BWW Reviews: Performer Johanna Kelly 'Reminisces' About THE REHEARSAL CLUB

Some years ago, a friend of mine and I stayed at the Barbizon Hotel (now the Barbizon 63) in Manhattan. It was no longer the retreat of young career women and aspiring actresses that it once had been, but our thoughts of Grace Kelly, Ali MacGraw, and Joan Crawford having wandered its corridors inspired and delighted us as we enjoyed ourselves at the former Barbizon Hotel For Women. In fact, we began wandering side corridors and trying doors, and actually found an un-remodeled section of small rooms that, we were sure, once must have been occupied by would-be theatre starlets and chorus girls. (Sally Struthers, in her current one-woman show, recalls another similar establishment for single women performers in Los Angeles, in which she stayed when looking for her first job.)

Those thoughts came back to me after reviewing the May issue of REMINISCE and reading THE REHEARSAL CLUB by Johanna Kelly, a former resident of that establishment, a young actresses' lodging establishment much like the Barbizon, whose residents were supported in spirit, and in assistance, by a then not-yet-incredibly-famous Carol Burnett. Kelly, who won a scholarship from Burnett, recalls the architecture and interior design, the rules (no men above the foot of the stairs!), and Rehearsal Club revues. It is a charming, nicely-written, highly entertaining brief memoir of her time in one of New York's safe lodgings for young women who were short on money but often long on talent.

The Barbizon was always well-known, and in popular culture has recently featured in television's MAD MEN. The Rehearsal Club and other similar young women's establishments of the first half of last century are not so well known, and writing on them is certainly in order. Until someone is inspired to collect stories and photographs and produce an accessible book, Kelly's THE REHEARSAL CLUB and the other columns on the subject in the May 2013 REMINISCE are some of the few easily available, well-written documents on this fascinating byway of early-20th-century urban life and women's concerns, as well as side story of American entertainment history. The piece is not only delightfully written and revealing of the author, but adds a great deal to fans' understanding of Carol Burnett. There are no doubt other well-known female performers who aided young women at these establishments, and it would be nice to know more about that.

REMINISCE is a lavishly illustrated magazine, delightfully low on intrusive advertising, that journals the American past with heavy visuals, mostly from readers and reader/writers. It is valuable not only for lovers of the past, but for anyone interested in American social history, so much of which is lost in attics and scrapbooks and not preserved by families or turned over to museums or libraries for study.

Broadway World followers interested in entertainment history would do well not only to look up the May 2013 issue but to check for other articles in REMINISCE on the subject that are unlikely to be found in other sources. The website for the periodical is www.reminisce.com.

Photo courtesy of REMINISCE Magazine.

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