Street Theater

I had to write a sample piece for some job application. I liked it. So here it is, appropos of nothing.

Broadway theater is great; traditional; mostly middle-brow, but great. (There is clearly something incongruous, however, about sitting in the Richard Rogers Theater on W. 46th Street, alongside 1,267 suburban New Jersey, Connecticut, and Long Island matrons at a Wednesday matinee, “experiencing” The Heights, but the same thing could have been said about sitting through the original West Side Story, with Leonard Bernstein conducting.)

Off-Broadway is great too, more avant-garde, but still safe. Off-off-Broadway is starting to get out there; more real-life and less safe. But really, the real theater in New York is on the streets of New York; and not just off-off-off-Broadway, but off-island (as in off-Manhattan Island); say in Bushwick, as in Brooklyn.

You want music? Walk down Bushwick Ave. and just listen, or open the car window anywhere on Wilson Ave. as school is getting out -- you’ve got rap, Latin, trad jazz, pop, bop, more rap and rap. Danc’n? Just watch the kids walk.

Tragedy? The stick-thin, 20-year old who looks 50, hair wild, beard scraggly, feet dirty and dressed in pajama bottoms and a wife-beater t-shirt has to be a tragic figure worthy of an entire Greek chorus. (But you’d have to go to Astoria for a real Greek chorus…or a Greek diner.) Want the American Dream brought to life better ‘n “Carousel?” -- try the Saturday family ’n friends picnics at any of the pocket-parks in the neighborhood, complete with arch-typical 1950’s suburban charcoal grills, steaks, chicken, ribs and corn-on-the-cob.

“Sex and the City” isn’t a movie or a TV show, it’s lunchtime in midtown, from 6th Ave. to the East River; or in the bars on 2nd or 3rd Ave. after work. The “Devil Wears Prada” your bag? Just hang around south of 36th and the real story of fashion plays itself out, double-parked, from early morning to late afternoon.

Finally, for the action/adventure types, who needs “Blood Diamond,” when there’s East 47th St.? It’s a two-fer – all that glitters there is gold (plus silver, platinum, and the aforementioned diamonds) as well as a flashback to Yidish Eastern Europe pre WWII – complete with big beaver hats, long black coats, and men with beards.

Dinner and a show can’t be beat. But with tickets +$125 per and entrees at the better watering holes anywhere from $35 - $90 (the original Palm is my all-time favorite New York restaurant) the show on the street, accompanied by two with mustard and onions and a Dr. Brown’s, is New York’s best bargain.