A Night at American Stage

On Friday night, Pete, Joe and I went to see Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune at American Stage Theatre in downtown St Pete.  Their friend Arnt purchased the tickets, but had to be out of town, so he asked P & J to give his ticket to me.  Arnt knew that Terrence McNally, the playwright, was to be present at that night's performance.  [ See his bio and his writing credits ] I worked until 6:15 pm, so met P&J at the theater.  I arrived before them and proceeded upstairs to the lobby/lounge area.  There was a crowd of people there, some pretty dressed up for a night on the town, and there was a buffet table set up near the windows loaded with light dinner fare.  I saw a young man who I knew from the credit union.  He works for American Stage.  I approached him and asked if he could point out Terrence McNally, and he did.  He was sitting at a table with his partner and two ladies.


A little background:  back in 2006 -  2007, I was attending a men's support group at the Pride Center in Albany.  We had arranged a field trip to NYC in April 2007 [ click here to see the post ] to attend a performance of another of Terrence McNally's work, Some Men.  We took the train down to the city, had dinner at the Midtown Carmine's, walked around the town a little (The Bronx is up and The Battery's down) then went to the show.  It was wonderful!  So . . . I brought my Playbill from the show with me to the American Stage.

Figuring, "hey, I'm old, I can get away with it!" I went up to Terrence, showed him the Playbill and gushed about how much I enjoyed the play!  His partner was all excited and said how much he liked it and that it was dedicated to him.  The woman across the table asked what it was and I gave her the Playbill to look at.  I gave him a little background about me and the support group and how we felt that in the scene in the show that took place in a men's support group, we were sure he had eavesdropped on our group.  We could see a member of our group in each of the actors on the stage!  He laughed at that.  I then asked him if he would autograph my Playbill and he turned to the title page inside and signed his name!  I thanked him profusely!

Photo at left is from Some Men.

Oh, and I enjoyed Frankie and Johnny.