Bash Compactor: How Not to Crash a Holiday Party

Note to
the holiday party planners of this city: Don’t invite guests to a party
you’re not hosting. That’s what happened Sunday as I attempted to
attend a holiday bowling party for the strangely butch Broadway show
Lombardi. When I arrived at Bowlmor in Times Square, I was
informed of some sort of miscommunication between the people organizing
the party on the show’s side and those representing Bowlmor. The former
wasn’t cool with me coming in, the latter had thought that it would be
fine. You mean to tell me I weaved through the parking lot of Times
Square just to be told I can’t drink, bowl or eat with the cast and
crew? I thought to myself, annoyed that I’d hopped the train from
faraway Brooklyn.

It’s too bad my dreams of partying with Lombardi title role-player Dan Lauria, still best known as the dad on The Wonder Years, and his on-stage wife Judith Light—Who’s The
Boss’ Angela Bower, still rocking feathered bangs in 2010—were so
savagely dashed. But I don’t think they’d be too keen on mingling with
me anyway: A Bowlmor employee practically had to beg them for their
autographs on two big-ass souvenir pins.

The purpose of the
party was the same as any company holiday party, I guess: for the people
to let loose and relax. I have no idea whether that goal was achieved,
though, because I was made to wait outside the party room and could
barely see in. They had private lanes and some food, it seemed. I’m
assuming the crew was there, because the cast was there, and so was the
producer and director, so it’d be kind of tasteless for them not to
invite the crew. But they invited me and then made me stand outside, so
who really knows what these people are capable of.

Not
completely devoid of holiday spirit, Lombardi’s people did bestow on me
the gift of two milquetoast interviews. Apparently Dan and Judith are
wonderful to work with, according to director Thomas Kail. “It
was what every director hopes for. They come into work, they know what
they’re doing, and they have a great affection for each other, so it
really made my job very easy.” Producer Fran Kirmser echoed, “Oh, it was
phenomenal. They’re real stage creatures. They’re really of the stage.”
Would that I could only have seen whether their stage magic translated
into bowling finesse!

Kail, who sports a baby face and Justin Guarini-esque curls,
told me he’d started his career with celebrated Washington Heights
musical In The Heights. And now Lombardi, a Middle America football
coaching drama? “They’re both stories of being taken from where you’re
from,” he said, “and having to go to another place and make it your
home.” Unless, of course, they won’t let you in.