by Elizabeth Gariti
The geography of New York City is as small as its population is large. And while this is conducive to much of our stress and strife, these conditions are also perfect for percolating something we all know, love and claim as our own: New York Theater.
"Perform", a long-term exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, documents the history of New York City Theater and “the bedrock relationship between performance and the city”. Beginning with the Park Theater of 1830 through Broadway and the avant-garde of today, Perform tells the theatrical story from all sides, not only illustrating the lives of actors and performers, but those of producers, designers, playwrights and songwriters.
The exhibit is a mixture of interactive displays and theatrical artifacts. The tour begins in a hall with wall-sized photographs of an early 20th-century audience staring down at you. You are invited to sit in one of the genuine seats rescued from the Henry Miller Theater (which used to be on 43rd St., but was torn down to make way for another skyscraper) and watch video snippets of young performers talking about why New York is the place for theater. Displayed on the wall underneath the video is a group of actors’ headshots, some of celebrities from their pre-celebrity era. I picked out Chita Rivera, Judy Garland and Robert Redford.
Upon entering the main exhibit, you dive deeper and learn about how the role of producers, managers, Actors’ Equity and the city itself shaped theater as we know it today. At the turn of the 20th-century, theater producers and managers basically owned the actors and ran their careers, if not their lives. They decided the roles actors would be in, commissioned plays and built many of the Broadway houses. They were entrepreneurs and a type of artist-businessman that is unusual today. Eventually, the actors rebelled and formed Actors’ Equity, the theater performers union.
What also helped New York City become the epicenter of American Theater was the railroad. With the railroad, producers could take shows “on the road” for trial runs, thus eliminating other towns’ need for local stock companies. This tradition of previewing out of town continues today.
Perform also shines a light on the city’s role in actors’ lives. As one young actress sees it, having more performers in one place makes it actually less competitive, because the community creates so many performance opportunities. The fast-flowing economy and New York’s multitude of restaurants also offer ways to make a living while you’re waiting for that big break.
This section of the exhibit features an assortment of historical tidbits as well. Costumes, letters, original scores and scripts, photographs, playbills, tickets and pamphlets from the Museum’s theater collection, recognized as one of the most comprehensive, all help to tell New York Theater’s complex story.
Some highlights include, “Mrs. Pott’s” costume from Beauty and the Beast. A rigid confection of luminescent pigment, silk, pearls, beads, lace and Kydex, it was originally too wide to fit through the backstage door. Up close, it looks like a giant Russian doll.
Also, there is a Gypsy robe covered with mementos from the 1987-88 Broadway season, commemorating a long-standing tradition and the tough life of a Broadway Hoofer. Before the show on opening night of each season, this robe is presented to the chorus member with the most Broadway credits. Everyone in the cast then touches the robe for good luck. The tradition began in 1950 as a joke, when a dressing gown was sent from the Ziegfield Theater to a friend performing at the Imperial Theater. It’s remained virtually unchanged ever since.
And resting between the glamorous flamboyance of “Mrs. Potts” and the Gypsy robe is Eugene O’Neill’s original manuscript from The Long Voyage Home. The paper is yellowed and the handwriting indecipherable, but the item is awe-inspiring no less.
In the 1800s, as immigrants streamed off the boats from Ellis Island into the already-crowded labyrinth of Manhattan, different types of diversions were created to entertain them. Perform not only covers Broadway, but vaudeville, minstrel shows, burlesque, Off & Off-Off Broadway and the experimental theater of the avant-garde. There’s a whole section that discusses the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), LaMama etc. and even the Provincetown Players, which was radical in its day and influenced New York Theater by fostering the talents of Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams.
The final section of the exhibit examines theater about New York, how it propagates and propels the myth of New York City, its darkness, desperation and power of its communities. Through pictures, artifacts and drawings, the presentation gives brief histories of plays like A Chorus Line, Rent, West Side Story and On the Town.
So, if you want to go beyond Broadway, the Museum of the City of New York’s Perform is a way to teach yourself and your children about all of New York City Theater, and through that, about the history of the city itself.
Perform is a long-term exhibition and a closing date is not scheduled.
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