Broadway Chairs

Right after we closed "The Two and Only" (Tony Award winning Broadway solo show - I never get tired of hawking that line) they closed the Helen Hayes Theatre for renovations. It was mainly cosmetic but plan was to replace all the theatre seats. It is not that the seats were that decrepit, it had to do with the American Disabilities Act. It seems that Americans are getting larger, and the average American butt is now much wider than the standard size of a 1923 American ass. So to comply with the Disabilities Act the seats had to have more "square footage". (I suppose it would actually be "square buttage" to be precise." )

Paul Kreppel my producer/friend/director and Kreppel Syndrome sufferer, thought it would be nice to have a couple of the old seats out of the theatre as a keep sake. Having ownership of an actual Broadway theatre seat is pretty cool, but being as how the last audience to ever sit in these particular seats saw "The Two and Only" (Tony Award winning Broadway solo show - yeah, yeah, a second time in one blog is obnoxious). So the idea of "Broadway Chair" ownership was conceived. Paul went to Susan Meyerberg the lawyer for the theatre and asked if we could buy a few of the old seats. She said, "I'll give them to you." That was the easy part.

Now they didn't remove the seats the day after we closed, nor the week after we closed. In fact I had moved back to LA by the time the renovation started. Out of the blue I get a call that says, "If you want one of the Helen Hayes seats you have to pick it up by Friday. They are all being hauled away after that." I wasn't sure how I would get there but that is when Lori Ann, The Wiz, stepped up and saved the day. I was going to say "saved me by the seat of my pants" or "saved my ass" but there are already too many butt references in this blog.

The Wiz couldn't make it by the day they were hauled out, but contacted Hector- the facilities guy at the theatre and he hid a half dozen chairs in my dressing room until Lori could come by and snag them. (I still considered it my dressing room until Xanadu moved in months later - it will always be my theatre even though it was recently sold to Second Stage.)

Paul didn't have a place of his own in New York yet to put the chairs, and I was across the country. Where to keep the seats until we could sort out distribution was a real problem. Once again, the Wiz came up with the answer. Lori Ann is married to Steve Rosenberg one of the tech gurus of Blue Man Group, so the seats were taken from my dressing room and stored at the warehouse for Blue Man. There they sat for two years.

It was a difficult proposition as to how to ship the chairs to me. The Wiz is never not working and she has an 11 year old son, so chair distribution was not an easy thing to schedule in her life. I had resigned myself to the idea of visiting the chairs at the Blue Man warehouse or home of Steve and the Wiz in the future.

About three weeks ago, out of the "Blue" literally and figuratively, Blue Man Group needs to get the chairs out of the warehouse. The chairs are now homeless, miles from a safe harbor in my den. Steve found a road case that would fit the parts of the chairs, packed them up and sent them to me. The case with the chairs arrived the day I got back from Japan.

I am now in the middle of cleaning them, putting them back together and screwing them onto a base so one can actually sit in them. Sandi was against the idea of screwing them directly into the hard wood floor of the den. Even with a degree in Drama her sense of theatre only goes so far.

I am very excited. They are together and I can sit gingerly in them if I am careful not to tip them back. I have seats 8 and 12. I am contacting my friend Linda who is still an usher at the theatre to see if she can give me an idea of where they might have been in the audience.

I know exactly where they will go. It is a space by the window in the living room/den. When you sit in them you will be staring at the Tony Award across the room on the mantel. I know... that is a little too dramatic for a guy who isn't gay. It just happens to be the best place for them.

Phsycometry is the idea that all things absorb energy from their surroundings. I sit (literally) in awe of what energy these chairs have been exposed to since 1923. People in these seats have witnessed countless Broadway hits from Torch Song Trilogy to Bridge and Tunnel. Record setting runs like Rob Becker's Caveman and Golda's Balcony.

For awhile the theatre was a television studio. Johnny Carson did "Who do you Trust" and it was Merv Griffin's New York home for "The Merv Griffin Show". Paul Winchell even did his television show from that theatre. Who knows how many celebrities and actors have spent time in these chairs. It will be fun to research some more history to discover what other showbiz phenomenons these chairs have silently observed. Since I know the theatre is haunted, perhaps these chairs provide space for some specter even now. The coolest thing of all is, the last person to sit in these chairs saw my show. Somehow that connects me to theatre in ways I can't even express.

I will publish Broadway Chairs pictures soon. Now I am back to the garage to add another coat of varnish to the base. I will be meditating in that chair for a long time to come.

Thank you Wiz, Thank you Steve, Thank you Susan, Thank you Hector, Thank you Paul for thinking of it. Also thanks goes to The Blue Man Group for storing the chairs and giving me the road case to ship it. But to be honest, it never would have happened if I didn't have a friend like the Wiz. She saved them and eventually got them to me. The Wiz is and remains the BEST.

As you were,
Jay

Tuesday - "Road Case"