Coming of Age in the Shadow of the Spotlight
A personal essay about evolving dreams.
I moved to New York City to pursue acting as a sheltered 25 year old from Colorado and immediately got a job selling tickets to a local comedy club on the streets of Times Square. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was joining a unique tribe of hustling dreamers paying rent by chatting up tourists from all over the globe.
A new colleague described Times Square’s bright lights and mangy Cookie Monsters as a sort of corporate LSD trip. Of course, I didn’t know what LSD was at the time, but I did know I was going to be in one of the planet’s most interesting crossroads for a few jaunts around the sun.
In a couple of years, commission-only comedy sales turned into managing a Broadway sales street team. For a kid who dreamt of the spotlight, it was a pretty good survival job while I scrapped for the crumbs of an acting career.
Over time, I developed a love/hate relationship with Broadway. It was simultaneously my guiding light and a torture chamber, rejecting me over and over both in the audition room and on the streets; while many visitors appreciated the expertise of a local theater enthusiast (yes, I considered myself as much New Yorker as Coloradan by then), most dismissed or sneered at us street folk, sometimes leading to verbal and even physical confrontation.
Though I’m glad to say I never had to bloody my knuckles, friends and colleagues did. On St Patrick’s Day 2014, a group of drunk out-of-towners started harassing one of the young women on our team. It was my day off, so I’ll never know what I would’ve done in that situation, but my friend Dan didn’t hesitate to stand up for her. Heated words turned into punches thrown and Dan found himself getting attacked by five — actually it was seven according to Dan who has more reason to remember — of the drunken revelers.
Dan was from Uptown and he’d seen his fair share of scrapes, but I’d always been the good kid, and watching the security camera footage reinforced what an intimidating world I’d found myself in thanks to my pursuit of Broadway’s spotlight. The sensitive Colorado boy had grown thick if jaded skin after years of disrespect and disappointment.
The Colorado kid’s big dreams, however, never faded and like a moth to a flame, I kept coming back, never seriously considering giving up on the actor’s dream or looking for work elsewhere. I warmed myself by the fire of Broadway’s secret gems like Diane Paulus’ 2013 revival of Pippin and Tracy Letts’ 2012 tour de force performance as George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
One night, leaving the Schoenfeld Theater after having seen Alec Baldwin in a brand new play called Orphans by Lyle Kessler (Shia LaBouef was also supposed to be in this production but was replaced late in rehearsals after tensions with his colleagues grew too intense), I turned on my phone to see a text from my aunt that I should call her. My 22 year old step brother Alex, who had fought off childhood leukemia only for it to return the year before, had finally passed.
I don’t remember much about Baldwin’s performance, but I’ll never forget the comfort and support from my fellow street sellers with whom I’d seen the show. While crowds of theater goers pushed by, basking in post-show glow, my friends stood with me silently. This strange little community of aspiring artists had become my tribe. I had somehow put down roots in the concrete cracks of Times Square.
Not everyone who made their living in the Square, however, was so supportive. My father had planned to visit me in the City and I’d gotten us tickets to see Rock of Ages, but with Alex’s passing, the trip was canceled. As all sales on Broadway are final, I went to my employer to offer the tickets on consignment in hopes of getting my dad his money back. My boss looked at the tickets (first row mezzanine on the center aisle for a spring break Saturday night), then looked at me and uttered: “Never buy tickets outside the company.”
In front of a bullpen of my colleagues, he didn’t even offer condolences for my loss.
I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity this man had given me to learn how to manage a team and be part of a small business, but I know that company is no longer around because he didn’t know how to treat his people. He didn’t understand the Times Square Tribe that his payroll subsidized. That humiliation suffered in front of my colleagues was more powerful than any degrading comment from a prospective customer.
All the better for me though, as a few years and a couple jobs later, I was ready for a new adventure: starting my own business. Now 32, it was easy for Dan to convince me that we were smarter than our bosses and that we should go it on our own. So in the spring of 2018, I gave my notice and poured my savings into a business bank account. That summer, we hit the streets under our own banner. Our former colleagues and bosses thought we would fail and told us as much, but by December our last place of employment had imploded after one partner disappeared with half a million dollars worth of Hamilton tickets. Meanwhile, we’d partnered with a local bar, exchanging promotions for a discount on rent for a small office space on the 4th floor.
On March 12th, 2020 I found myself at the bar with my soon-to-be former employees and the crew from the theater promotions company across the hall, all of us wondering how long COVID-19 would keep Broadway dark. Various strikes had shut the Great White Way down for a few weeks. Would this be longer? We all agreed it couldn’t be more than 3 or 4 months. Could it?
18 long months later, Hadestown, Hamilton, and a few others finally switch the lights of their marquees back on, welcoming back fully vaxxed and masked audiences.
Dan and I, along with one loyal Broadway-loving soldier, were back out in the streets, finding tickets for whoever would talk to us.
There was never a formal reunion of the Times Square Street Tribe, but many of the old faces were back on the hustle, chasing the Broadway Dream. We were overjoyed to get back to the theater and relieved to get back to work, but Broadway’s reopening led to plenty of new challenges.
Sam, the entrepreneur from across the hall with whom I’d shared that last pre-pandemic cheers, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2023. He kept coming to work until he passed on August 22nd, 2024 at the age of 40.
When I was 25, I assumed I’d be a staple on Broadway stages by 40. I’ve still got a handful of months to go, but I’ve accepted that, like Sam’s, my contribution to New York’s theater community may not be in the spotlight, but it’s no less important. Sam and I and all the other artists-turned-entrepreneurs support the tribe of Broadway Dreamers by providing the survival jobs that pay rents and thicken skins.
Though the spectacle of theater has grown, its roots are still the fires around which early humans told their stories. My story hasn’t been what I dreamt, but I’m forever grateful to have thrown some kindling into Broadway’s magic flame.