Welcome to the blog! My plan is to nail down fifty happy years of theater memories in more or less random fashion, just so they don't get forgotten. Other kinds of memories will be included on the off chance that they might amuse someone.
I've been going to plays since I was six--at least I think that was the age I was when my grandparents took me to see a touring company of "My Fair Lady" in Chicago. I don't know who was in it--I did some research into this a few months ago without result--but I do know that I was hooked then and have stayed hooked ever since.
I grew up in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, about 45 minutes north of the city on the North Shore. My dad was a local newspaper writer/editor/publisher, and my mom was a housewife who later worked in a bookstore and then sold classified advertising for my dad. I have a sister, Sally, four years younger than I am. Our grandparents lived a couple miles across town, and my mother's sister and her family lived around the corner from us. We're Jewish, but the highly assimilated, non-religious kind, even in that largely Jewish suburb. The arts were well regarded in my family--hence the somewhat crazy idea of taking a six-year-old to see a touring musical.
But I'm glad they did it. Any memories of the actual show have long since been superseded by my memories of dancing around my grandparents' living room to the music on the original cast album. There was lots of that, and not just with "My Fair Lady"--Grama and Bop had lots of Broadway albums, and Sally and I danced to all of them. I remember "The Sound of Music" in particular. A good therapist I once had said that performing this way for adoring grandparents is a good way to get one's grandiosity needs met. It worked for me.
The only other early memory I have of performing is of being in the Thanksgiving pageant at Lincoln School. I was in kindergarten when I was chosen for this dubious honor. I think there were two kids chosen from each grade. What I recall is that it was a miserable chore because it necessitated a lot of extra putting on and taking off of leggings (I think they would now be called snow pants--insulated pants with suspenders). This was Chicago before global warming, and it was cold! Kindergarten was a morning thing for me, so it was leggings on to go to school, leggings off once I got there, leggings on to go home, leggings off for lunch, leggings on to go back for pageant rehearsal, leggings off for the rehearsal itself, leggings on to go home again, and leggings off once and for all when I got back. What a misery! Reminds me of Ralphie's brother Randy in "A Christmas Story" when he falls over in his snowsuit and can't get up.
My first theater experience was the same as yours. After about 6 months of speaking and singing every part of My Fair Lady along with the cast album (I also did instrumental solos), my great uncle took me to Broadway. I think it was 1959, and the lead was then being played by Michael Allynson, I think. That's what I remember. It was wonderful for me. Probably less so for the matinee crowd having to listen to a six year-old's rendition of "Why Can't the English?" instead of Mr. Allynson's. In my own grandiose way, I didn't think there was much difference.
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