BEAUTY AND THE BEAST AND I

Beauty and the Beast

and

I


It was opening night for Beauty and the Beast on Broadway and my wife and I were fortunate and delighted to have been invited to be part of the opening night audience on the evening of April 18, 1994. That was a little more than 21 years ago. Something happened to me that evening while I was part of the “celebrity line” entering the Palace Theatre that has stayed with me these past 21 years.

 

The limousines arrived in front of the theatre (just the way they do in the movies or on television) delivering many celebrity personalities recognizable to the gawking and, sometimes, cheering crowd behind the rope lines. My wife and I arrived by taxi a block away and walked to join the arriving, limousine celebrities and those that would have liked to be celebrities.

It was then, as we walked between the rope lines holding back the fans, when it happened to me.

 

There, behind the rope line was a group of teen-aged girls holding out their pens and autograph books (or whatever they were using to get a hoped-for autograph). As I drew near, one of the autograph-seeking girls called out to me, obviously unsure I was worth wasting her time. “Are you anybody?”


“Are you anybody?”  I wished that I could have thought of something clever in reply. The best I could manage was to shake my head and kept on following the crowd into the theater.

 

Well, I’m ready now, dogged by the need to reply. I know 21 years is a rather long time to come up with an answer but it’s better not to rush headlong into a response that I might regret. Actually, I have thought of several responses; all lies.

 

If I had lied and said that I was the star of Love Nest On Mars (a fictional film title of my own invention), my wife would have exposed me as a fake.

 

I suppose it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.

 

Bob Flicker

5/7


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