I bought a seat this week. Not a chair, a seat. I neglected to ask the color or material. But that’s secondary to the location, at our local movie house. It’s to support the $4 million renovation of Chatham, NY’s historic Crandell Theater.
I would be disingenuous if I failed to admit that part of the incentive, beyond supporting a worthy cause, was the privilege of having a metal plaque bearing my name affixed to my seat. I’d wasted years of my adolescence as my mother’s unwilling date at the Metropolitan Opera while staring, not just at the stage where I had no clue what was going on, but at the name plates of donor on the back of the seats in front of me. I’d be forced to contemplate their generosity through Rigoletto or worse all four-and-a-half hours of Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger.
Now future generations of moviegoers will be required to consider who this Ralph guy was who joined the ranks of Rockefellers and Duponts. I passed up the opportunity to test drive a prototype of my seat while recently attending FilmColumbia, Chatham’s estimable annual mid-October film festival. But the renovation couldn’t have come soon enough. Picking a seat in the existing auditorium had become something of an adventure. You’d often find yourself sinking into the seat and then sinking further. That’s unfortunate since nothing is more integral to the moviegoing experience than a clear line of sight to the screen. Also, the price of admission, while reasonably modest, as were those of the snacks, didn’t include a visit to your physical therapist. The new, improved seats will lumbar support and cup holders.
Purchasing a seat is a two-step process. The first step is to find your desired location. I was surprised to discover that by the time I visited the Crandall’s website — crandelltheater.org — many of those in the section I wanted had already been claimed. This came as a shock because I would have assumed that the most desirable seats would be centerstage in the middle of the theatre, or a few rows back.
Yet the majority of the seats that had been purchased were on the aisles. Apparently, what was motivating these Good Samaritans was the same thing that had sparked my interest: when I’ve visited the Crandell in the past I’ve commandeered an aisle seat so as not to disturb anybody else should I need to visit the men’s room during the film.
Based on an anecdotal examination of the average crowd at the Crandell before the lights dim they tend to be people of a certain age whose bladders, I suspect, are no more reliable than mine. Among the promised improvements to the hundred-year-old movie house that my seat purchase will help pay for are an expanded lobby, a new concession area with cafe seating, and sparkling new unisex bathrooms.
The second part of the seat selection process is deciding what to say on my metal donor plaque. I assumed it would be located on the back of my seat, à la the Metropolitan Opera. Turns out it will be on the armrest. I’m not sure how I feel about that; whether it’s sufficiently prominent. But the connection between philanthropist and audience member may be more profound and enduring if the latter can immediately associate their seat with the benefactor, rather than the person sitting behind them being able to do so.
The requirements be that however you choose to identify yourself and whatever your chosen sentiment they consume no more than two rows of text. My temptation, which I successfully quashed, was to forsake my name completely and devote the entirety of my space to a favorite quotation. For example, “From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.”
WAMC’s highly literate audience will surely recognize the source: Dr. Seuss’s early reader masterpiece One Fish, Two Fish. Unfortunately, that ditty well exceeds the allotted space. Another possibility is “He who is not busy being born is busy dying,” from Bob Dylan’s It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding). But that might be too dark, especially if the ticket holder is a small child come to see the latest cheerful animated Pixar feature.
Besides, I’m not selfless enough to remain anonymous. I want credit for my generosity. I’m under no illusion that the purchase guarantees me immortality. Just ask the family of Avery Fisher who were given the shove, albeit as well as fifteen million dollars, when Lincoln Center wanted to rename the New York Philharmonic’s home after Hollywood mogul David Geffen in exchange for a hundred million dollar donation. Nonetheless, I like the idea that my children and even my grandchildren might sit in my seat long after I’m gone.
Of course, if I were a big spender I could have bought the adjacent seat or the entire row and exponentially increase the amount of available space to indulge my flights of literary fancy. But my generosity, not to mention my wallet, knows certain bounds. Also, just because you buy a seat doesn’t mean you get to kick out another audience member if they got there first.
So let us hope that the Crandell’s improvements are as a stunning as promised and, this is decisive, that there’s always a stall available in the new unisex bathroom when I need to go. Perhaps the Crandell ought to consider donor plaques on the stalls. I’d consider going into debt for that.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found be found on Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
