In 1977, white slavist Barnaby Sicherman delivered to the world the first born of his brother Jake. A boy of three with hair like a lion's mane and the voice of a three-year-old Bing Crosby, David Sicherman stunned audiences from the start. Initially sold to the Manhattan Theater Company for $23,000, he made his Broadway debut in Our Town starring a young Joyce Lovestream in the role of Emily Webb. It was the late 1970s and Artistic Director James H. Mhirr was beginning to experiment with nontraditional casting. The young lover George Gibbs was played by Broadway veteran and octogenarian Dennis Huck and the role of the stage manager, the play's narrator, was given to three-year-old Sicherman. The remainder of the cast was made up of trained cats who started and stopped tape recorders that played their lines, all with the voice of Miss Valerie Harper.

The Sicherman child was an instant sensation, and Broadway audiences around the world (though mostly around Broadway) began clamoring for more.

Then tragedy struck.

In a performance in late December of 1977, David Sicherman fell down. The fall wasn't rough, just a little bounce on his bottom, but the event so startled him that he lost his newly gained control of his functions and messed himself.

"It was a terrible night for theater." Director Martha Face told the New York Times in a 1979 interview. "Very few actors can get away with defecating on stage, and Richard Burton he ain't."

When reached for comment, Sicherman told the Times, "I made poopers." As it happens, he also told the audience.

Theatergoers were disgusted, but the unflappable Sicherman continued with his performance even though his diaper rash had gotten so bad that he could hardly walk. A week later the show closed, and he was sold back to his uncle Barnaby for $800 and pair of Knicks floor seats.

©2002

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