On Saturday, May 26, 1962, I took the bus into the city with my friend Anita Rowland, who sat next to me in dental hygiene school, to see a matinee of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Alvin Theatre. It had opened less than three weeks before. I was twenty-four years old, I had never seen a Broadway show, our seats were in the last row of the mezzanine, and I laughed so hard at Zero Mostel that the lady in front of me turned around twice.

On the bus home I had the Playbill in my lap, and I remember thinking that I ought to keep it, because I wanted to remember that afternoon for the rest of my life. And then I thought, well, I'd better keep the next one too. And here we are, thirty-seven years and 611 next ones later.

I worked as a dental hygienist for thirty-four years, the last twenty-two of them in the same office, and I retired in 1996. That means I spent most of my life telling people to floss and the rest of it in the theater, and I would say the theater people listened better. Anita and I still go together, most Wednesdays. Wednesday is matinee day. It has been for as long as I can remember.

As of this morning I have 612 Playbills. That's one for every Broadway performance I've seen since 1962, including the shows I saw more than once (I keep every one; the cast changes, and so does the insert). They live in 21 three-ring binders on a bookcase in the spare room, which my husband Lowell calls "the Archive" in a tone of voice I choose not to hear.

They are sorted by season. A theater season, the way I count it, runs from the first of June to the end of May, so my very first Playbill, from May of 1962, is the only one in the 1961–62 season, and it gets a whole page to itself. Inside the cover of each binder is an index card listing every program in it, with the date I went, the theater, who I went with and where we sat. Behind each Playbill, in the same sleeve, is my ticket stub.

The seasons from 1962 through 1979 are now typed up on their own page. The rest is still in the binders, and I'm typing as fast as I can.

Some numbers, because Lowell asked:

• Most Playbills in one season: 31, in 1996–97, my first season retired.
• Most times I've seen one show: five (Fiddler on the Roof, with four different Tevyes).
• Shows I walked out of: two. I'm not saying which. They know.
• Times Lowell fell asleep: we stopped counting in 1974.

In the order they happened. A few of them were afternoons, but "ten best afternoons" doesn't sound right.

1. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum — Alvin Theatre, 1962. The first. Zero Mostel, and a show that went on to win the Tony for Best Musical. I've seen more polished shows since. I've never laughed harder.
2. Hello, Dolly! — St. James Theatre, 1964. Carol Channing, in red, coming down that staircase for the title number. The whole house stood up before she got to the bottom.
3. Fiddler on the Roof — Imperial Theatre, 1964. Zero Mostel again, and this time I cried. My grandmother came over from Italy, not Russia, but she would have known every one of those people.
4. Cabaret — Broadhurst Theatre, 1966. Joel Grey as the Master of Ceremonies. I didn't sleep that night. It was the first show I ever saw that frightened me on purpose.
5. Company — Alvin Theatre, 1970. Lowell said it was about nothing. I said it was about us. We were both a little right.
6. A Chorus Line — Shubert Theatre, 1975. Anita and I got tickets that fall after it moved up to Broadway from downtown, and we held hands at the end like a couple of schoolgirls. It won the Pulitzer Prize the next spring.
7. Sweeney Todd — Uris Theatre, 1979. Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou. I went in expecting a musical and came out having been through something. It's the Gershwin Theatre now, but it will always be the Uris to me.
8. Dreamgirls — Imperial Theatre, 1982. A Saturday night, for our anniversary. Jennifer Holliday at the end of the first act. I have never heard a sound like that come out of a person, before or since.
9. Les Misérables — Broadway Theatre, 1987. That turntable. I brought a packet of tissues and needed two.
10. Death of a Salesman — this past March. Brian Dennehy, in the fiftieth-anniversary production. I'd read the play in high school and thought I understood it. I didn't, not until I was sixty-one. It won the Tony for best revival, and he won for best actor, and they both deserved it.

Honorable mentions, because I can't help it: Mame (1966), 1776 (1969), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Gypsy with Angela Lansbury (1974), Annie (1977), Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and The Phantom of the Opera (1988). Lowell's honorable mention is the intermission at Cats, which he claims is the best nap he ever had. I have never been to Cats. Lowell went with his sister.

My Fair Lady. The original was still running when I saw my first show in 1962, and I kept telling Anita we'd go next month. It closed that September. I learned my lesson right then: when you hear yourself say "next month," buy the tickets.

Funny Girl, with Barbra Streisand. We had tickets for April of 1965. My son came down with the chicken pox the week of the show, and I gave the tickets to my sister-in-law. By the time I could think about it again, Streisand had left the show. My sister-in-law still brings it up at Thanksgiving. My son is thirty-six and has heard about it his whole life.

Richard Burton's Hamlet, 1964. Anita and I stood in a line around the block on a Saturday, got to the window and heard the words "sold out." We had a very nice lunch instead. It was not the same.

People write and ask me this more than anything else, usually after finding a shoebox of programs in a parent's closet. Here's what I've learned, some of it the hard way:

• Sleeves. Put each program in its own clear sleeve made for archival use. Look for acid-free, and polypropylene or polyester. Stay away from the cheap soft vinyl ones that smell like a shower curtain. Over the years they can stick to the paper and do it harm. I had to move my first five binders out of those in 1985, and two covers lost a little ink in the process. I still feel bad about it.
• Binders or boxes. Sturdy binders standing up straight on a shelf, or flat in an acid-free storage box. Don't cram them in. Programs that are squeezed get creases.
• Out of the light. Sunlight fades the covers faster than you'd believe, the yellow especially. Keep them out of a sunny room or behind a door.
• Not in the attic, not in the basement. Heat and damp are the two great enemies of paper. The attic bakes and the basement sweats. A closet or a spare room in the middle of the house is best.
• No rubber bands, no paper clips, no tape. Rubber bands rot and stick. Clips rust and dent. Tape yellows and never comes off clean.
• Write on the sleeve or the index card, never on the Playbill. If you want to remember the date and who you went with, and you will, put it on a card.
• Handle with clean, dry hands. Spoken like a dental hygienist.

The new season is just getting started, and I'm as excited as I was at twenty-four. Here's what I'm watching for:

• Kiss Me, Kate is coming back to Broadway this fall, and I have never once seen it on a stage, only the movie on television. That's a hole in my binders I intend to fill before Christmas.
• Saturday Night Fever opens next month. It isn't my cup of tea, but Anita wants to go, and Anita sat through Dracula for me in 1977, so I owe her one.
• Carol Burnett is supposed to be coming in this fall in a revue of Stephen Sondheim songs. Lowell will even go to that one, because it's Carol Burnett.
• And whatever turns up on the board at the TKTS booth on a Wednesday morning. Half the best things I've ever seen, I found standing in that line in Duffy Square, where I've been standing since it opened in 1973. Bring a folding stool and a good book, and dress for the weather.

Fellow theater people on GeoCities.us: Theo's Theater Page reviews the season from standing room, and Kerry's RENT Page, right here on the Balcony, will tell you everything about the rush line. I'm too old to sleep on the sidewalk, but I admire the spirit.

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since February 1998

Looking for an old Playbill, or have one I'm hunting for? Write to me:
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Last updated Thursday, September 23, 1999