For reasons unclear to me, I just remembered seeing an otherwise singularly forgettable Broadway show. You need to know I was a 20-year-old soldier with a Top Secret clearance awaiting a slow boat to France in 1952. The New Jersey barracks was full of pinochle players, not a bridge player in sight. Besides New York City was a short train ride away, and It seemed like more fun. Day after day I went to the big city, ice-skating at Rockefeller Center, watching Sid Caesar’s Show of Shows produced, seeing things a newly-married boy from Indiana never imagined.
Entering the theatre of the only stage production I thought I might like cost more money than a private’s pockets held. However, I had once worked as an usher in theatres and had long since learned how to enter without a ticket. Why not on The Great White Way? Why indeed? With over 1400 seats, the Imperial Theatre on West 45th Street was a formidable challenge even for an expert. But I did it. Entering through a side door slightly ajar, I found my way through the space between the walls and the alley outside, climbing to the balcony, where I sat on softly carpeted stairs between rows of seats.
In my winter military uniform, I was quickly spotted by an usher and directed to a comfortable unsold seat. Having been lured by the already popular Eddie Fisher recording of the title song, I was prepared to be properly impressed. Who knew that this was a fallow period for the entertainment center of the world? Choices included Beatrice Lillie, Betty Hutton, Whistler’s Grandmother and two Gilbert and Sullivan productions. In retrospect, one of the G&S operettas might have been a better choice than (Now I remember.) “Wish You Were Here.”
