BWW Exclusive: Counting Down to Jennifer Ashley Tepper's THE UNTOLD STORIES OF BROADWAY, VOLUME 2 - The Barrymore Theatre

To celebrate the publication of The Untold Stories of Broadway, Volume 2 on November 18 by Dress Circle Publishing, Jennifer Ashley Tepper will be sharing three short excerpts about each of the Broadway theaters featured in the book-countdown style! Today: The Barrymore Theatre!

The second book in a multivolume collection examines eight Broadway theaters and over 70 years of theatrical history through the voices of such Broadway greats as Jason Robert Brown, Joanna Gleason, Jonathan Groff,Jeremy Jordan, Laura Linney, Joe Mantello, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Robert Morse, Harold Prince, Charles Strouse, Alex Timbers, Julie Taymor, Robert Wankel, George C. Wolfe and more. The eight Broadway theaters featured in the second book are the Palace Theatre, the Barrymore Theatre, the Gershwin Theatre, the Circle in the Square, the Shubert Theatre, the Criterion Center Stage Right, the Vivian Beaumont Theatre and the Nederlander Theatre.

Have you ever wanted to sneak behind the curtain of some of Broadway's greatest hits, including Wicked, Rent, and A Chorus Line? Do you wonder what secret Tom Bosley told Robert Morse about Sardi's or what Patti LuPone revealed to Raúl Esparza about Broadway dressing rooms? Are you dying to know what Laura Linney learned as a young understudy, watching Stockard Channing on stage each night?

From opening nights to closing nights. From secret passageways to ghostly encounters. From Broadway debuts to landmark productions. Score a front row seat to hear hundreds of stories about the most important stages in the world, seen through the eyes of the producers, actors, stage hands, writers, musicians, company managers, dressers, designers, directors, ushers, and door men who bring The Great White Way to life each night. You'll never look at Broadway the same way again. The Untold Stories of Broadway, Volume 2 is the second book in a multi-volume series that will tell the stories of all of the Broadway houses.

The Barrymore Theatre

Did You Know:

The Shower On The 3rd Floor Of The Barrymore Is There Because Of Joanna Gleason?

Joanna Gleason, Actor

I Love My Wife has a brilliant score by Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart. That show was the source of friendships that are with me to this day. Jimmy Naughton ended up living about five minutes up the road from my husband and me, in Connecticut; Ilene Graff and I have been close friends all these years, and our kids grew up as friends. Then there was the late Lenny Baker, who was amazing. We all just loved each other. That show was pretty special.

I climbed three flights to my little dressing room. At first, there was no shower available near me and Ilene. So I made an appointment with Gerry Schoenfeld. There I was, right off the turnip truck, and I made an appointment with the Shuberts! I came in, and he said, "Hi, doll!" and gave me a big hug. I said, "Mr. Schoenfeld, we have no shower!" Within a day, there was a pre-fab shower installed up on the third floor of the Barrymore. That was my doing.

Also, I was on that stage in July of 1977, when there was a blackout in New York. We were standing onstage, doing the show, and we heard the sound of power shutting off. Everything ground to a halt, and everything went black.

We got flashlights from the crew, and told everybody, "Don't panic." By flashlight, we finished a number! The audience stayed in their seats. Then, very orderly, everybody filed out and onto the streets of New York. Everybody made their way home that night in pitch black, together.

New York was fabulous that night. There was camaraderie in the streets. I was renting a place on the Upper East Side, so I walked from 47th Street to 81st Street, through blacked-out New York. It was great in 1977; I don't know how great it would be now. There we all were, hanging in the dark.

Did You Know:

Liz Callaway Met Her Husband Because He Came To The Baby Stage Door?

Liz Callaway, Actor

I met my husband through Baby. He was a fan, and I remember talking to him after performances. He would wait outside afterward, near the stage door. He came to the first preview because he had auditioned for the show. He's a director now, but he was an actor then, and he thought: Oh, let's see who got that part. And then he thought: Wow, look at her. He saw the show 13 times.

We finally started dating a few weeks before the show closed. It was funny, because the producers joked, "By the end, he had really good seats!" Baby will always have those great memories for me.

I remember one night during the show, I started to feel really woozy. I started being not able to see out of one of my eyes. During the first act, I thought: Oh my God. I'm going blind. I kept doing the show. That night, I sang "The Story Goes On", thinking: This is the last time I'm going to be able to see. It was so dramatic.

I got off stage, and someone said, "Oh, you have a migraine!" I thought: "I do? Oh!" I was 22 and had never had one, so I just didn't know. Now my son is 22, and it's amazing and weird to think that I was his age when I did Baby. So young!

Did You Know:

Sometimes Fake Musicals Can Be More Thrilling Than Real Ones?

Jeremy Jordan, Actor

We filmed scenes from Hit List at the Barrymore, and it was really cool to shoot across the street from the Brooks Atkinson, the theater I made my Broadway debut in. Smash put up an entire fake front-of-house at the Barrymore, so there were Hit List critics' quotes and posters with our faces on them. I've never been so excited to see my face outside of a theater. When we saw it for the first time, I just remember thinking: Our show is so bad-ass! Oh my God!

I've had my picture outside the theater before, on real musicals, but it was so much more thrilling with this fake musical! I can't explain it. It was just really fun.

The Untold Stories of Broadway, Volume 2 can be pre-ordered by visiting Dress Circle Publishing and will officially release on November 18, 2014. For more information please visit www.dresscirclepublishing.com.

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