💬 Weekly Question: What’s your favorite live theater experience?
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I don’t talk about the stage nearly enough here at 5AM StoryTalk, but I am obsessed with the live theater experience — plays, musicals, operas, you know name it. I don’t get to enjoy it nearly as much these days, living outside a city in Australia as I do, but when it happens…whoo, it elevates me for weeks. So, this week, let’s talk about this:
What’s your favorite live theater experience (and why)?
For me, the answer will probably remain unchanged for the rest of my life.
In 2001, I read about a staging of Anton Chekov’s The Seagull at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Because the Screen Actor’s Guild was supposed to be going on strike, a ton of actors had fled to New York to appear in various performances. This one was the big one, as it would turn out.
It was adapted by Tom Stoppard, directed by Mike Nichols, and starred Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman — (deep breath) — Christopher Walken, Marcia Gay Harden, and John Goodman.
I don’t think there’s ever been or ever will be a stage production this star-studded.
Long story short: I flew to New York City, my first visit to the Big Apple, and slept on Central Park West overnight to score the free ticket. As I was first in line, I was given an extraordinary seat — fourth row, center stage, sitting behind Yoda (I mean, Frank Oz). And afterward, I got to meet Philip Seymour Hoffman and then went and had a drink with John Goodman.
Come on, beat that.
Your turn. Be sure to tell us why your live theater experience was so powerful — then weigh in on other people’s answers, too!
Scenes tend to stand out for me rather than the whole play. I think for whole plays then two Stoppard plays - Arcadia, which I'm going to see again next week, and The Invention of Love which is one of his less well-known works but which was about A.E. Housman, one of my favourite poets.
There is an open air theatre in Cornwall called the Minack which is cut into the cliffside with the sea behind the stage and the location elevates almost any play. The scene I particularly remember is from Mary Stuart by Schiller and Elizabeth I has a monologue. The actress stood on the highest part of the stage, spotlights threw her shadow onto the fog behind and it was breathtaking.
Seeing Avenue Q on Broadway. My then girlfriend, now wife, graduated from grad school in the Northeast in 2004. I went out for her graduation. The day before we all went into the city. My wife loves theater and had spent 2 years going to plenty of shows. IIRC there was some disagreement about what to see. Her parents went and saw the Billy Joel show. My wife and I along with her sister decided on Avenue Q. I knew nothing about it. But I just remember we all were laughing so hard we were crying.
I wouldn't mind seeing it again to see how the humor as aged. It looks like there was a West End revival this year, maybe we'll see it out on tour in a couple years.