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DEL.ICIO.USStarstruck on Broadway
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I just got back from a vacation — yes, a real vacation — in New York with my 17-year-old daughter, Caroline. We are both theater fanatics and so we had to get our sem-annual fix. We saw “Spamalot,” “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” together. Wednesday afternoon, we split up with her going to see “Avenue Q” (which we’d both seen before) and me to see “Glengarry Glen Ross” (Alan Alda, Liev Schrieber, Jeffrey Tambor and Tom Wopat are amazing actors. Yes, that Tom Wopat, who I saw in the musical “Annie Get Your Gun” with Bernadette Peters a few years ago. He’s come a long way from “The Dukes of Hazzard.”).
Our biggest disappointment was that Tim Curry and the Tony Award-winning actress Sara Ramirez were being understudied in “Spamalot,” but the show was still brilliant! Inspired silliness. I’ll be singing “I’m Not Dead Yet” for weeks.
On Friday night, we caught Jim Gaffigan, a very funny guy who happens to be my daughter’s favorite comedian, at Caroline’s on Broadway, a comedy club in the Theater District. (If you ever go to Caroline’s, have dinner in the supper club and you’ll get priority seating in the showroom. And the food is pretty good.)
What I wanted to share, though, is that we came home with lots of autographs on our Playbills and lots of photos of Caroline — a high school and community theater actress herself — posing with various stage stars. It’s really easy. All you have to do is hang by the stage door, waiting patiently behind the barricades and making nice with the security staff (i.e. don’t be pushy). The actors come out in their street clothes and sign pretty much every Playbill thrust at them and gamely pose for photos. We got snapshots with David Hyde Pierce, Christopher Seiber (what a doll!), Alan Tudyk and some other lesser-knowns whose names escape me. And then we walked a couple of steps down Shubert Alley and caught Jeff Goldblum holding court after the evening performance of “Pillowman.” Then, another night, we got photos and autographs of John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz, the stars of “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.” (Last year, we were thrilled to “meet” hunky Hugh Jackman — be still my heart! — after “The Boy From Oz” and get his autograph; but I had failed to bring my camera, not realizing he’d be so accessible!)
It is so nice to see celebrities being gracious to their fans.
Another tip: We had lunch before the matinee Wednesday at Bolzano’s, a new Italian restaurant with an outdoor patio/deck on Shubert Alley, and watched actors from “Spamalot” and “Pillowman” show up for work!
So I’m wondering — have you had similar experiences either in New York, Los Angeles or London — or anywhere?? Or do you have advice on the best places for celebrity sightings?
Here’s your chance to drop names and impress fellow bloggers. C’mon, dish!
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By Amanda Miller
August 10, 2005 1:18 PM | Link to this
OK, so nobody’s had a brush with a celebrity they want to dish on? I just saw Paula’s photos of her daughter and Jeff Goldblum and her daughter and (fill-in-the-blank) — there must have been 10 photos! It’s amazing celebs would be so accessible these days.
Here’s my favorite upclose celeb sighting: When I lived in Memphis in the late 1980s, Jerry Lee Lewis and wife No. 3 or 4 lived in the penthouse of my high-rise downtown apartment building. I’ve loved his hard-rocker music and his wild piano playing for years. One day I stepped on the elevator, and Great Balls of Fire, there he was. I wanted to gush like a schoolgirl, but figured that’s the last thing he would want, so I just nodded and smiled and rode up in silence.