Even if you only met them once, or talked to them twice.
Helen Marie Guditis falls into both categories for me. And she made a difference in my life, and the lives of others.
It was Helen who, when two of my friends and I sought out advice from her about saving Times Square theatres, suggested that we focus on the Biltmore Theatre on West 47th Street. It was a small (about 1,000 seats) Broadway house of the type that had fallen out of favor in the age of mega-musicals. It had been badly damaged by fire and vandalism. It was in danger of losing what was left of its theatrical identity to so-called "adaptive reuse."
And it was Helen who encouraged my friends and me to launch what became Friends of the Biltmore, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the Biltmore for theatrical use. We lobbied everyone in the theatre community and the New York media for years, including the man who purchased the theatre intending to make it a building lobby. We formed a 501(c)(3) (my first one) and sold T-shirts (not as many as I would have liked, but the publicity was good). In the end, it was the Manhattan Theatre Club that stepped up as a theatrical user. But who's to say that they would have done so without us? I will always believe that we kept the building in play as a theatre, until a theatrical user was ready to take it over.
In the course of working on FOTB, I made many friends I would not otherwise have made. And, for a time, I got to be a small part of the Broadway community, proving that it's never too late to pursue a dream and make something of it.
Helen made all of that possible. I'll never forget you, Helen. And someday, perhaps in a celestial Morosco Theatre (may it rest in peace, too), we can have another chat.
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