Ghost Light

For all of them.

Next Tuesday, September 8th, at 6:45pm, the marquees of all forty-one Broadway theaters will go dark together for one minute to honor a list of thirteen theater people including Josh Grisetti, Glen Hansard, Harold Wheeler, Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and Anna Louizos.

A name that isn't on the list is Ray DeMattis. A man I met in a rehearsal room for a regional production of Saturday Night Fever in 2015.

He had played Roger in Grease on Broadway starting December 22, 1972. He was in City of Angels in 1989, covering half the men in the company. Zoya's Apartment in 1990. Mushnik's understudy in the Little Shop revival in 2003. Off-Broadway he did Flora, the Red Menace and Fifty Million Frenchmen, and Enter Laughing: The Musical in 2008, and again in 2009, and again in 2019. He turned up on Ryan's Hope and The Cosby Show and The Sopranos and, like every working actor who has ever lived in New York, on Law & Order.

Fifty-three years. Thousands of rehearsal rooms. Hundreds of companies. Countless young actors who marveled at his tenacity, joy, and wholehearted love of this craft. I know that because I was one of them.

That summer, I was filming a behind-the-scenes vlog series, and Ray's in a bunch of the episodes. In one of them, he darted into the room where I was filming and when I asked him for advice he spouted this gem:

"This cost me like $150,000 in forty years of analysis. You ready? Here's the key to the whole thing: stay in the present. It is the key to acting. It is the key to relationships. It is the key to life. And it's a lot harder than you think. You can't bring the past to the present. It makes no sense. The future hasn't happened yet. It's all what ifs. Stay in the present. I just saved you $200,000!"

When I learned of Ray's passing, I revisited these videos and was surprised at how much I cried when I stumbled upon this piece of guidance. His enthusiasm and zest were contagious. And I wasn't alone in feeling that. An afternoon of text exchanges with cast mates confirmed that his playfulness was a major ingredient of the sweet summer we all spent together. We just adored him.

Now I want to be clear: this is not me campaigning to get Ray added to the list.

It's a list. Somebody will always be left off. And knowing Ray, I think he'd have waved the whole conversation off. Far too modest for it. He'd probably have told you he was just glad to have spent his life working alongside so many incredible artists.

The truth is that the marquee dim, even with its limited list, is one of the most beautiful things this industry does. Forty-one signs blazing over midtown, and then a full minute of dark. It's a deeply moving gesture.

But there's another object, burning inside every theater across the globe, that may already have the ability to honor more theater people than the marquees ever could.

Enter: the ghost light.

A bare bulb that burns, every night, center stage, after the shows have come down and the audiences have gone home. Practically, it's there so nobody crossing a dark stage walks off the lip and into the pit.

Traditionally and spiritually, there are countless theories about its purpose. Some say it gives the theater's ghosts a stage of their own, so they'll leave tomorrow's show alone. Some say it's there to keep them out.

For me, the ghost light is how we keep the people we've lost inside the rooms we're still playing in. It's the hour of the night when the building belongs to everybody who ever worked in it, and the ghost light is a beacon: a way to call them in.

It's a kind of vessel for grief. It fills a hollow, dark room with light. It stays on, keeping the space alive. It's a simple piece of technology with massive symbolism. It carries the beautiful bothness that I learned to hold when Gavin Creel passed away.

So when I look at one, I can't help but think about Ray.

I can't help but think about the usher who handed out Playbills for thirty years. And the spotlight operator who decorated the booth and made it their home away from home. And the swing who never went on but knew the blocking and choreo better than anyone in the building. And the teacher who painted the set, sewed the costumes, and ran the light board, gleefully. And the season ticket subscriber who started coming with her grandparents and now brings her own grandchildren. And on and on and on.

Our lists could never cover the countless people in community theaters and county playhouses and high school auditoriums who shaped hundreds of lives inside their own zip codes.

"The industry" has been touched by thousands of people we will never hear about, and their legacies are just as important as the ones the marquee dim will honor.

So let's give that job to the ghost lights.

But not just the ones burning in midtown Manhattan. There's little bulbs lighting up dark rooms near you, every single night.

And I like to think they're on for Dolly, and Tim, and Anna, and Harold, and Glen, and Josh, and Ray.

And, no doubt, whoever you're thinking of too.

See you next week ♥️
—Matt