Judith Fugate's The Roy And No Frills

From NYCB in the late '70's and early '80's, NYC was just a few years away from the very low period of being the verge of bankruptcy in the mid-'70's, and all you heard was "crime, crime, crime." Elderly women walking slowly at night were considered prime targets, and it was a general phenomenon that they attended arts performances at matinees, along with the typical smattering of kids who could only go on weekends (and when NYCB rep was considered palatable). So when you have an audience that self-limits itself to one or two performances a week, you don't have to serve shrimp appetizers, but can serve pigs-in-blankets instead. (Or you serve Green Giant green beans instead of the No Frills label, even if the cans have the same beans with different labels.) You offer the really good mustard -- a Farrell here, a McBride there -- so that this audience doesn't feel completely taken for granted and stop subscribing (back then) or coming.

(It takes all of my self-control to not yell when I hear people at PNB performances doing the mapping from the cast lists to the hierarchy and overhear the disappointed, "But she's only [a soloist/corps]," because they have no idea what a privilege it will be to see that dancer.) Gradually I sought out the weekly cast lists and tried to see every permutation of every cast of almost every ballet. (I wouldn't have cared if Baryshnikov himself returned to dance "The Steadfast Tin Soldier:" that would have been a "skip.") Sometimes that meant Farrell, and sometimes that meant a corps member. Granted that was most often from rows M-O or standing room, but I got to see a