Blue no more
I'm of the butt shaking generation.
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the idea of the third place, which he described loosely as a public place for social gathering. Essentially, after home and work, the third place you go.
For a lot of people its church and for me that was true through at least middle school. After that, the high school auditorium became a home away from home. In college it was the theater department lobby filled with purple couches, the dining room of my sorority house (it was a common room, I’m calling it public enough for the purposes of this essay), and we’ll go with the Roisn Dubh in Galway, Ireland (where I could always find a member of the Writers Soc from my brief time at NUIG).
For most of my young adulthood, that third place was the Chuck.
A scrappy little theater down a narrow side street in the theater district. For the past 30 years, it has also been the Boston home to Blue Man Group. Until Sunday night.
In 2013 I interviewed in a dingy, old bar on the first floor of the theater (it would be going away in the building’s renovation; alas I never got to enjoy that era of the Chuck). I posted two pictures to my Instagram, both with the Valencia filter. The first, a selfie of my commute. The second, the marquee. It wasn’t my first big kid job, but it felt like a big step moving to a theater in the city and one that housed an iconic legacy production. People outside of the theater community knew this show. Tourists came to see this show. And I was going to be the inaugural Assistant Box Office Manager (hair flip).
My first management job, my first time leading a meeting, my first time fighting with a BOCA (my box office people know what I’m talking about). Even when I moved on to my next full-time job (not without getting a rare, coveted picture of myself with all three blue men), I stayed on part time in some capacity until the pandemic. In the grand scheme of the show’s run it was a relative blip, six years. But to me…
Throughout my 20s, when I didn’t know where else to be, as other friends moved in and out of the city, in and out with significant others, and as I moved to virtually every neighborhood in Boston, the Chuck was always there. Friday nights when I’d worked a show at my other theater and wasn’t ready to head home, there would always be karaoke at the Chuck. A bad date? Once he was gone, head over to the Chuck! Friends were coming in from out of town? Take ‘em to the Chuck! Soft launching my then boyfriend (now husband): to the Chuck! (We DTR’d before the Under the Sea Prom themed anniversary party (we went as sailors, it was cute).
My calendar and year passed through parties and events. The start of the year was marked by school vacations, weekday shows, and face painting. When summer came, that meant the annual day trip to the Cape, the highlight of the season. As soon as the date for the holiday party was shared it was on my calendar*. And there’s nothing like ending the year and celebrating a new one with a shot of Polish (a blackcurrant liquor — correct me if I’m wrong people — that was as much tradition as it was alcoholic cough syrup).
*The holiday party each year included Secret Santa, but better. Your gift had to be handmade. That was the only rule. You’d be given a short form with your person’s favorite food, drink, tv show, etc., and you’d have to make a gift for them. I made sugar and salt scrubs and lip-balm for my first gift, painted a ‘clean plate club’ plate with 4 dz homemade cookies another year, and painted canvases with quotes from Friends for yet another. But the gift I received that stands out to me was a life-size (perhaps a little larger) french bulldog made out cardboard and duck-tape named Ginger (she also came with a shot of Jameson) (my favorite drink at the time was Jameson and Ginger, and I love dogs with flat faces (in theory, not in practice)). But, for those that know me, if this isn’t the kind of thing that lights my fire, I don’t know what is.
To kick off what would become their final week of performances, they hosted a “friends and family” night. It felt like the weirdest high school reunion, with multiple classes and where you actually want to be there. The strange feeling of going back to your school but its not yours anymore, but it is…but its not. I had the realization (when the twinkies made their reappearance) that the Chuck had been a third place for me.
It’s the type of place where people stay for years. My six year tenure is on the shorter side, with plenty staying on for decades. Plural. Without the pandemic, I might still be answering the phones, printing will call, or the like. Without the pandemic, the dance party might still be swinging on. But shoulda woulda couldas aside, for a chapter of my life this place was more than a destination. As much as I love an old theater, I kept going back for the people. Because whatever your third place may be, you go there for community, for the village, to find yours.
I don’t have a third place now. My parents house serves as one (they have a pool and the extended family comes over every Sunday to watch the Patriots). I know for certain I won’t find another quite like BMG Boston, and that’s okay. Some things are meant to be a season in your life. Having left the theater scene for a 9-5 mom life in the burbs, that season has past for me.
The final performance was a beautiful goodbye and I’m grateful I got be there for it. I’ll miss what the show did for the city and the occasional appearance of those three blue faces at random events. I’ll miss going home and finding random bits of blue or pink or yellow on my clothes (never wear white to the Chuck, you’re risking 30 years of paint that doesn’t dry). I’ll miss Shred and beach sing alongs and super shandies. But I’ll miss the people most of all.