Posted by Bruce Miller
I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday as I was watching
Guys and Dolls. This was my fourth or fifth time seeing the show. I think it’s very well done, and I’m proud of it. I really enjoy watching it again and again.
The epiphany had to do with the sudden realization of all that my parents gave to me as a child.
As I looked around the relatively full house, I saw only one child or teenager. He appeared to be about 12 years old, and he was having the time of his life. He was there with his mom, or aunt, maybe his grandmother—and the two of them seemed really into the show.
I couldn’t help but remember the 50 or so times that my parents took me to shows as I was growing up. My mom is a native New Yorker. She was born and raised on Staten Island, and worked in Manhattan as a secretary before she met and married my dad when his Navy ship docked in NYC during WWII. Her mother, my grandmother, was a practice piano teacher at Carnegie Hall.
When my mom was growing up, her parents took her to Broadway, a habit she continued to nurture as a young woman throughout her twenties. When she was raising my brother and me, she apparently remembered and valued her own cultural education, because she insisted throughout my childhood and adolescence on taking us to the theatre.
Whenever she and my dad went, we went too. We went to the Virginia Museum Theatre, to Barksdale Theatre at Hanover Tavern, and, being Chesterfield residents, we especially went to the Mill. When the Civic Light Opera company came to the Mosque (now the Landmark), we were there. We went to high school theatre productions, Dogwood Dell, the Shakespeare Players, and
The Founders and
The Common Glory in Williamsburg. During the summers, we’d visit family in New York and go to Broadway.
We were NOT a wealthy family—far from it. My dad was a feed salesman for General Mills and later a defense supply agent at Bellwood. My mom was a church secretary.
For whatever reason, my parents must have felt that a full cultural life was a vital part of my education. For the same reason, I suppose, Terrie and I have brought up our children in a similar manner. I doubt if a month goes by without our taking them to a play, a concert and/or a gallery opening or museum exhibition. It’s been that way since they were born, and I’m sure it’s not going to stop anytime soon.
What I can’t understand is why more families don’t feel so inclined.
Guys and Dolls is a wonderful production of one of the greatest of all American musicals. I’m not engaging in hyperbole when I say I believe that
Guys and Dolls means no less to American culture than Shakespeare means to British culture. It’s part of our national identity.
And yet, when I go to the show, I hardly ever see parents bringing their children and teenagers. Are tickets too expensive, or has everything fundamentally changed? Or is the theatregoing tradition in Richmond really that far behind that of major cities in the North or in Europe? Go to NYC or London, and you’ll find theatres packed with families.
I am SO thankful now to my mom and dad for taking me to all those plays. I suspect that it was mainly her idea, at least at first. By being so culturally aware, my mom passed on to me her love of theatre, the arts in general, reading, education and critical thinking. Without all that, I can’t imagine who I would be.
My mom is now 92-years-old, and she suffers from Alzheimer’s. When I visit her at Westminster-Canterbury, she sometimes knows who I am, but just as often thinks that I’m her husband or father. It’s as if all of her life is now happening simultaneously, and time has lost all relevance. I wish
I could take
her to
Guys and Dolls—she’d LOVE it!!—but physically, emotionally and cognitively she can no longer leave her home.
If there’s anyone out there who wants to bring the children in their life to
Guys and Dolls, or for that matter any other Barksdale and/or Theatre IV production, and isn’t doing so because they can’t afford it, please
send me an email, let me know what you'd like to see and what would be your ideal “pay what you can” price. I’ll find a way to make tickets available to you at prices you can afford.
Every child age ten and up should see
Guys to know what this classic American musical is all about. If our children stop coming to the theatre, then the future of theatre is bleak indeed.
--Bruce Miller
