IT'S A SIGN!

“Oh look, here’s a penny! It’s from the year I was born...(gasp)...it’s a sign!”

It was Friday, July 11, 2003. 6pm.

Just two weeks earlier I had set my suitcases down in Manhattan, a la Millie Dillmount, ready to embark on my theatrical career. The moment I unpacked my things, I headed out the door of my Upper West Side building on 70th Street and made a beeline 25 blocks south along Broadway to the billboards, bright lights, and congested sidewalks of Times Square. Once there, I marveled at the Broadway marquees that were clustered on the side streets, light bulbs aglow.

The idea that I could now walk to Times Square any time I wanted, and snag a ticket to a Broadway show on a whim was not lost on me. In fact, this first trip would have such an impact on 18-year-old me that I made that same walk and Times Square sojourn nightly for months. 

It was on one of these evening trips that I found myself standing in front of the John Golden Theatre on 45th Street on that July night in 2003. The exterior of the beige-brick building was decorated with window cards that featured colorful, fluffy puppets advertising a new musical that was like Sesame Street for adults. I was intrigued, to say the least: we didn't have anything like this back home in Michigan! I walked into the tiny vestibule area of the theater and asked if they might have any last minute tickets for that evening's performance. 

"Yes, it's only the second preview performance," the box office employee said, " so the show is still building momentum. How about a first-row, dead center seat for $20?" 

Just two hours later, I was within arms-length of the lead actor, John Tartaglia, as he seamlessly manipulated a puppet named Princeton. From beginning to end, Avenue Q, was one of the funniest shows I'd ever seen. But amid all of the laughs about racism and puppet fornication, the show was full of heart. Princeton's desperation to find his purpose resonated within me. When he found that penny from his birth year and proclaimed it as divine intervention, I couldn't help but feel a kinship to this puppet. I, too, always look for small signs, or winks from the universe, to let me know I'm on the right track.

Fast forward 21 years to Sunday, October 6, 2024. 5:35pm.

I no longer make nightly trips to Times Square, as most of my waking moments are spent there day in and day out: just down the block to the east of the John Golden Theatre resides my Broadway Gift Shop, my 80-square-foot contribution to the commercial hustle and bustle of the theatre district. And just down the block to the west I now teach a course in Broadway history at the Professional Performing Arts High School. We explore the history of musicals, from the first musical ever created, The Black Crook in 1866, through the decades to present day. My students are fascinated by this first "musical". It was a hodgepodge Faustian tale complete with acting, singing, and dancing - that stretched on for five-and-a-half hours on its opening night. With a run of 474 performances, it became Broadway's first "hit." Those creators never would've known that they'd create a new American art form that would be studied by the likes of me and my students 158 years later.

While walking that block each week to teach Broadway's history, I'm reminded of my own personal history.

But this specific October evening a few months ago actually took me out of the theatre district, down to Houston Street in Tribeca. I found myself standing in a 1907 horse barn, straightening a wooden bowtie that I had created, in the final moments before I would say "I Do" to the most amazing woman I'd ever met. From the moment I met Leah, I knew I wanted to create a life with her. I had no doubts on that night about that "I Do". But as I looked around the room at all of our family and friends settling in on the wooden benches that were lined up like theater seats in the middle of the barn, I was overwhelmed with emotion. It's one of those life moments that you read about in books, that you see in movies, that are acted out in plays - and here was my very own pre-wedding moment. I took a deep breath and turned to face the wall of this barn-turned-bar to gather my thoughts, when there it was: a faded poster from the 1866 production of The Black Crook. 

A sign. 

I'm still not sure why it was there. This venue, Houston Hall, has no theatrical connections. The closet I've come in my research to any sort of correlation is that the theater where that musical was performed, Niblo's Garden, was just a few blocks away. But this barn wasn't erected until 1907 - and this musical opened in 1866... How a poster from the first Broadway musical got here - to this exact wall, in this exact place, just inches from my face, at this pivotal life moment when I was looking for a sign from the universe to tell me I was in the right place at the right time - will most likely forever remain a mystery. 

But however it happened, that poster - and Ms. Leah Smart - both arrived at the perfect time. And just like Princeton and his penny, I had my sign. 

So, I guess it's true what they always say:

You can take the kid out of the theatre district, but you can't take the theatre district out of the kid.

(Okay, no one has ever said that...but it's still true, nonetheless!)