Broadway Road Show: OutofTowners on Tour

WITH show tunes still filling their heads, the day-trippers resolved to write their own musical, about a group of crazy people riding a bus to New York ... to catch a musical.

The epiphany came during a post-matinee tipple as Nancy Altschuler, 56, and two friends secretly - and somewhat gleefully - passed around a bottle of Crown Royale on a tour bus from New York to Philadelphia.

" ‘Cocktails on the Bus' will be one number," Ms. Altschuler suggested, as she sipped her whisky and ginger ale.

Ms. Altschuler and her friends, along with some 40 other passengers, were headed home on a recent Saturday after a trip to see "Curtains," the Kander and Ebb musical comedy starring David Hyde Pierce. In so doing they were taking part in a particular New York ritual, repeated thousands of times a year. Aboard coaches and vans, in time for the Saturday or Wednesday matinees, theatergoers from Hartford and Boston; Lionville, Pa.; and Litchfield, Conn., squeeze through the knotted tunnels and bridges into Manhattan, disembark for an hour or two of lunching or shopping, and then pour down the aisles of Broadway theaters.

The groups are students and the elderly mostly, but there are church groups and local clubs. Some make only a single trip; others, like Ms. Altschuler and her friends, are regulars, shuttling in once a month or so with the same group, thinking about the next show before their last trip is done. "Musicals I love," Ms. Altschuler said contentedly as the suburbs of Philadelphia whizzed past. "I hope we can do this forever."

By the millions, day-trippers visit New York every year, to see the biggest Broadway shows. The matinees, more than other performances, rely on the bus trips, according to theater executives. "Especially the Wednesday matinee," said Phillip Smith, the president of the Shubert Organization, "A lot of out-of-towners. They come for the musicals."

The majority of Broadway tickets are sold to theatergoers who don't live in the city, most of them from the suburbs and other states. In addition to the tickets they buy, those who come to the city just for theater spent more than billion on hotels, restaurants and other expenses in 2004-5, the most recent period for which figures are available, according to the League of American Theaters and Producers.

Most of the riders on the bus with Ms. Altschuler were women over 50, along with six men, one of whom was Ms. Altschuler's father, Albert, 95. The group included a lawyer and a law student, an actress and a few doctors, a mom visiting from Missouri, a bride-to-be, a woman who lives in a retirement community, and the concierge at a ritzy Philadelphia apartment building.

A few of the women had traveled with Margie Lance, the tour's operator, and her company, Go With Us Inc., for more than a decade. Some traveled with the same partner for every play, and other women insisted on traveling alone. Great friendships had started on the bus; in other cases, on trip after trip, women sat next to each other and had never really met.

The trip that day started at 8:30 a.m., with Roger Gaines, a regular and favored driver guiding the white coach bus decorated with a resting lion through Philadelphia's still-empty streets. His first stop, near the art museum and the statue of Rocky Balboa, was the Philadelphian, an apartment building on the city's grand Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Molly Albert, 83, stepped on board, wearing large sunglasses and a name tag. (Among the passengers only Ms. Albert, who helps recruit passengers for the trips, wore one.) She showed off pictures of her great-grandson. "Isn't he adorable?" she asked, as another woman passed around a photo of her nieces.

At the next stop, in upscale Rittenhouse Square, another pair of oversize sunglasses came on, this time framing the face of the elegant Myriam Langford, 78, a former actress; she had spent much of her career in Europe, at one point playing Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?" and starring in an advertisement for Du Maurier cigarettes.

As usual she was accompanied by Dr. Albert H. Greer, 87, whom Ms. Langford met about 14 years ago. "We always travel together," she said. "Dr. Greer likes David Hyde Pierce."

Dr. Greer, a research scientist who specializes in polymers, just smiled. "I drag him to all these Chekovian things," Ms. Langford said.

Sue Ann Mallon, one of the trip's two guides, distributed tickets to the passengers. Ms. Langford opened her envelope. "We're in the mezzanine. That's good for musicals." She sees plays in Philadelphia, but allowed that she is a bit of a snob when it comes to theater. "This hasn't been a terribly good season," she said.

After two more stops, including one in the parking lot of a shopping mall, the tour was ready to begin. Patrice Kruszewski, the other guide, stood at the front and spoke into a microphone, announcing that Mr. Gaines would be driving (cheers from riders ) and bringing everyone up to speed on how "Curtains" was received in New York. Then she wrapped it up. "We'll start with our continental breakfast, and we're on our way," she said.

For 0 each these passengers got theater tickets, the round-trip ride to the show and snacks along the way. Once they arrived, the schedule was tight: They would reach the city at around 11:30 a.m., which meant they had two hours until the doors would open for the show. Afterward the bus would be waiting to take them home.