FACE TO FACE WITH TIME

As an historian and tour guide, I spend a lot of my life talking about time. 

"...and what year was that?" is a question that most tour guides dread. But it's one that I've always loved. To me, dates are important. An event taking place on a certain day of the week can tell you so much. A year lands you exactly at a specific place in a timeline of history that is constantly marching forward. Dates provide clues and give context to the stories that I weave, bridging the gap between the niche of our Broadway industry and the surrounding world. 

And while I talk a lot about time, I’d never come face-to-face with it - that is...until recently. 

If you're anything like me, you spend the first few weeks of the year ruminating on all that's transpired in the previous twelve months. And thanks to Jonathan Larson's specific lyrics in the act two opening number of Rent, we're all experts on exactly how many minutes that encapsulates. For me, the highlights of the past year were the moments I connected with theatre professionals who have devoted their lives to preserving our theatrical history:

Joe Rosenberg is the man who landmarked Broadway. Now in his eighties, the lunch chats I had with him were full of nostalgia, facts, stories, and lots of deli sandwiches.

Jeff Greene is the man restoring Broadway. Over dumplings in midtown, he regaled me with stories about bringing the original hues of Broadway's hallowed halls back to life one piece of plaster - and paintbrush stroke - at a time.

Mike Hume is the man making photographic records of nearly every theater in the world. He lives and breathes backstage theatrical dust and captures the nooks and crannies of these theatrical spaces with his photographic lens. 

And then there's Dana Amendola. He's been working high atop the New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway since Disney Theatricals first restored the "House Beautiful" back to its former glory on 42nd Street in 1996. My first visit to his office provided me with an unparalleled view out his three office windows. The furthermost right window offered an amazing view of the New Victory Theatre directly across the street. Looking down out the window on the left, I was suddenly seeing this iconic stretch of sidewalk beneath the New Amsterdam Theatre marquee with new perspective. But in the center window was a silver square panel with hinges blocking my view.

"What's that?" I asked Dana.

"Oh, the clock on the top of the New Amsterdam marquee," he replied. "That's the control panel to set the time."

I was so busy looking down or across at the north side of 42nd Street that I'd failed to see what was right in front of me: the New Amsterdam marquee clock! Dana explained to me that when the marquee was installed in the 1930s (it wasn't part of the original 1903 facade), there needed to be a way to set the time. The easiest access, decided many decades ago, was to open the window of this specific office I was standing in, flip open the panel, and wind it by hand! 

Here I was, quite literally, face-to-face with time, inches from one of the marquees that I've spent the last fourteen years of my life studying. And in this moment, I remember thinking: there’s nothing like staring at the ticking hands of a huge clock to make you reflect inwardly on how you’re spending your own time.

We all have a choice to make each day: how will I spend my time? For me, I’ve realized that spending any number of minutes with professionals like these glorious humans unlocks a theatrical world that provides me with a new vantage point on Broadway's past and present. And while I don’t dabble with plaster, or cameras, or historical legislation, perhaps my time cataloging all of these stories and sharing them with all of you is the best use of my daily allotment of minutes and hours. 

So, here's to another year of digging up Broadway's past, sharing it with you, and having the time of my life doing it!