By Harry Haun
Probably Shatner decreed that the after-party be held at "that place where they always have it" — Sardi's — which they did a half-century ago when he was last on Broadway, but Shubert prexy Robert Wankel heartily approved the choice.
"I was just telling Max [Max Klimavicius, who runs Sardi's] today this is such a very important restaurant," Wankel relayed. "It's really where everybody wants to be. After all, at one time, every opening night party was right here — every one. That's when opening night parties had 300 people and you could actually fit in Sardi's. But you know, it's funny, it's people like Angela Lansbury — this is the only place she wants to have her opening night parties."
Rather than take up the first floor, the party spread out on the scenic second, which in recent years has been opened to the bright lights and street action of West 44th. The main room had low-voltage, octogenarian lighting where you had to be right up in somebody's face to see if they were a star. There were a few twinking and shining.
17 Feb 2012
William Shatner and Scott Faris
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
A Little Night Music's Hunter Ryan Herdlicka remembered he grew up watching "Star Trek" with his grandfather, thinking the old guy was daft to watch it — only to discover later in college when he re-ran 30-odd episodes how smart his grandfather really was. Before he takes his Feinstein's act — I Happen To Like New York — on the road to San Francisco's Rrazz Room and the Austin (TX) Cabaret Theatre, he and Godspell's Lindsay Mendez will do a private industry reading/workshop of a new show called The Profit of Creation.
Priscilla Lopez, A Chorus Line's Morales, was feeling something after the show — perhaps, Viva Shatner! — and relaying news about her latest play which just tried out in San Diego. It's called Somewhere, and it's by her nephew, Matthew Lopez, based on some family history — the last days of the old neighborhood on West 66th, off of Amsterdam and Broadway, which was razed to make way for Lincoln Center. Its last stand was the 1960 location lensing of "West Side Story," Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins' Oscar-winning film.
"The main part of the story," she said, "is that Matthew's father — my brother — and I were extras in the movie. You can't see me, but you can see him very clearly in the prologue when they're in the playground and the police come in to break up a fight. You see my brother's face coming right into camera. I'm so jealous. Originally, he went there just to accompany me, and they wound up picking him for the film, too."
