Yes and it was great fun.
Really dramatic and exciting but gut wrenching if it was your show. Opening Night:about 9:30 in the lobby of the Times you could find the press agent, often a producer or two and the General or Company Manager. Producers were easy to spot. The look on their face. Can't describe. they were excited, nervous beyond belief. That one paper often held your fate. All the work was coming down to this one moment. Everyone pacing back and forth. Usually nobody said a word. Often there would be one or two vultures there just to watch the scene play out. You could not see the elevator doors but you could hear them open. The doors would open and everyone would wait to see who turned the corner. A lot of Staff would exit the building through the lobby. Eventually the elevator doors would open and you would here the wheels on the cart. That was when you knew. If you heard the wheels on the cart you knew the guy was coming with the new edition. Sometimes you would here the wheels and they would stop. This would almost be too much to handle. Why had the man with the cart stopped? what is he doing? What..what what is going on. Either it was the cart with the papers or , I have no idea, something else. That was just the worst. At any rate when you heard the wheels of the cart you knew it was about to happen. Actually I am not sure anyone ever knew if the cart was actually coming from the elevator or not. You were just listening to anything that was going around the corner from the security desk. Behind the security desk is where the man with the cart would come from. Everyone would have there exact change ready. The press agent would get a copy and the producer would get his copy. Then each would scurry to a corner of the lobby to get the news in their own little corner of the room. If there were vultures, they would just stand there and watch. Sometimes the producers and press agents would shoot them a look such disgust and the vultures would act like they were there for some other reason and would pretend not to notice the producers and agents at all. It was a whole subtle two second dance.
If the news was good everyone would start screaming out quotes really loud. Sometimes people would cry. The press agent would then rush the cart buy big stacks of papers and to take to the party. Oh and the vultures would slink away. Maybe casually pickup a copy and read or maybe not. As if they could not care less.
If it was bad and the press agent knew it first, he would get the producer out of the lobby and take him into the street to give him the news. Maybe a quiet shake of the head and motion to the producer to leave the building. The producers that did not leave right away, just stood there in a stupor. Often they would just go into a catatonic freeze. Usually people left the producers alone in these cases. The weight in the room would just be so heavy. The Vultures? They are not going anywhere. One them might pick up a copy and start saying really loudly how unfair this was and feign such deep concern and dismay.
Mixed review....people just sort of lingered and looked puzzled as if the whole thing were printed in Chinese.
That was how I remember it. Truly exciting and nerve racking.
Oh,if you were at the party and nobody was reading the Times by 11. You knew the review was not what they were looking for. At that point, the party would quietly and quickly end. If it was mixed people would still hang for a while but the energy would shift from expectant to just kinda laid back.
Sorry if there a tons of typos here...running late, can't spend any more time on this now.
|