Legends Of The Spring

I had a moment this month when I was struck by the abundance of legendary performances that are available on Broadway this spring.I call the period during which shows open in the spring as close to the Tony nomination deadline as my personal March Madness. These days, almost every time I go to the theatre it’s with my teenage daughter; it’s one of our special father-daughter things. When I sat down to figure out what shows I wanted her to see this year, I was overwhelmed.Sally Field, Cate Blanchett, Glenn Close, Bette Midler, Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole. All appearing on stage now.  Not to mention Kevin Kline, Jake Gyllenhaal, Danny DeVito, Mark Ruffalo and Tony Shalhoub. And that’s only a partial list -- compiling the full list would just make me cry. I honestly cannot remember a time when this much star power was appearing at the same time in the few square blocks of the Broadway theatre district. Throw a dart and hit a legendary theatrical experience.How, then, to decide which legendary experiences to share with my daughter? She’s in school and we live in the suburbs, so our theatre going is limited to weekends which means it is impossible to see everything. So I had to make choices. Tough choices.We ended up seeing one entirely new play with no stars, one revival with one big star and one stage legend, and an entirely new play with two stage legends. I thought that was a good mix. But I can help be a little sad about the ones that are getting away.So if you’re like me, unable to see every play that opens on Broadway and having to make choices about which legendary experience to have or share, join in in taking a moment to bow your head in gratitude to the theatre gods for the embarrassment of riches before us.