FROM NEWSSTANDS TO NEW VICTORY

Like all great deep dives online, my journey began with a quick Google search. 

When that didn't yield much, to Ebay I went. After pages and pages of items that were close to what I was looking for - but not quite right - it was starting to feel like there wasn't a needle in this haystack. 

Until there was. 

Could it be? Yes, it could. Something's coming. Something good. 

This item started its life one hundred and twenty-four years ago in Times Square. Somehow over the next few decades it would make its way west to Des Moines, Iowa. It would turn up at an estate sale, stuck in among other non-theatrical ephemera. Then, sandwiched between two perfect-sized pieces of cardboard and wrapped in airtight plastic, it finally made its return to Times Square a century later via the United States Postal Service direct to me.

And suddenly, there it sat in the palm of my hands, the faded cream-colored paper poised between my fingers.

An original 1900 Playbill from Sag Harbor, the opening production of the Theatre Republic on 42nd Street. 

Over the last few years I've been hard at work building the history of the New Victory Theater on 42nd Street for a potential interior tour in partnership with the theater's owners, New42. The theater has had a handful of different names throughout the years, but it started its life as the Theatre Republic, built by Oscar Hammerstein I. Its history is robust and pictorially well-documented, so the treasure hunt through its past was a fun one. Harry Houdini? He was there. Gypsy Rose Lee? Her too. But what about the visit of not one, but two, boa constrictors within its walls - seventy-two years apart? Yes, it has those too! 

The theater is rife with outsized names from Broadway's past. But I like to dig deeper: what about the hundreds of other individuals who have interacted with the theater and left their own fingerprints on the building? Surely their stories should be included in a tour of the theater too. 

I chatted with Jay Cardinal. He's an expert in bricks. In the 1990s, he was part of the team who worked to restore the facade of the building, quite literally going layer-by-layer through over 100 years of paint to get to the original brownstone and (as I learned!) Powhatan brick. Surely he had to be included. 

I Zoom-ed with Cora Cahan. She was employee #1 of The New 42nd Street, Inc. (as it was then called). She intimated that first day on the job to me: sitting in an empty office on the twenty-third floor, seven historic theater leases in front of her, tasked with bringing 42nd Street back to life with the power of theater. She had a vision of a theater for young audiences at the Victory Theater - soon to become the New Victory Theater. Surely she had to be included. 

I sat down with photographer Addison Thompson. He was hired by the city to photograph the then-current state of these historic theaters on 42nd Street in 1991 to show the degradation and faded glory. He invited me into his Lower East Side apartment that was chock full of art, sculptures, and lots of photos. His photographic visions had to be included too. 

I'm thankful every day for these humans. Sure, the Oscars and the Gypsys and the Harrys of the world. But also the Jays and the Coras and the Addisons. All artists in their own silos, who, when joining forces, can create (or re-create!) a beautiful theater brimming with world renowned talents of all kinds. 

And the job that I deeply relish is digging up those talents and the stories they tell to weave together a narrative to bring that theater to life. Through their oral histories I'm able to transport myself back in time. Through their words and experiences I'm able to reconstruct the stories that occurred within the walls of this historic theater. But oral histories can be elusive - if the stories aren't carried on, they vanish like a cloud of theatrical haze center stage. 

Which is why, whenever I'm conducting theatrical research, I seek out something tangible, something real. 

Like a playbill.

Amid all of my research I constantly returned to that original Playbill: who had held it? What theatrical evening wear were they donning? Were they in attendance at the opening performance on September 27, 1900, witness to Oscar Hammerstein I's curtain speech and its subsequent uproarious applause? What did they think of the Broadway debut of the young 22-year-old actor Lionel Barrymore?

I'll never know. 

But what I do know? Holding that program in my hand, and standing in that same theater today, I feel a direct connection to whomever the original program-holder was. I can feel the spirits of those who stood in that same theatrical spot, surrounded by the same plaster, under the same dome, basking in the glow of a theatrical sanctuary. 

And on your next visit to 42nd Street, I'll hope you'll join me and my Green Team within the New Victory Theater's walls too, sharing a moment with us as we connect to Broadway's past!