The Day I Gave Up Broadway

RJ Carr
6 min readMar 12, 2024
Photo: Rossillicon Photos

I could not believe it. I planned to attend my first musical in three years and I recognized the main star. I had no idea John Lastly was just a stage name.

I used to attend musicals most on Broadway, at least six a year. I live in Boston. New York is close enough to experience the theater but not close enough to make it a simple trip. I guess I lived my once-desired career vicariously through my excursions but then COVID happened. My visits to New York via the Acela corridor on AMTRAK came to an end. The Manhattan theater district went dark.

After COVID, it took time to get back into the routine. Finally, I was with a friend and we both chose to go to the newest show on Broadway — Massachusetts the Musical. It is supposed to be a wonderful story of John Adams and his trip to France from Hough’s Neck, a part of Quincy, Massachusetts that juts out into Boston Harbor.

I should note here that Quincy, is pronounced Quin-zy not that horrendous Quin-see which is the one in Illinois. All other parts of the country use that Illinois pronunciation and it is like fingers on a chalkboard to New Englanders.

Anyway, I looked forward to the show and I bought the tickets for myself and Bill. Bill paid for dinner; we each paid half of the hotel room. We enjoyed supper at Papa’s on 46th street off of 8th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen. Bill…

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