This Island, she invited the actors to name the chickens. When they offered “KFC” and “Popeye,” Alex Newell, who just won a Tony Award, steered them away from consumption-related monikers and, at his suggestion, they were instead named after the Dreamgirls. That created quite a different dynamic.
Sometimes DesRoche has to enlighten producers who look at an animal and think, “Why should we pay a goat?” They don’t always immediately grasp how labor and time intensive it is to feature live animals onstage. For DesRoche it’s 24-7. Many of the animals are housed in her own home, and she has to transport them to the theatre well in advance of the show, and from the theatre after. She has to attend rehearsals and provide ongoing training outside of rehearsals. She’s there for eight shows a week. She has to deal with vet appointments, grooming, food, etc. All the while she is taking time away from a vigorous and remunerative private clientele. If she has more than one show at a time, she has to pay for wranglers. While a producer may be happy to provide a star with a new carpet or a couch for his or her dressing room, sparing no expense, it may be a struggle to get the producer to provide a dressing room with a sink for the animals. Sometimes it’s hard to convey that the animals need a lot of rehearsal time and that time costs in terms of space, personnel and labor. “If highly trained actors need a lot of rehearsal, why would totally inexperienced animals not?” It’s a learning curve for producers to learn the unexpected details of what is involved in using live animals in a show. “Some producers don’t understand why I can’t take public transportation at 11 PM with several cages of puppies, snakes or rats, or whatever…” Eventually, says DesRoche, they realize that the goats or chickens or dogs are not there solo.”
Sometimes a great theatrical moment is sacrificed because of the logistics, because it involves too much hardship for the animals. “Their job is to worry about the bottom line. Mine is to care for the animals.” An interesting fact: Goats and other farm animals are not permitted to stay in the city overnight by prohibition from the USDA and Department of Health. So that means a significant commute to a farm. A producer on Once On This Island wanted the goats to stay for the curtain call, a seemingly reasonable and adorable idea. But the goats make their appearances in the first twenty-five minutes of the show, and that would require staying an additional two hours, actually more because they would have to wait until the audience dissipated or the animals would be mauled by them on exiting the theatre. And since all the theaters let out at roughly the same time, the traffic would be intense, meaning the goats would be penned in their vehicle for a long time on their way back to the farm where they were staying. Almost always once DesRoche explains, the resolution is amicable. But having to thwart a creative idea is no picnic, especially when it’s generated by your employer.
Homeward Bound: Petunia, Cooper, Clancy from The Curious Incident… Photo: Lydia DesRoche
What complicates matters, in the theatre and in her private practice, is that there is such an abundance of information about animal training online, on television, in books— it has become a very popular subject for amateurs— that many people think they are just as qualified as highly trained professionals. “These days everyone watches “The Dog Whisperer” and thinks he or she is an animal trainer. I watch Bobby Flay but I don’t claim to be a professional chef.” Both clients and theatre-makers are usually quickly disabused of this misapprehension, but it can be a wearying process for DesRoche.
DesRoche has warm relationships with actors, directors, stage managers, company managers, and most producers. She thrives in the theatre milieu and says she learns a great deal about animal training from watching directors, which is in no way to imply a comparison between actors and performing animals. She studies the artistry involved in cultivating and building on the best elements of performance, the attentiveness in observation, the sensitivity in interaction, the power of positive reinforcement. And giving star-struck critters time in the spotlight, knowing they are enjoying the hell out of it, gives her great satisfaction.
Grace and Alice Photo: Lydia DesRoche
In all her activities, DesRoche says she is constantly surprised by the depth of intelligence and feeling of the animals she works with, as well as their ingenuity. She spoke of the runaway rabbit she was called upon to rescue by a friend who runs a sanctuary in Catskill. Her friend was shocked when, after two weeks of trying himself without success, DesRoche managed to capture Alice, who turned out to be a cis gender male later called “Bob.” Bob convalesced at DesRoche’s home after a veterinary procedure and never left. A blessing for Bob since in the wild, rabbits have a life expectancy of 7-24 months, in captivity 10-12 years. He became a close friend to her own Jack Russell Grace, even though the breed is coded to be a predator of small animals. “I trained Grace to go to a certain spot when Bob was let out of the cage. Bob was initially confused when this predator acted quite opposite of what would be expected, running away from ‘prey’ instead of towards. He was intrigued and began chasing Grace. Eventually the two just began to interact and bond.” Bob and Grace walked in tandem, played together and cuddled. Bob imitated Grace and actually taught himself a few tricks. DesRoche taught Grace to go to her toy mailbox and retrieve a piece of play mail and bring it to her; Bob followed suit— unsolicited. A colleague of DesRoche was so impressed by Bob’s behavior that she stopped using “meat” rabbits to feed other animals in her sanctuary and declared them all “pet” rabbits. DesRoche currently has three of the rescued rabbits in her home. You should see the artful labyrinth of crates furnishing their sizable quarters. She is a fierce advocate for bunny birth control, because they multiply like, well, you know…
Ultimately, DesRoche has trained humans—onstage and off— to collaborate with, rather than dominate, animals. Her wonder, delight, curiosity about and respect for animals is instructive and contagious. While we were talking via FaceTime, one of the dogs in my care barked annoyingly and I told him to be quiet in an authoritative voice. DesRoche suggested instead I thank the dog. I did so. She said she didn’t believe me therefore neither would the dog. I dug a bit deeper into my thespian past and tried again, more convincingly. The dog stopped barking. And I swear he smiled.
At the moment DesRoche, unsurprisingly vegan, lives with the bunnies Asaka, Timoune and Armand, as well as Guillermo the bright green Eclectus, a parrot with electric blue accents, and Grace the ten pound Jack Russell. But who knows what the next show will bring home? It’s a good thing Life of Pi used puppets for the hyena, orangutan and tiger. Just saying…
You can find Lydia DesRoche on Instagram @lydia.d or through her website SIT STAY DOG TRAINING
Susan Jonas has served as a production dramaturg, festival curator, adapter, producer, director and activist. She was: Director of Humanities and Education at The Acting Company; Resident Dramaturg at Classic Stage Company; Founder/Director of The Knickerbocker Studio; Executive Producer at Classical Theatre of Harlem; and Managing Director at Ensemble Studio Theatre. For a decade she was Theatre Arts Analyst at the New York State Council on the Arts, where she led a three-year research initiative which culminated in the seminal “Report on the Status of Women in Theatre.”
She founded The Legacy Project, dedicated to restoring the contribution of women to history, the canon and the living repertory; co-founded “50/50 in 2020,” a grassroots advocacy enterprise dedicated to achieving parity for women in theatre, awarded New York Theater Experience’s 2010 Person of the Year.; co-founded and curated “On Her Shoulders,” in partnership with The New School, featuring neglected plays by women. Jonas co-edited Dramaturgy in American Theatre and The LMDA Sourcebook, and has written for Theatre, Theatre Journal and American Theatre magazines. Jonas has been a guest lecturer/scholar at numerous theatres and universities, including The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, and taught at New York University, Princeton, University of New Hampshire, SUNY-Purchase, Hunter College, and Ithaca College, where she created the first dramaturgy program. She co-founded and served as Co-President of LMDA University Caucus ; Co-Founder/Co-Chair of American Theatre in Higher Education Dramaturgy Forum; and board member emeritus of The League of Professional Theatre Women and The Women’s Project.
WIT journal 