More and Better Cast Parties

My sophomore year in High School also brought two more shows with the Sayville Musical Workshop.I would run a follow spot for both “Guys and Dolls” and “Fiddler on the Roof”.
This was something new for me and lots of fun, but even more fun was the Workshop’s Cast Parties.
The Cast Parties were always held at a local restaurant, usually one with a piano, and a late night buffet was often set up for us.
Some time around midnight, after the final performance, 30 or so people would show up, quickly eat, have a few drinks, and then the other customers were treated to hearing the entire just finished show sung again plus many selections from the best of Broadway.
Some people enjoyed it, others would move to another area while others would leave altogether.
It was at one of these parties that one of the women working on the show bought me, then 15 or 16, my first Whiskey Sour.
Nothing funky ever happened.
At that time I was still short, very young looking and had not yet become the Greek Adonis that I am today.
The parties were fun and I always had a great time.
It seemed to me that this is what working in Theatre should be, hard work followed by lots of fun.

My Aunt recently showed me a photo of my grandmother, who did a little work on Broadway, at a cast party for some show in about 1918 or so.
There was some then well know silent film actor there at the party.
It did not look as wild as the Workshop parties, or of the ones that I went to later in college, but you could clearly see that they were still having a good time.
I always knew that my Grandmother had played piano for silent movies, and that she did some stage work but late in her life she told us about working on a few silent movies while they still were being made in New York City before moving to Hollywood.
It turned out that my Grandmother lived across the hall from the then young Dorothy and Lillian Gish, famous silent film stars, and that my Great Grandmother would baby-sit whichever one was not working on a movie that day.

It turns out that my other Grandmother, my mom's mom, also did a little work in Show Biz.
It turns our that she sang in a Speak Easy during Prohibition.
No wonder nobody in my family raised an eyebrow when I decided to work in Theatre.