#65: Bravo’s Book Nook
A micro-shop for the the dramatically inclined
The Shop: Bravo’s Book Nook
Greenwich Village, Manhattan: 115 Macdougal Street
Back in my comedian days, I logged quite a few hours at the Players Theater, the iconic and rusty West Village playhouse where many careers began and ended. In the black box theater upstairs I performed, teched, and house managed. It was a great challenge to put up a show in a theater that was literally falling apart around you, providing experiences like sprinting to the ACE Hardware to replace lightbulbs mid performance, tracking down props “borrowed” by other renters, and artfully dodging NYU drunkies. The best part of the experience was hanging out with Bravo, the big ol fluffy mellow dog who can pretty much always be found in the theater’s second floor office. Seeing that good boy Bravo provided me and many others the dopamine to roll with the many punches of attempting to be an artist in NYC.
A few years back, the folks at the Players decided to canonize Bravo by building a small bookstore in the lobby and naming it after him(Bravo himself usually still chills upstairs). The book nook is highly nookish, a few shelves of plays and other performery stuff in the the theaters’ already nookish ground floor lobby. Theatrical bases covered here include many of the greats—
Shakespeare, Pinter, Ionesco, etc as well as more contemporary playwrights like Lynne Nottage and Lucy Thurber. There’s also monologue books, audition tips, film stuff, and random unrelated novels. The store’s a little cramped, a little disorganized, and smells like cigars and damp wood (these add to the charm). Price wise is unfortunately not as cheap as the vibe would suggest— you won’t get ripped off but you won’t get a steal either. Hit the stairs by the exit for a secret tour of the Cafe Wha bathrooms!
What I got:
Dutchman & The Slave by Leroi Jones
Leroi Jones, later known as Amiri Baraka, is a writer whose influential career spanned many decades and genres— I’ve read but a fraction of it! I was excited to find this edition of Dutchman, Baraka’s theatrical exploration of interracial romantic relationships in the deeply charged early 60s. This play debuted a stone's throw away from Bravo’s at another one of my old haunts, the Cherry Lane Theater in 1964. This edition also features his subsequent play The Slave, which explores similar themes but flipped, this time exploring the relationship between a Black woman and a white man.
Bonus Picture:
I love this picture of Nick Cave reading a book in the 1980s. I’ve never looked this tough reading a book, but I have been really enjoying Nick Cave’s internet letters column The Red Hand Files.