This ingenious dodge confirms once again the old advertising adage: It's all in the packaging. Arrive in a limo? You must be Someone! Come right in! And if you get out of the limo looking scruffy, you must Really Be Someone!
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When Catherine Zeta Jones was on Broadway 2009-10, we found the production thrilling, even scaled down (or maybe because of that). During previews we saw the barricades and limo, and since it was a large but very calm, respectful crowd waiting by the stage door, it felt safe to stand and wait. The Kerr’s “bouncer equivalents”, told all of us Ms. Lansbury had to leave another way tonight (she had a 2-show day the next day), told some young people hoping to get an autograph from Mr. Sondheim that he was still in talks at the back of the theater so he wouldn’t exit through the stage door, but Ms. Zeta Jones was still inside and she would sign autographs. One of them added she had actually asked for a regular car not a limo, but the people who handled these things told her a limo only cost the show $10 more each night and it would be better for the show’s profile if she let them get her a limo for the stage door. When she came out, we all applauded, cameras flashed. When I saw publicity photos online, I had to agree it was magical, more like A Little Night Music was an event with the super-fancy limo than a standard car would have looked. And for $10 extra! (I saw her in “Street Scene” in London in 1989 before she was known, where her role was half of a big show-stopping number, and lots of people on line for taxis raved to her. She was still as nice to fans in 2009 as in 1989. I totally believed that in 2009, the limo every night was just for the good of the show.)
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PS re Studio 54 - As it happens, when Carrie Fisher had starred in her hit show "Wishful Drinking" which was actually AT STUDIO 54 ITSELF (the theatre used by the Roundabout), she got into a waiting car service that looked exactly like the kind of car I would take to the airport.
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Thank you for a wonderful Diary entry Rupert, and for a decidedly New York City strategy that I hope to have a chance to emulate one evening somewhere, like Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or Lincoln Center. Your successful tactic put me in mind of a great scene in Mike Nichols’s film “Working Girl” where Jack and Tess crash an exclusive wedding in order to speak to the bride’s father about a big Wall Street deal.
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"After all, we were New Yorkers..."
Indeed!
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Quick thinking, classic NYC, and right on.
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It is usually either a good time or a good story. In your case, both! Any tips for fighting traffic on the LIE?
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Clever. Thanks for the story.
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Wow! Just – wow!
And again - wow!
tune of “Stayin’ Alive” (what other song for disco confidence in 1977 - and the real lyric even mentions the NY Times)
Oh, you can tell by the way I use my brain.
I’m a native man, can’t yank my chain.
New York born and New York bred
So I don’t care what that bouncer said.
You say it’s all right, the place is hot.
We’ll leave and try some other spot.
But if this works, if this don’t fail
One day The Times will print our tale.
Anywhere I’m going, I go already knowing
I ain’t waiting on line, waiting on line
People may be queuing, but I say nothing doing
I ain’t waiting on line, waiting on line
Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh
Waiting on line, waiting on line
Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh
Waiting on line!
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Wonderful, Freddie!
I like this happy Friday post -- a nice way to start the weekend! Thanks for sharing, Mr. Hitzig.
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Yet another gem from Freddie, well done Sir, well done!
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I'm still in awe of Mr. Hitzig, and hope he'll give more tips on being resourceful in New York. Maybe even a book is in order.
In a world that is so often a zero sum game (or, one person only gaining something by someone else losing something), how great to have thought of something that circumvents silly arbitrary authority run amok, yet hurts no one else.
(Is his filmmaker friend Robert involved with the newish Studio 54 documentary, by any chance?)
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Well done!!
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Well played!
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I wish I was around for the heyday of Studio 54. Thanks for sharing that great story Rupert!
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