Great Moments in New York Theater: My First Time

The first in my series about my most memorable, my most favourite moments sitting in the seats of the theaters of New York was about my most recent experience. It seems only right that, today, I go back almost 30 years to my very first Broadway show. Ironically, as I type, I am listening to a song called My First Time that my friend Josh emailed me yesterday; the song was performed at one of the Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS benefits and is (as one might guess) about peoples’ first Broadway shows.

I remember, still, that first time. It is, in fact, something that is actually somewhere in my mind every day. I may not, actively, be thinking about it; but it’s there.

I was a teenager (was I fifteen? Sixteen?), living in Switzerland with my family. Each summer the family came home to America for the summer months. We spent one week in New York so that my father could do business, then we traveled to Texas to see relatives and then to California to see relatives. This was my first time in New York and, a show queen since the age of 5, I just had to see a Broadway show. I didn’t dare dream of seeing more than one – I would be happy with just one; but I had to, Had to, HAD to see at least one. I made this clear to my father. The interesting thing is that I was a total mama’s boy and one would expect that this was a conversation I would be having with her. But I was having it with my father. He said yes, I could see a show. Which one, though? He took the time to pick up a New York magazine and read the theater listings and, given his knowledge he knew of me (within the limited capacities of our relationship, as we did not spend a lot of time getting to know each other), he chose the play I would see and told me had chosen it, then he got tickets for my sister and I, as I was too young to go to the theater alone and needed an escort. While she and I would see the play, they would go out to dinner with friends. Everything was arranged.

The Imperial Theater is a very big place. It is a big place to me, now; imagine what it was like for a young teenage boy. It felt like my version of Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium, Reunion Arena… Stephanie and I were shown to our seats up in the mezzanine and we sat there, with very little talk, awaiting this musical, the story of which I knew nothing. When the lights dimmed, I stopped breathing and I waited…

They’re Playing Our Song began.

I hear people criticize this musical, often, saying that it is dated and it has no indigenous profundities. Whatevs. Right? That’s what my immediate reaction is to comments like that – and I hear it from a lot of people, a lot of the time, about a lot of different shows. Remember when Barefoot in the Park was revived a few years ago with Jill Clayburgh and Amanda Peet? People said (in their best know-it-all expressions) “it’s so dated!” Well, DUH. It’s a play set in the Sixties. If you take it out of the Sixties it doesn’t make sense. Peoples’ thought processes were different then. I want to see Barefoot in the Park and see how people lived and thought in the Sixties. Why, only today, on Talkin’ Broadway, I read somebody’s comment that Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris has dated really badly. Again: Well, DUH. Honestly, people have no sense of history, no respect for the time machine the American theater gives us, no respect for the artists’ and that their work takes in the lexicon. Happily for me, I do.

They’re Playing Our Song is a Seventies musical. It is light and bright and festive and fun. It is a love story; and who doesn’t love a good love story? The script by Neil Simon is funny and pathos-laden. The songs by Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager are tuneful and sweet. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this play. It is a good, old-fashioned musical comedy and I listen to my cd of this show several times a year and it always makes me happy. I remember, with happiness and delight, how wonderful Robert Klein and Lucie Arnaz were. Naturally, I was especially drawn to Ms Arnaz because I was a gay boy and we always pay more attention to the women in our musicals. Even gay boys who are actors pay more attention to the women, even though they SHOULD be focusing on the men who are playing the parts they will be auditioning for, someday. Watch the women now, get the script and focus on the part later. It’s a well known fact that the boyz have to have their divas. It’s hard not to watch a diva when the diva is Lucie Arnaz. And while one might think that we are watching the diva because she is the daughter of a beloved and legendary actress but the fact of the matter is that Lucie Arnaz’s talent sets her up on a pedestal that is, solely, her own. Begin with the fact that she is beautiful, add to it comic timing that cannot be taught, a sincerity in the quieter scenes that touches the heart, song and dance skills that make you smile and a set of legs that look smashing in a fringe dress and you have a 16 year old boy’s idea of heaven on earth. Miss Arnaz and Mr Klein were perfectly matched in the play and the audience couldn’t help but cheer for them to get together. It was a delightful and wonderful way to spend an evening.

They’re Playing Our Song introduced me to so many wonderful feelings that one can only experience in a theater. It was the first time I sat, watching a live performance, and feeling the energy of shared emotions with total strangers. We all laughed at the same times, we all smiled and bobbed our heads to the same music, we all applauded the same dances. It was my first entr’acet (no overture in this show.. only an entr’acte, which I found nifty (it remains one of my favourite overture/entr’actes, too). I remember how thrilling it was when Vernon and Sonia’s three boys/girls showed up to sing the harmonies they hear when they write the songs they do ( in case anyone reading doesn’t know the show, it is about a male-female songwriting team )… the moment the back-ups appeared thrilled the audience into peals of laughter. What I remember, most of all, though is two things: the instantaneous ovation after Lucie Arnaz finished singing They’re Playing My Song (it was tumultuous!) and the end of Act One. It is so wonderfully written to incorporate the song Just For Tonight, the emotions of the character and the conflict set up just by the ringing of a telephone, Lucie’s look at that phone and then at the audience, a pause for thought and then a run offstage as the orchestra swelled and the curtain fell. It has come to represent one of the most important parts of a night at the theater (and one that is, often, sadly missing): making the audience NEED to come back for Act Two. These two moments are things that I have spent time thinking about, these last 30 years.

They’re Playing Our Song was the perfect introduction to the Broadway stage for me. I wouldn’t have it any other way and I allow nobody’s criticism of the show, in front of me.

And I owe it all to my dad.

The photos in this story are scanned from my souvenir program, which I (clearly) still have, all these years later!