Gotham to Broadway

By Cassandra Csencsitz with photos by Jenny Anderson

In 2006, the year before Bret began working at Gotham, I took my visiting mother and then-boss to Gotham for pre-theatre drinks. This was a couple of years after I moved to New York, and it was the first (and last) time I misjudged how unbearably long it can take for a cab to go 33 short blocks from 12th to 55th Street. I think my soul left my body one stoplight at a time while Ralph Fiennes waited for me at the Booth.

Not long after Bret joined Gotham, I happily discovered you can get to Broadway in about 15 minutes from the Union Square station, or via the 2/3 for that matter, allowing you to dine well downtown, then make it to the theatre in time for the bathroom or bar with your soul intact. In short, you can have your tartare and eat it, too.

After years of making our way between 12th Street and addresses around the city, when Bret bought and reopened Gotham two years ago, I began dreaming about a Gotham-to-Broadway campaign with which we would encourage our pandemic-worn neighbors to dine out, see theatre, and take the train like good New Yorkers once again. But this was the height of subway-phobia (and crime), and there was no way—as we all tried to get folks back to New York and through our doors—that I could promote the subway.

That was then. This season felt like the right time to make it happen, and all it took was Andrea Lauer, the fabric genie behind Gotham’s new lights and founder of Risen Division jumpsuits, to be dressing Melissa Etheridge for Broadway and include us on the ride. If you “believe in rock and roll” and that “music can save your mortal soul” then you can’t imagine a more redemptive night of theatre than My Window, written by Etheridge with her wife Linda Wallem Etheridge and directed by Amy Tinkham.

The title page of Melissa’s Etheridge’s rock and roll memoir calls it “A Musical.” No doubt this designation means a lot to the songstress from Kansas who once loved Broadway, along with the other miracles revealed by radio in the 1960s, from afar. At under age 10 she learned guitar from a one-handed man, in her teens she cut her teeth with cover bands, and somewhere in between she taught herself to play piano and learned to write a tune.

In the spirit of musical theatre, for My Window Etheridge’s biggest hits are arranged for maximum drama while her larger body of work reveals a deeply theatrical songbook that, taken together, ably tells the story of her complex life. On Broadway the tragicomedy and entertainment value of being human are given full rein with sexually liberated anthems like “Juliet,” a saucy contribution to that star-crossed canon, and “Meet Me in the Back,” a downright aphrodisiac in the key of C. With her show, Melissa joins the canon of musical theatre that expands and transforms pop, from Moulin Rouge and & Juliet to Girl from the North Country, for which Simon Hale’s arrangements give us a whole new Dylan to love. However, in Melissa’s case, as with Springsteen on Broadway, the artist has transformed herself.

The ecstasy of rock takes a somber turn when Etheridge, in the midst of a post-collegiate homecoming, is denounced by her mother for her “psychological illness” and “unnatural” relations with girls. To express what seems to be the first acutely painful moment in her life, Etheridge summons “Nowhere to Go,” a ballad that is lovely in the studio but an emotional masterpiece on Broadway.

This event prompts Etheridge to leave Leavenworth for good, sparking a move to Kansas City followed by LA, where fame and love await. Melissa takes us through her first big breaks, breakups, and breakthroughs, including a couple of formative trips—and I don’t mean abroad. A highlight is when, after the first great love of her life returns to her husband, the stage moves mid-audience and Etheridge enacts all but stalking the woman with “I Wanna Come Over,” sung as if parked in her car outside her house. It’s humorously self-deprecating, rebel-rousing, and red hot in full theatre glory.

One of the great achievements of My Window is the intensity of its emotional shifts, the source of all catharsis that heals. We are still riding high from “I Wanna Come Over” when Etheridge begins to tell us about losing her beloved dad, how she got to share his last minutes and say all the important things. She then takes to the piano for ”Talking to My Angel,” written as a deathbed dialogue between the lifelong buddies. Not sobbing wasn’t an option; the goal became keeping one’s volume down:

DON’T BE AFRAID
CLOSE YOUR EYES
LAY IT ALL DOWN
DON’T YOU CRY
CAN’T YOU SEE I’M GOING
WHERE I CAN SEE THE SUN RISE
I’VE BEEN TALKING TO MY ANGEL
AND HE SAID THAT IT’S ALRIGHT

Throughout the show, as Etheridge makes her way into our hearts, via our own windows, she dons and discards layers of finery, leathers glittering, fringed, and studded in opulent detail by Andrea Lauer. Glamor’s role in rock and roll becomes another character in this story that insists on eternal sex appeal and embracing life’s drama from cradle to stage.

Etheridge is nothing if not self-aware, and multiple times, as if hearing her own lyrics anew, she calls herself “so dramatic,” intoned with more of that endearing self-deprecation that is one of her many virtues. She is dramatic indeed, and to our benefit, for a life-affirming ride that is rich with triumph, recovery, and love.

Gotham’s story is also dramatic and one dependent on the connections that have formed the happiest part of our comeback. So many Gotham friends and family have stayed or returned—from Billy at the bar and Joseph at the door to our original architect James Biber, who presided over designs in 2021 as well as 1984. It has also been a journey of new connections with inspired souls like Andrea Lauer, who have brought so much to our table, from the chandeliers above our room to the neon lights of Broadway. As we prepare to turn 40 this coming spring, these connections mean the world. They are our window.

Closing 11/19, don’t miss My Window’s last week on Broadway, and join us for dinner pre-theatre! Simply show your ticket to receive a complimentary glass of sparkling rosé, courtesy of Gratien & Meyer!

“All is Love, all is choice. My happiness is
not other’s pain. During Covid, I built a
streaming studio in our garage with my wife
where we stayed connected with people with
something called Etheridge TV. We started The
Etheridge Foundation that researches plant
medicine as an alternative to opioids. I went
back on tour and even wrote a show for
Broadway, where I knew, someday, I would turn
to the audience and thank them for helping me
heal. Because that is what we do for each
other. Hold space and remind each other that
we are not alone.”

—An initial version of the final spoken lines of My Window, which has evolved since inception and is a little different every night.