It Happened One Night.

It was late afternoon on a beautiful fall day as I was sitting in a midtown bar, which is one of the greatest places in the world to be if you can get there. 

On this particular day, I had my heart set on standing room tickets to Hadestown on Broadway. In case you don’t know how it works, when a Broadway show sells out, they release standing room “seats” which is the space right behind the wall in back of the orchestra seats. I pay around $35 to stand right behind someone who paid $200. That’s fun for me.

Friend of the working man and all-around Broadway ‘Jim Dandy’ that I am, I popped into the lobby of the Walter Kerr theatre to find out what was what. The fella in the box office told me that there was no standing room yet, but that the show would probably sell out and to try back around 6:30. At that point, it was about five o’clock.

Jeez, I thought to myself, what the heck am I gonna do til then? I look up and there’s Hurley’s Saloon and so I thought, well that’s good enough for me. Next door to Hurley’s is another theatre where Diana the Musical was playing. There was some kind of hullabaloo outside and I guessed right that this was their opening night. If you don’t follow theatre news, you might not know that the producers put out a filmed version of the show on one of the streaming services. I don’t remember which one, but it did not go well. In fact, it was received so poorly that the show is kind of considered to be dead on arrival.

I minded my own business, went in, and ordered a pint. I got to jawing with Kaitlin the bar maid about this and that. 

After a little while, an older man — dressed to the nines sits next to me. We got to talking and he told me his wife Judy was in the show. I thought, ain’t that swell?

He said yeah she plays Queen Elizabeth, her name’s Judy Kaye.

I knew the name, but I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on anymore, so I ducked into the men’s room and started Googling. Two-time Tony award winner Judy Kaye – original cast of Grease, Phantom, Ragtime, Wicked…. Well, I’ll be. This guy is married to a Broadway legend!  And I bump into him waiting to watch her on opening night.

I found out that he is also an actor and has played half the judges ever on Law and Order.

Here they are, aren’t they cute?

He told me that despite the haters, the show was really very good, and audiences were loving the production. The room started filling up with other people dressed like this was the Oscars, and he was nodding hello to every other so-and-so who came in. 

“She’s the choreographer,” he told me of one leggy blond who caught our eye. 

“I bet she is,” I said, and we both had a laugh. 

“Yeah,” he told me, “The music is written by the keyboard player for Bon Jovi.” I thought well, this is all getting too crazy for me, and by then some of his friends showed up and it was my time to disappear and see about those standing room tickets. Speaking of Broadway royalty, the one and only Andre DeShields is still in Hadestown and that was my main reason for checking it out, besides the terrific score.

I left the bar and almost walked right onto the red carpet myself. The press was there and people were getting their pictures taken and sonofabitch — there’s Jon Bon Jovi himself standing right there! He must have come out to support his long-time band member. David Green wasn’t lying to me. I figured no one would mind if I took one more picture.

I headed across the street, and they told me that the show hadn’t sold out yet, so there were no standing room at the moment. The woman in the box office told me there were $60 seats in the rear orchestra which made me feel like a cheapskate or something. I told her I liked preferred standing room, thank you very much.

I don’t go to the theatre often, but I am done with nosebleeds up in the balcony. 

The head usher was in the lobby – she was a nice young lady and before long we were joined by another guy – clearly a Broadway actor and they got to talking about the business. That’s when she said that she had years ago played the little girl in one of my favorite plays ever, August: Osage County, and she was also an actress. I said to myself, how is that possible? She was just a little girl. She smiled at me, (I think? We were wearing masks,) and said, “that was thirteen years ago, I’m thirty five.”

The other guy Dennis told me that he had been in Wicked forever and had actually been in it with Judy Kaye! Dennis was there to see his friend go on who was an understudy. That’s when we figured out that Dennis’ friend was actually going on for Andre Se Shields. And if it had gotten out – even just through social media channels of Broadway types that DeShields wasn’t going on, that it might not quite sell out. Time got close to curtain and lots of people did rush up and get tickets last minute – or maybe they were will-call. Dennis finally sucked it up and bought a seat. We said our goodbyes and it looked like I wasn’t going to get into Hadestown that night after all. 

But looking back on it, I had such an interesting evening hanging around and talking to all these theatre people I felt like I had been to a show.

What else was there to do at that point except go to Carmines and have a little dinner at the bar before going home?