The Gypsy in Me

These yearly trips to NYC continued.  We saw "Me and My Girl", "Sweet Charity", "Anything Goes" and "Gypsy" on the bus.  My parents also started taking me up the week between Christmas and New Year's for a matinee.  I planned my life around these trips because it was the only time I felt like I was actually living.  Everything else was just biding time.

On the "Gypsy" trip we took my cousin, The Actress.  The Actress and I have always been close and our relationship probably blossomed around the time of this trip.  If I was 13 or so at the time so was about 11.

"Gypsy" took my breath away.  Tyne Daly gave one of the most amazing performances I've seen (I stand by that today) in a musical or a play.  I remember getting chills during her Rose's Turn and I still do when I listen to it today.  Plus, there is no better recording of the Overture.  The trumpets just go wild in the 'strip' section.

After the performance at the St. James Theatre I remember getting on the bus and waiting for The Actress to join me so that we could commiserate about the show.  There was a buzz amongst the family.  The Actress had disappeared.  Where was she?  Should we be worried?  What do we do?  Then her mother calmed everyone's nerves with a "Don't worry.  She went backstage."  I almost threw up.  She went backstage?  How did she do that?  Where did she go?  Was she talking to Tyne Daly right now?  Was Gypsy Rose Lee showing her how to strip?  I wanted to run off the bus but my mother held me back and gave me a look that said, "We don't do that.  We weren't invited."  So I bit my lip and sat down.

After what seemed like an eternity, the Actress came strolling out of the Stage Door with a shit-eating grin on her face.  She had walked across the stage.  She had run into members of the band and the cast.  She had done it.  She had gotten on Broadway.  I could have killed her.  Of course now I didn't want to hear anything she had to say but I had to hear all of it.  All of the family were commenting on how brave she was and how clever.  Cousin Vinnie got on the mic at the front of the bus to announce that the Actress had made it to the Broadway stage.  As the bus broke into a chorus of "The Best of Times is Now", I crossed my arms over my chest, thrust out my lower lip, sank deep into my seat and pouted.  The Actress had bested me.

Thus began the Actress's own infatuation with the Island at the End of the World.  Her path, like mine, has been a bumpy one.  But we've both done it.  We've both worked on Broadway.

But more on that later.