Historical Place of the Day: Polish Tea Room

Polish Tea Room--Edison Cafe, closed by the greedy landlords of the Edison Hotel at the end of 2014. Famous for its mixed clientele, including stagehands, producers and playwrights. Neil Simon used to eat there. Its matzah ball soup was famous. The name is a takeoff on the hoity-toity Russian Tea Room. The Edison was finally replaced by a more high-end restaurant named Friedman's, where the food is supposed to be pretty good.

Term of the Day: parsing the Talmud

parsing the Talmud--trying to hash out a difficult intellectual questions, sometimes where the answer changes due to circumstances.  Intense scholarly work that takes years to master. "Sometimes figuring out the meal penalties is like parsing the Talmud." The Talmud is a collection of Jewish religious writings that scholars spend their lives studying.

Term the Day: It's kosher

It's kosher--it's okay, it is within the rules or what is acceptable.  "It's kosher to fix props during the preset, but it is not kosher for the designer to ever do work on deck." Keeping kosher is part of the Jewish religious dietary laws. Observant Jews eat kosher food that has been produced in facilities that have been inspected by rabbis and are following religious laws on food.

Overheard Stagehand Line #33: "I'll work beside you, but never for you."

Young Stagehand to Famously Nasty Head: "I'll work beside you, but never for you."

Term of the Day: Old Faithful

Old Faithful--a stagehand well-known for exploding in temper tantrums, at similar times of the day or under similar work conditions every time.

Term of the Day: carnival rides

carnival rides--during the preset, short rides on automated pieces by understudy actors or actors being put in a role to get  them used to automation so they can do the show. Saves money on a put-in rehearsal, which requires full crew (except frontlights).

Overheard Stagehand Line #32: "Some guys think if they have one guy in the theater to hate, they are doing good."

"Some guys think if they have one guy in the theater to hate, they are doing good." It is the old-school process of picking another stagehand to direct your rage and anger at, usually for the length of the run or for many years.