A Full Evening with the Lotos Club, Shakespeare’s Birthday, and Yo-Yo Ma

I recently got back from an exciting couple of days in Altoona, Pennsylvania, for the Circus Bonanza. But more on that in my next post.

First, I want to share with you all my exciting day of events this past Wednesday.

This year marks the 451st birthday of William Shakespeare. Similar to our celebration last year, we honored the Bard’s birthday at the Lotos Club Theatre Round Table by reading and talking about his work. Our wonderful leader Gail VanVoorhis arranged to have Nicholas Day join us for the meeting. Nick is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company currently appearing on Broadway as the Duke of Norfolk in the two-part play Wolf Hall. Having a professional Shakespearean actor certainly upped the game for all of us. We explored readings from Shakespeare’s early plays to his mature ones. This year I got to read the part of Marc Antony from the tragedy Antony and Cleopatra. Antony is a fearless general and rugged romantic lead–heh heh–typecast again.

In addition to celebrating Shakespeare on Wednesday, we also celebrated the wedding anniversary of our Lotos Club recent past president Anne Russell and the birthday of our Theatre Round Table leader Gail VanVoorhis. On the way out of the Grill Room at the end of the evening, I was walking past a table and recognized the man who was seated there.

It was none other than the world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Yo-Yo stood up to say hello, share a hug, and introduce the people at his table. It was great seeing him. Yo-Yo said some incredibly complimentary things about the Big Apple Circus and yours truly. We’ve had a lot of backstage celebrity visits and regulars at the B.A.C. over the years, but it’s not everyday that I run into one in the city who has so many wonderful things to say.

I’m sure you’ll agree, it was an exciting and eventful Wednesday in New York City.