Free Moose Murdered: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Broadway Bomb by Arthur Bicknell

sporting a nearly-floor-length beaver coat and slobbering on a Cuban cigar he’d probably gotten from his best friend and fellow septuagenarian, Henny Youngman. While he was tossing his pelts over one of the chairs at a nearby table, he glanced in my direction for a split second, and I spastically turned my entire body in the opposite direction.
    Here I was, sitting at Sardi’s with the producer and associate producer of my first Broadway play, and yet suddenly I was overcome with nausea and reliving those awful days of not-so-long ago when I’d plagiarized casting items to pay my rent. Both John and Ricka were naturally compelled to ask what my problem was, so I told them my sob story without sparing a single Dickensian detail.
    “What an asshole,” reflected Ricka, just as a bottle of champagne was delivered, compliments of her husband Albert. “Don’t worry. We have a
much
better table.”
    By the time we’d covered this better table with glossy photos of all the actors we were considering for callbacks (“not the most discreet method,” John admitted), it wasn’t just the Dom Perignon that was going to my head. Sardi’s was working its magic on me, and I stopped worrying about any impending visit from Leo Shull. As we mixed and matched head shots like Olympian Gods toying with the mortals below, I found myself making broad, sweeping gestures and pontificating on the fine art of casting, as if somebody was behind me filming a documentary on my steady rise from newspaper galley slave to emerging Broadway playwright. When Leo actually did brush by our table on his way out, I was actually a little surprised he didn’t stop to pay his “respects.”
    Approximately forty names ended up on the callback list we later delivered to Stuart and Amy. Encouraged by this accomplishment, and by the news from our general manager, Eddie Davis, that the official opening date for
Moose Murders
had been set for February 7 (with a week of previews beginning January 28), we decided to wander over to both the Booth and Plymouth theaters, two of the potential houses for our production. Eddie had assured us that other theaters could very well become available after the holidays.
    “Looks like the O’Neill may be up for grabs soon,” said John as we continued to shop for real estate in the theater district.
    “So
The Wake of Jamie Foster
is a self-prophesy,” suggested Ricka, referring to the Beth Henley play that had recently opened at the Eugene O’Neill.
    “The reviews are killing it,” said John. “I spoke to Norman this morning, and he said he was passing by here yesterday and saw Beth standing on the curb, crying her eyes out. He stuck around and eavesdropped while one of her SMU chums tried to console her. ‘Beth,’ the friend says, ‘what’s wrong?’ ‘Last year I couldn’t lose,’ she says. ‘
Crimes of the Heart
made me Queen of the Prom. Now they’re throwing mud on my dress and tearing out my hair!’”
    “‘But Beth,’” the friend says, ‘remember when we were all together in school and we said the only thing that mattered was the opportunity to one day do what we do best—screw the rest! Do you remember that?’”
    “’Yes,’ she says. ‘But I lied!’”
    This little cautionary tale pulled me right back down to earth. As exciting as it was right now to anticipate the arrival of empty theaters, it was terrifying to hear about how they actually got that way.

    The area around 44th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues where the Belasco Theater was located was under heavy construction that first day of callbacks, which made the grand old building built in 1907 look like Boris Aronson’s set for the musical
Follies
. All the scaffolding, beams, and girders made it impossible for me to figure out how to get inside, although I was vaguely aware I should be looking for something marked “Stage Door.” Two scruffy men were sharing a smoke in the alley, and, thinking they might be a couple of