THE ROAR OF THE GREASEPAINT AND THE SMELL OF THE CROWD

That lovely saying sums up Broadway pretty well.

The stage has always been a visual and audio canvas that has time and again caused me to take pause and admire the art of good acting and fine production techniques. The writing, acting, stage designs, the various professionals that make a Broadway production thrills me like no other event I’ve witnessed. It is pure magic.

I once entered a ballpark for the first time over 60 years ago and was awed by that first impression, the large expanse of green pasture likeness that overcame me when I was confined to only a black and white television. Those first few moments were like a trance. I studied the perfectly drawn white chalk lines that cordoned off the fair from the foul territory, the black polish of the cleats the players wore and the whiteness of the players' uniforms as they contrasted to the clay warning tracks that surrounded the green grass. I was a child entering a fantasy world.

But, when I first entered a theatre on Broadway to watch a musical, something happened similarly that pulled together such unknown sacred moments I never realized had materialized in the back of my imagination! I was an adult in a fantasy world. The theatre, like Ebbets Field, was encompassing all that went before it and all that made the building a powerful experience. All I could imagine was the history of the place. The greatness of those that not only passed through the portals I stood at, but the greats that made it all relevant in the past by their legendary talents and the beauty of the walls with its flocked skin, chandeliered heights and glorious old traditional attention to decorative details that comprised the building.

I could recall without ever being there, the 1920 theater goers stepping out of yellow cabs on rain-slicked side streets of the great metropolis, the lights that invited you and announced the art about to be completed within its walls. I say completed for without all the accessories of the stagehands, makeup artists, actors and orchestra, the lighting and the sheer beauty brought on by the costume designers to the architects it would not be complete. I could see the special box seats that sat overlooking the crowds and imagined the guest of honor being a politician or statesman, maybe a king or president, maybe just a millionaire.

Give my regards to Broadway if you are ever there.