There needs to be a word between "acquaintance" and "friend" to describe our kind of friendly glad-to-work-with-you-again! relationship. I knew it would be a good show if Donnie was in the cast. I hope he felt the same about me. Respect and liking and some great conversations over the years... and sometimes years between conversations. I was starting out on my set design career just as he was starting out in musical theater - we cheered each other on. Donnie played Pirelli in the WaterTower's Sweeney Todd; I designed the set. His Pirelli the Barber arrived riding a forklift (it was a wild version of Sweeney!). It was Donnie, as Pirelli, who - unrehearsed, unannounced - leaped up onto a chair in Sweeney's barbershop to sing... an unsecured chair, on a raked platform, a second story platform, right next to a pit that made it a three story drop if he fell. Oh, and that basement pit was filled with rusty steel trusses and lighting instruments.
The director and I froze in our seats, horrified! I mean, Sweeney Todd is supposed to be kind of scary But Not That Scary.
Donald Fowler's Pirelli 
For a long time WaterTower's scene shop had a habit of stapling one of Donald Fowler's head shots somewhere on a set. Not sure how that joke started, but it when on for years. (I placed it a couple times myself.)
Later on Donnie wrote a musical called Creep about Jack the Ripper that was developed at several theaters around town and generated a lot of excitement.
He knew everyone. He was good with people. He was talented as an actor and writer, but he also had what designers call "an eye." Very refined taste. I remember we had a few long conversations about merchandising - he selected and displayed goods for Stanley Korshak, for an exclusive shop called The Nest, and ultimately for the Nasher Sculpture Gallery's gift shop. (Speaking of refined taste.) Always a pleasure to talk with him.
I'm upset.
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