entire contents copyright © 1995 - 2007 The Theater Mirror.
All Rights Reserved
Though there have been few reviews written, I have indeed been seeing plays --- 101 of them so far this year --- so "My Sumer Vacation" was yesterday: I spent Saturday afternoon down in the sunny southland of Providence RI eating & drinking my way through half the restaurants on a "Taste Of Providence" tour organized by the Trinity Rep Company. Yummmmmm! And after digesting my thoughts I found myself wondering whether such a promotional gimmick could be implemented here in Boston.
I don't think so.
I lived in Providence briefly --- perhaps the worst couple years of my life --- when cars and malls and suburbia had sucked the life out of the center of town and except for a slender slice of restaurants up one side of the local river Providence had become the arm-pit of the Eastern Seaboard. That, thank Ghod, has totally changed. There's a lot of New down there, the place is clean and bustling and pleasant to walk in, and there's an informal friendliness abroad there that you might expect only in smaller cities like Rockport or Plymouth up here in Massachusetts. The people seem to know and like their city As A Whole rather than hunkering down in warring fiefdoms as we do up here in the Athens of The East.
Maybe the city decided in about 1975 when I came back here to Boston that it had to get its act together or die. Maybe Mayor Buddy Cianci despite his scumbag-politics was at heart a visionary leader. What I did notice, however, when I started collecting Theater Websites on The Mirror, was that the City of Providence already HAD a list of websites for all the THEATERS in the city, and that page had Buddy's name proudly displayed on it. In contrast, Mayor Menino's "Office of Cultural Affairs" has never asked if they could perhaps borrow The Mirror's list of such places here in Boston. Actually, when I asked a few years ago for money enough to xerox a "Guidebook to the Theatres in Boston" that office first enthusiastically asked for bottom-line figures, but when I had them they curtly announced that they had already spent their budget. Apparently, Cultural Parades get them a bigger political bang for their buck than my survey of the 93 (or more) theatres that live and work here, all year, every year.
But back to that restaurant tour:
The Trinity Rep Company organized it, but the promotion covered a lot of ground. You'd probably need a car to get to all or even most of the city's participating restaurants in the four hours the event lasted. We started out a little late, picked up a map and books of tickets (Twenty free meals for $37.00 was the toll) at Trinity, and looked for restaurants close to that play-space.
I don't know if the theater recommended it, but all of the eateries restricted their free tastes to what you might put on a saucer --- and some threw in a drink on the side. My favorite experience of the day was at Murphy's Irish Delicatessen & Bar, which served a scrumptious made-on-premesis pastrami & cheese on rye sandwich, with a lacy, tasty little salad plus a small stout or amber ale to go with. The young waiter said they'd never been that busy on a Saturday afternoon --- and this at a time when all the students were still away on vacation. Later a hostess came by to ask our reactions and talk about the place --- it's been in business for eighty years! --- and when we had good things to say about our waiter she replied "Thank you for the compliment; he's my son!"
Only one of the listed places had opted out of the promotion, and only one other did a quick lip-service snack hardly worth their time, or ours --- but everywhere else the wait-staff took time to explain the lovely tastes they seemed proud to serve, and understood that we were checking out places to eat before seeing plays --- in other words, we expected to come back with real money in future. The possibility of future business seemed worth their free food, and they were apparently grateful to Trinity for introducing them to new customers.
I think the event was a huge success for everyone involved, and we even got to share tips on where else to try from other people taking the tour.
But perhaps Boston is too big, the theatres too spread out and their p/r-people too busy to think of trying such a thing here. Imagine trying to co-ordinate Emilio's and Franchesca's (near the BCA) and whatever is moving into Bob The Chef's (a block from The Factory) and the new Four Burgers (between the YMCA's Durrell Hall and the new Nora/Underground Railway Theatre) with Skipjack's near the Lyric, Panetta by The New Rep and Charlie's by the Huntington and Passim's on the way to the A.R.T. Would they go for it? Or would they just think of it as a waste of their time?
Of course, the one thing the theatres here really ought to do is make an effort to Advertise any and all the restaurants and bars within walking-distance in their programs --- perhaps with an agreement that anyone coming in with a program in hand might expect a free drink or appetizer or dessert with their meal. Theatres might even Recommend the best places where playgoers might be likely to run into actors before or after shows.
If, that is, anyone felt that eating interesting food and seeing interesting plays were things that people would enjoy.
I certainly enjoyed my tour down in Providence.....
Love,
===Anon.
( a k a larry stark)
Thoroughly Modern Milly For information call 781-871-2787
The Company
Theatre
July 25 - August 17
30 Accord Park Dr.
Norwell, MA 02061
(781) 871-2787 (ARTS)
Well, I just published:
Larry Stark, 125 Amory Street #501, Roxbury, MA 02119
Love, ===Anon.
A note of pure obstinant pedantry:
THEATER is an art.
It is practiced in THEATRES.
If you'd like to tell us what you think about The Theater Mirror,
My name is Larry Stark my e-mail address is larrystark@theatermirror.com
Design, Fabrication, Upkeep and Systems Engineering larry@theatermirror.com
You are visitor
Counter kindly provided by
as a courtesy to the
Theater Mirror.