
In 1975, the year before the bicentennial celebration that overtook this country, I and some good friends, Jeff, Dennis, and David, flew to New York City for a week of exploration and musical theater. Our adventures began almost immediately.
Not particularly flush with money, the four of us sharing a room was our only real option. The Abbey-Victoria Hotel (aka the Scabby-Icktoria) was situated in midtown Manhattan (51st and 7th) so its location outweighed its multiple flaws. The room was uncomfortably small but made even more so by the addition of a roll-away bed jimmied into the tiny space between the room's two doubles. The charm of the hotel's small in-house restaurant was matched only by the unsmiling, churlish attitude of our waitress, who after being asked politely by one of us hicks from Oregon to clean the table, complied by slapping down a nasty wet rag onto the table and wiping crumbs and all directly onto our laps. Ahhh. It was wonderful. We were in the Big Apple!
Our plans were simple; explore the city, visit an old friend who had moved back to NYC from Portland, see as many Broadway shows as we could cram in, visit as many museums as possible, and if lucky, experience the sexual side of New York City. It was 1975 for Christ's sake and we were going to experience it all.

The Best of All Possible Worlds
It was an incredible year on Broadway and it was an experience that none of us would forget. Our first musical was Candide, the musical version of Voltaire's masterpiece. Music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by John Latouche, Richard Wilbur and Stephen Sondheim. The stage was set up so that action took place all around the auditorium. An actor could appear on stage or end up standing next to your seat. It was a fast-paced, hysterically funny musical satire and a perfect introduction to New York theater.
The following night our theater experience went from the hysterical to the sublime. We had tickets to Peter Shaffer's award-winning Equus. The story of a 17 year-old boy brought to a psychiatric hospital for treatment because he had blinded several horses with a hoof pick. I remember Peter Firth playing the 17 year-old and seeing him naked on stage. He was so beautiful and his portrayal of Alan Strang broke my heart.
Then we saw the matinee performance of The Wiz with Stephanie Mills as Dorothy and Mabel King as the witch, Evillene. I had been a fan of The Wizard of Oz for years and was a bit apprehensive about seeing the Broadway version but I was not disappointed. Stephanie Mills was brilliant. The only flaw that afternoon was the noise being made backstage during the production. I couldn't believe that someone didn't put a stop to it. There was an almost constant sound of pounding and shuffling. As we exited the theater that night, we realized the noise hadn't been coming from backstage at all. The noise was actually thunder and wind from a New York City rain storm that had hit just after the start of the play. Naturally, it was impossible to catch a cab so we decided to run from marquee to marquee in the hopes of reaching the hotel without getting too wet. After the initial dash to the cover of the next marquee, we abandoned the idea and simply walked back to the hotel. We were soaked clean through in the first 30 seconds. I love electrical storms but I must admit it is a bit unnerving when you see lightening flashing between two skyscrapers in New York.
The production of Chicago that we saw that summer with Jerry Orbach, Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon was wonderful but it gave me vertigo. I swear we were in the very last row of the 2nd balcony in the 46th Street Theatre. I could literally see the bald spots on some of the actors' heads. I'd never been that high in a theater before. As we climbed down the stairs to go outside during the intermission we saw Tottie Fields being engulfed by admiring fans.
The last show we saw that week was one of the most fun; Terrence McNally's The Ritz. The plot of this wonderful comedy took place in a pre-AIDS 1970 gay bathhouse and starred Rita Moreno, Jerry Stiller, and Jack Weston. It was a slapstick wacky comedy of errors and totally un-pc.
Broadway Theater in 1975 was brilliant, exciting, toe-tappingly fun and I was sated. Jeff, one of our travelling companions, however, couldn't get enough and would eventually leave Portland and move to the Big Apple in 1978. He's been there ever since; a devotee to all things New York and Broadway. His partner of 20+ years, Sal Mistretta, is a talented actor/dancer/singer who has appeared on Broadway and travelled the country in numerous musical and dramatic productions. You can't get much closer to Broadway than that!
2 comments:
Hi from canada.
Yours blog is very interesting!
Keep on going .
Merci, Benoit. Je l'apprécie.
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