A Jewish Night to Remember

Sunday night before finals week, Curtis and I had tickets for "Jackie Hoffman's A Chanukkah Carol". For those of you who are unfamiliar, Jackie Hoffman is currently playing the grandma in "The Addams Family" musical. She is Jewish, a veteran stage actress, and really bitter.

So we arrive at the theater and start descending the steps to our seats. We're 11 rows from the front and about 6 from the back. We arrive at what we think is our row but our view is obstructed slightly by an unusually tall man with huge limbs. Sitting comfortably, his arms fully cover the arm rest and therefore obscure the lettering denoting the row number. He looks oddly familiar to me. I have a thought about who he is but suppress it for the moment. I lean in front of him to see if the empty seats beyond him and his two compatriots are ours. Upon confirming this my eyes are startled by the most amazing sight. NATHAN. LANE.

The voice of Timone, the star of The Producers, A Funny Thing Happened..., and a hundred other things, the Theater Hall of Fame inductee, one of the few male musical theater stars of his generation, the comic genius is sitting right next to us. My suspicions are confirmed and I realize that the small fry and giant are respectively Pugsley and Lurch from "The Addams Family". For some reason, I am completely calm. I ask the big guy if we could get by him to our seats. They all stand. We brush by them and in my head I'm thinking "OMGIBRUSHEDNATHANLANEHESTOODUPFORMEAAAH".

Curtis is evidently oblivious to the greatness we are so near so I pull out my phone and start typing in the text message composer "Do you realize who's sitting next to us?!" Curtis jerks his head back to see and I exclaim, "Curtis! Subtlety!" He realizes who's sitting next to us. Quiet outbursts of awe and amazement ensue.

The show commences and it is an absolute laugh riot. As Curtis put it, enjoying a show next to Nathan Lane is surreal. He's a good audience member with a generous chuckle and he golf claps for his favorite sections. At one point, Jackie did impersonations of people in her synagogue asking about Nathan Lane. Our heads turn to make sure Nathan is laughing at jokes about Nathan. Nathan deems it appropriate to laugh at himself. We join in. Thank goodness Nathan has a sense of humor.

Needless to say, laughing at a show with a comic icon multiplies the pleasure of the experience. Several larger outbursts occurred post-show when it was safe to act like maniacal fans who just met their idol. As Steph put it in his comment to my facebook update:

Merry Christmas! Here's your present!

~God


I love New York,
Jamin