Remembering David Bolt for dedication to Cedar Rapids arts endeavors

CEDAR RAPIDS — David Bolt, the life of the party on the stage and on the air, is being remembered for his kindness and caring, too.

Bolt, 83, of Cedar Rapids, died Oct. 18, 2024.

“He was not risk-averse, which is why he waited for me to be out of town before he went AWOL from Terrace Glen Village nursing facility and back to his apartment, and that’s when he started his rapid decline,” which lasted about a month, said Steve Ginsberg, one of his closest friends and caretakers, along with his former spouse Megan Turner Ginsberg. They and Gerard Estella, all of Cedar Rapids, were with him when he peacefully died, less than 24 hours into hospice care.

“We felt very honored to have been in the role of caretakers for him and ushering him forward into whatever’s next,” Turner Ginsberg told The Gazette. “He passed with show tunes in the air, surrounded by loving friends, and really, friends that were his family.”

His roots in the local arts community ran deep, stretching to his childhood and continuing at Jefferson High School, under legendary teacher and theatrical director Bob Geuder. Even after Bolt graduated, he was asked to continue participating in summer all-city high school musicals, which helped foster a friendship with the Geuder family for the rest of his life.

Bolt found his way to the Cedar Rapids Community Theatre stage in the former Strand Theatre, on the footprint of today’s NewBo City Market. In 1983, he organized moving the community troupe to its new home in the Iowa Theatre Building, now known as Theatre Cedar Rapids. He served the company in two stints, as managing director from 1981-1983 and later as development director under managing director Richard Barker.

“When I first came to town, there was this real strong group of theater folk that I always imagined came from Bob Geuder,” said Barker, who retired at the end of 2007, after 26 years with Theatre Cedar Rapids. He and his family now live in Phoenix.

“You couldn’t not like him,” Barker said. “I always thought he was a very caring man.”

He always had a joke, and loved a good party.

“I always used to joke with him, ‘Do you carry balloons in your trunk, just waiting for a party to come?’ There was an era when people were saying things like, ‘What’s your sign?’ He would always say, ‘Slippery when wet,’ with a cigar in one hand,” Barker recalled.

Bolt appeared in more than 50 productions between the theater’s two homes, as well as in the sold-out musicals in the Paramount Theatre. While he gravitated toward comedy, he confided to Barker that he really wanted to do non-comedic roles, but no one would ever cast him in those.

“He carried that mantle of Mr. Funny Man, kind of the Tim Boyle or Scott Schulte of his era. Everybody expected him to be funny, to light up a room (and) he fostered that. He made that happen,” Barker said. “He was our ‘shank of the evening’ guy.”

He did get to step into a dramatic role, portraying Big Daddy in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” performed on Brucemore’s outdoor stage in July 2001.

“The beauty I found in community theater … is that you have people who are playing the roles that are of that age, and the believability factor just jumps so much,” said Turner Ginsberg, who played Maggie in that production under hot summer night skies. “To see David sweating as Big Daddy, and you're wondering if he’s going to have a heart attack at any minute — that’s Big Daddy, right? He could physically encompass and represent the intention of the role.”

His comedy chops were in full display in The Follies. He was part of the founding company, and appeared in 24 shows between 1980 and 2008. “I eagerly awaited the show each year to see what zaniness he’d be up to,” former producer Jen Boettger posted on the Follies Alumni Family’s Facebook page. “Such a generous, joyful soul. He’ll be missed by so many.”

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His interests went beyond the stage. He was an in-demand emcee, host and guest auctioneer for a variety of local fundraising events. And throughout his career, he sold everything from sheet music to appliances and electronics to advertisements, and solicited donations and funding sources while on the Theatre Cedar Rapids staff. An old-school salesman, he called on clients in person, talking about theater, asking about their family, saving the money pitch almost as an afterthought on his way out the door, turning around and saying, “How much can we count on you for,” noted Turner Ginsberg, who accompanied him on one such sales call.

Bolt’s final job was a two-pronged track at KMRY radio, selling ads even before starting his popular “Music of Broadway and Hollywood” show, which aired for 25 years, beginning when Rick Sellers bought the station in 1998. The show continued after Sellers sold KMRY in 2021. The two also teamed up to broadcast Cedar Rapids Municipal Band concerts from 1998 to 2022, when Bolt retired.

Giving Bolt a show tunes show was an easy decision for Sellers.

“He had a vast knowledge of show biz, movies, television. It was bigger than life,” said Sellers, of Cedar Rapids. “He knew everything about everybody, and he got tickets through his connections on the West Coast for the last ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ and then was handed the script signed by everybody on the show. He kept that until last year (when) he sold it to a collector here.

“He brought his vast knowledge to our airwaves and especially to the hearts of a lot of people who may not even normally listen.”

Fittingly, the last musical he saw in person was “The Light in the Piazza,” which Theatre Cedar Rapids staged at Brucemore in August. He told The Gazette it was one of his favorite recordings to play on the air, so he was especially thrilled to be there. But the night grew unseasonably cold, so Ginsberg took him home at intermission. He eventually returned to see Act II on a different day.

Ginsberg also took him to New York City in January 2023, for Bolt’s second trip to Broadway, after first going there in 1979.

“David said, ‘Steve, I want to go to New York before I die, and I want you to go with me.’ ”

They saw “The Music Man” first, with third-row center seats, then “MJ: The Musical” the second day, from first-row center. They went outside to the back of the theater after “Music Man,” in hopes of meeting the stars. Bolt caught Hugh Jackman’s attention, and Ginsberg captured their chat on video.

“It’s hard to hear, but it was wonderful,” Ginsberg said. “David said he played the role of Mayor Shin three times, from Iowa. Hugh Jackman was as gracious and thankful that David would come to the show as we all were that Hugh Jackman was in the show.”

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