“Sing Out, Louise”

When she’s not busy being married to my brother, Kenny, my sister-in-law Mary Lu is a  Broadway theatrical producer.  Some of her producing credits include Chinglish, The House of Blue Leaves, The Addams Family, Boeing Boeing, Spamalot, and Man of La Mancha.

And she’s about to open the Steppenwolf production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf  there in October.

Pretty impressive, huh?  She and her partners are committed to bringing the very finest in dramatic or musical comedy entertainment to its rightful home in the theater district. And in this day and age, with astronomical production costs, musicians’ strikes, out-of-sight ticket prices, and budget-crippling star salary demands to meet, this is no easy task.

But Mary Lu handles it gracefully and with aplomb.  She fervently believes that talent and the audience should get to know one and other.  Preferably in a legendary theater located somewhere on 45th Street.

As you can probably tell, her shows are wonderful and her stars are prodigiously gifted. And to that end, they get nominated for Tonys- a lot.

Whenever that happens, Mary Lu and Kenny don their best bib and tucker and cheer, laugh, or try not to look disappointed when their favorites win, place or no-show in the awards stakes.

In 2003, Man of La Mancha was up for Best Revival of a Musical, Best Actor and Best Actress.  And my then-husband, Mike, and I happened to be in New York.  And so we joined up with them for a weekend of Gotham fun.

The Tony ceremonies were on Sunday night at Radio City Music Hall at Rockefeller Center.  What a gala event.  All the bold name entertainment notables were there.

I spied handsome Antonio Banderas and darling Matthew Broderick in the lobby.  Over there, look!  Frank Langella, Benjamin Bratt, Bebe Neuwirth, Rosie Perez.

Sarah Jessica Parker, Melanie Griffith, Marisa Tomei and I met up in the ladies room. And who was the fairest of them all?

No contest.

First-time Tony host, Hugh Jackman- complete with tux, million watt smile and his Xman Wolverine hair extensions.  No kidding.  He was so handsome, so talented, so funny and so charming that all the other mega stars faded in his limelight.

Sigh.

Now, where was I? Oh, yes.  We had a great time even though La Mancha wasn’t the winner that year. But Brian Stokes Mitchell, the show’s Don Quixote, performed a moving version of the show’s famous anthem “The Impossible Dream.”

The award show should have been a highlight of my weekend, right? Under ordinary circumstances, it would have been.

But a funny thing happened to me on the way to the Tonys.  Mike and I had gone to see  a performance of Man of La Mancha on that previous Friday night.  And when the show was over, Mary Lu took us backstage to meet the cast.

They were gracious, but tired and anxious to call it a night.  So as the theater emptied and the house lights grew dim, we left the dressing rooms and headed out for the stage door.

But I couldn’t resist it.  I just had to have my moment.  And at a stage hand’s urging, I made my way onto center stage.  At the Martin Beck Theater.

This was Broadway History Central.

Martin Beck was the owner of the legendary Palace Theater, a storied partner in the Keith-Orpheum-Albee Circuit, later to become- with the help of Joe Kennedy and David Sarnoff- the RKO movie studio.  He was the landlord who gave vaudeville and Houdini their starts.

As I stood on that stage, preparing to belt out a little of “Some People” from Gypsy, some of Sondheim’s lyrics came rushing back to me.  “I had a dream, a wonderful dream, Papa. All about June in the Orpheum Circuit. Gimme a chance and I know I can work it…”

Suddenly I was playing the Palace.  And all the ghosts of every great music hall and musical comedy star who had trod those fabled boards seemed to surround me.

Lillian Russell was there.  And the shades of Ethel Barrymore, Ed Wynn, Will Rogers, The Marx Brothers, Fanny Brice.

Martin Beck had given a stage to Al Jolson, Caruso, Burns and Allen, Bob Hope, Mae West, Vernon and Irene Castle, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Sophie Tucker, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and of course, the late great Ethel Merman.  Mama Rose herself.

To “play the Palace” meant you had made it in show biz.  It was the zenith.  Before there were movies or television or YouTube, there was Martin Beck.

It was a moving moment for a theater buff like me and then it was over.

Today the theater has been renamed the Hirschfeld, in honor of that other genius Al- Broadway’s greatest caricaturist.

But no matter what it’s called, it’s all part and parcel of the greasepaint, magic, and history that make up New York City’s Great White Way.

And so is Mary Lu.