In the third grade, my grandmother took me to see “Cats” at the Winter Garden Theater. I got to miss school for the Wednesday matinee. Since then, she’s been my Broadway agent, exposing me to classics like “Miss Saigon” and “The King and I,” and surprising me with tickets to new shows like “Jane Eyre,” which i recommended to everyone in AP English after I saw it junior year, and again senior year when we read the novel for class.
Once, we picked up our tickets at the booth in the middle of Times Square.  Grandmom wove her way through the crowd and I followed faithfully, really with no other choice. When she got to the window, she said, “there are two tickets for [whatever we were seeing] under my name, they were held by one of the actresses.” I was astonished. I couldn’t believe my grandmother would lie to try to score tickets! But sure enough, a friend-of-a-friend’s daughter was dancing in the show and she had personally reserved seats for us.
Today, my booking agent brought us to the city today for see “Wonderful Town” town with my aunt and an old family friend. Through this particular connection, we had third-row seats. The script and the delivery were consistently hysterical, the orchestra exceptionally good (the conductor seemed to be inviting music from the instruments—I love that), and i loved the colorful 1930’s wear. Gregg Edelman, the male lead, was my favorite. His performance was witty and real and there was an essence about him that reminded me of my dad. And his character was an NYC editor. I wonder if he’s looking for a bright-eyed intern.
On the way home, we had to connect to New Canaan by bus and there was a little girl coming home from a family trip to American Girl place. As I helped her mother prop up one of her two duffle-sized shopping bags, I said something about how much I adored my American Girl doll when I was little, and she said, “Alexis, this girl has an American Girl doll, too!” Alexis, three, hesitated not one instant before hopping down off of her seat to come over and show me the catologue. By the end of the trip, she was in my lap with her blonde head settled back on my shoulder and we were flipping through the pages for the third time. She told me stories about which outfit each doll would wear to their imaginary doll events. Then she unpacked a doll-size wedding dress and waved it back and forth and draped it over my hand, fascinated by the graceful swish of the skirt.
Alexis probably won’t remember me, but I felt like our lives met and waltzed together in dresses with swishing skirts for a half hour. Maybe when she unwraps some of those new doll clothes for her birthday (September 20th) she’ll say, “Remember the girl on the bus?”
“Life is mad, life is sweet” – Wonderful Town
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