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PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: [title of show] — Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?
By Harry Haun
18 Jul 2008
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Hunter Bell with Heidi Blickenstaff, Susan Blackwell with Jeff Bowen, and Larry Pressgrove with Michael Berresse.
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| photo by courtesy Sam Rudy Media Relations | Meet the first-nighters at the opening of [title of show].
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At the top of [title of show] on its opening night July 17, the oft-overlooked Larry Pressgrove was welcomed to the Lyceum stage with wildly sustained applause.
And he was the keyboardist. You can imagine how crazy the place went when the cast showed up — such tumult! — just as you can imagine how at the curtain call there wasn't a dry eye on that stage, keyboardist included and counting the director-choreographer, Michael Berresse, who was brought up from the audience in tears.
Okay, it was a passionately partisan house, full of friends, fans and family — plus a newly activated gaggle of Internet groupies who've kept the decibel level sky-high since the first preview — so perhaps it was easy for Hunter Bell and Susan Blackwell and Jeff Bowen and Heidi Blickenstaff just to stand there in their Mickey & Judy & Mickey & Judy fashion and put on "a little show" of their own making.
This is the little show that could — and did. Bell, who wrote the book, and Bowen, who wrote the songs, have come a long way (not to put too fine a point on it, but they've come the distance). Four years ago, they first sat down in Bell's living room — on that brown couch from the Salvation Army — and began writing themselves a show, documenting in amusingly minute detail what you go through when you do that.
Back then, just to get their creative engines to turn over, they were doing it as their entry for the annual New York Theatre Festival — but, clearly, things got wildly out of hand because here they are now in the oldest theatre on Broadway, facing a thunderously appreciative audience who was just as misty and mystified as they are.
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Betty Buckley, Mary Stout, Roma Torre, John Cameron Mitchell and Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anthony Rapp, Stephanie J. Block with Megan Hilty and Marc Shaiman
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| photos by Aubrey Reuben |
Eventually, Bowen and Bell stepped forth to say a few words to the newly converted. "I really don't know what to say," admitted Bell, once he had choked back enough tears for him to say anything, "but, if anybody ever asks you 'Have you ever watched somebody see their dream come true in real time?,' you can actually say 'Yeah.'"
On both sides of the footlights, an emotional time was had by all, and it carried the crowd to the after-party at a new club, The Hudson Terrace (as in Hudson River), waaay across West 46th St. They arrived in dribs and drabs, by foot or on clouds.
The nightclub came with two rooms at the top, and both were cramped to capacity — on a pretty muggy evening. Somehow, pizza didn't seem like a good idea.
The freshly minted new-stars-on-the-block arrived — one surmised, via a slow boat to China — one hour and 45 minutes after the curtain fall TSCST (True Stars' Central Standard Time). Family rated first over the panting press. (Can you imagine?)
They were still wearing the magic of the night — glowing with it, in fact, as opposed to glistening like the rest of us were from the humidity — and they lit up the room.
Yep, said Blickenstaff, that was no acting trick: "Those were real tears. It hits me in a very real way because this is what I've dreamed about since I was a very little girl. I've been lucky enough to be on Broadway and I've played wonderful parts, but this show is something very sacred and special to me so I'm very emotional about it."
In fact, Blickenstaff was the first to break down emotionally at the final curtain. "I'm always the first to crack. I'm such a baby — but I think we're all very overwhelmed by the response. We love it that people are loving it, and we will forever be stunned by that — that what we have loved other people are enjoying — and that is amazing.
"I'm just trying to breathe and not forget it. I'm not a kid. I've been working hard in this business for a long time so I appreciate this very much. I'm just trying to take it all in and store it in my head forever because I may not get another moment like it."
Bowen seemed the most contained at the curtain call, but that was just an act. "Oh, I was crying there toward the end," he was quite quick to confess. "Usually, I let it go once the curtain comes down. I try to stand in character until then. Then I let go. I was a mess three nights ago. We have different nights all the time. It'll hit us in different ways on different nights. You never know who's going to tip over.
"It was nice to know that this milestone was coming. We have just enjoyed the process. We're really conscious about taking every moment and making it awesome and feeling good about it. The thing I'm happiest about is that I really feel that I have felt all the goodness up to here. Like, none of it has passed by. I'm savoring it all."
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The stars well up with tears at their curtain call.
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben |
Like Bowen, Blackwell is making her Broadway debut — and it was pretty nerve-wracking backstage before The Big Leap. "We were very nervous," she admitted. "We kept trying to talk each other down and say, 'Tonight let's just communicate with each other. Let us enjoy. Let's try to tell the story. Let's try not to spazz out, as one is wont to do on an occasion such as this. So at the beginning of the play we were a little spastic, but we calmed down a little bit and had a wonderful time." Continued...
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