Writer's Block

He was late. He hurried up 58th Street, the rain pouring down so hard that it seemed like Ann Miller was tap dancing on his umbrella. If there was one thing that Arthur Myerson hated it was people who were late, and now he was one of those people; not only that, he was late to the first rehearsal of his new show.

He’d left in plenty of time to make the ten o’clock rehearsal, but, of course, given the torrential downpour there wasn’t an empty cab to be found. He never understood that—how every single cab in New York could have someone in it. Didn’t these people ever get out somewhere? But there were no empty cabs and that was that, and he’d had no choice but to walk from his Central Park West apartment all the way to the Broadway Arts rehearsal studio on 50th and 8th.

It didn’t help that he had a cold. Well, not just a cold; Arthur Myerson couldn’t have just a cold. No, Arthur Myerson had to have the World’s Worst Cold. His overcoat pockets were stuffed with Kleenex and, as he crossed 6th and headed towards Broadway, he continually pulled wads of the Kleenex out and blew his nose, which was red and raw as a piece of uncooked hamburger. He looked like a clown, with his huge red honker of a nose (courtesy of his father and his father’s father). He hadn’t slept at all the night before—partially because of the World’s Worst Cold and mostly because he never slept the night before a first read-through. He had deep circles under his eyes and he looked at least a decade older than his forty years. He kept his umbrella close to his head but it didn’t matter—the rain didn’t care about Arthur Myerson or his umbrella, and it just pummeled him from every direction.

By the time he got there it was ten after and he was soaked to the skin. The wind, which was fierce, had decimated his umbrella, which now looked like a stick figure with a hula skirt. He entered the Broadway Arts building and tossed what was left of the umbrella in the trash can by the front door, then took the tiny elevator up to Studio A.

He opened the door of the rehearsal room and there was everyone, schmoozing away, laughing, being amiable and friendly and dry. Arthur knew well enough that all that schmoozing and laughing and being amiable and friendly would evaporate in a matter of days—that’s just the way it was when you were working on a new musical.

The rehearsal hall was just as dank and dreary as the day, and it was freezing because, as always, the heat wasn’t working. Why were all rehearsal halls like this? They were the most unpleasant and depressing looking places you could ever want to work in—the atmosphere was oppressive and ugly and grim. In a room like that you were expected to make magic. It was to wonder.

Arthur took off his sopping-wet raincoat and hung it up on a coat rack in the corner.

“Arthur, you’re making a puddle,” bellowed Conrad Ballinger, the show’s bombastic and charismatic producer.

Everyone turned and looked at Arthur, whose dripping clothes were indeed making a nice little puddle on the floor.

“Yes, I always make a puddle when I enter a room. It’s an attention getter,” replied Arthur. That line was followed by an epic sneeze that was so loud they probably could have heard it in Queens.