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“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” sent a tattered dressing gown
to a gypsy friend in “Call Me Madam”. That gypsy in turn
added a cabbage rose from Ethel Merman’s costume and
sent it on to a gypsy in Guys & Dolls. All three shows
were hits and a tradition was born. To this day on the
opening night of a Broadway musical the whole cast and
crew gather on stage in a circle at the centre of which is a
chorus member who hands the robe to a new “gypsy” who
puts it on and walks around the outside of the circle three
times anti-clockwise while everyone touches the robe for
luck. When one robe is filled with panels memorialising
each musical, it is retired and is kept safe in either the
Lincoln Center Library, at the Actors’ Equity headquarters
or at the Smithsonian
.
The historian of the Gypsy Robe
Ceremony is a little lady with a pixie haircut, Mrs Gloria
Rosenthal who has attended every opening since 1982.
Then she goes home. She never stays to see the curtain
go up.
The National Theatre on London’s South Bank used to
fire a rocket from the roof on opening nights. Alas this
was a short lived tradition shut down by the Met Police
amid fears of IRA terrorism. At the beginning of this
month (July 2012), The Shard, the tallest building in the
European Union opened at London Bridge with an
impressive laser show against the night sky. The public
viewing gallery opens next February. Look out for news
in next month’s issue of
The Kettle.
In Portuguese and Spanish speaking countries on opening
nights the cast chant Muita Merda/Mucha Mierda. It is
said that this prayer for lots of poo dates back to the time
of the horse and carriage. Lots of horse manure means
lots of carriages which means lots of people implying
a big audience and success.
On Broadway in New York the passing of the gypsy
robe is a tradition that started in the 1950s when a gypsy
(a theatrical slang term for a chorus member) in the show