Look at the gold lines behind the company in my first photograph. Tall panels, blue light, a huge G worked into the design, and all those colors moving in front of it. Then look at the sofa in the next frame, with its gold fringe and pale cushions. GOOD LORD. I went to The Great Gatsby expecting a wonderful afternoon, and the scenery could have occupied me all by itself. I’m Harry Hayman, and after a good part of my life in hospitality, a beautiful room still gets my attention. This one certainly did. But somewhere between enjoying the party onstage and thinking about the man throwing it, the afternoon started asking more of me. I came home wanting to talk about the sets, absolutely. Also about what I want a party to accomplish these days.

A Sunday Matinee on Broad Street

I saw the North American touring production of The Great Gatsby, A New Musical, at the Academy of Music on Sunday afternoon, November 1. My ticket and Ensemble Arts Playbill are in the last photograph. The Ensemble Arts Philly engagement listing gives the dates as October 20 through November 1, 2026, so I caught its final day in Philadelphia.

The cast, music, costumes and choreography were terrific. I gave the set design the extra capital letters in my post because that was where my eye kept going. There is a difference between saying a show looks expensive and wanting to keep looking at the things its designers have made. I wanted time with those rooms.

The photographs move from the stage to the theater itself, then outside to the Broad Street facade. That feels about right for the afternoon: a room inside a room, each giving me plenty to look at. The show did not need me to arrive with a new theory of Gatsby. I’ve known the story for years. The surprise was how much of my own life I found myself bringing to it.

The People Who Built That Party

The musical has a book by Kait Kerrigan, music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Nathan Tysen. Marc Bruni directs, and Dominique Kelley choreographs. The Broadway production record identifies those creators and dates the Broadway opening to April 25, 2024, at the Broadway Theatre. Those are useful names to put behind a reaction as loud as mine. BRAVO should reach the people doing the work.

Paul Tate dePoo III is the scenic and projection designer. In BroadwayWorld’s backstage interview with dePoo, he discusses considering video as an extension of the scenery in his conversations with Bruni. That interview concerns the Broadway production. What I can speak to myself is the touring stage in front of me: the tall geometric panels in the first photograph, the fringed sofa in the second, and the ivy covered doorway behind the company in the third.

The clothes deserve their own attention. Linda Cho won the 2024 Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Musical for The Great Gatsby. In my first frame, blue, turquoise, purple and silver costumes sit against that gold framework without disappearing into it. There is a lot to look at, yet I can still pick out individual people. Even in a photograph, the party has faces.

The Academy Has Its Own Long Memory

Then there is the house around the stage. My photograph looks across tiers of seats, red stairways and ornamented balcony fronts. I like that view almost as much as the one I went there to see. You look away from the production for a moment and find another whole room worth studying.

Opera Philadelphia’s Academy of Music page describes this nineteenth century opera house as “the oldest venue in the United States still used for its original purpose.” Its opening was in 1857. That’s a long working life for a room, and the working part interests me. People still have a reason to sit in those seats.

One of my photographs shows a marble bust above a pedestal inscribed February 25, 1857. The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia’s history of opera houses distinguishes the Academy’s January 26 opening from its first complete opera performance, Verdi’s Il Trovatore, on February 25. The date in the photograph belongs to that longer history. I wouldn’t have known the distinction just from looking at the pedestal.

I get excited about a spectacular new set. I also get excited that Philadelphia has a place like this to receive it. The stage changes, the company moves on, and the house has another show to get ready for. I like thinking about all the people whose work sits between those two things.

The Host at the Edge of His Own Party

Gatsby has always interested me. The parties, the beautiful people, the music, the extravagance, the whole damn scene. Sound familiar? LOL. I’ve spent enough of my life bringing people together to understand the attraction of getting a room right.

This time, though, the sadness underneath it got to me. A man can fill a house and still seem terribly alone inside it. I knew that about the story before I bought the ticket. Seeing it again, at this point in my life, made me sit with it differently.

His military past is part of Fitzgerald’s novel, too. In the text of The Great Gatsby at Project Gutenberg, Gatsby tells Nick in chapter IV about his wartime commission, fighting in the Argonne and promotion to major. The book gives him a life before the mansion and the parties. I find myself paying more attention to that earlier life now, and to how much he wants the life in front of him to turn out a certain way.

Kerrigan put a related thought into words in 6abc’s Philadelphia interview with the musical’s writers: “a great American tragedy disguised as the best party you’ve ever been to.” That gets at the feeling I carried home. The show let me enjoy the party, then kept drawing my attention back to the person who needed it so badly.

What I Want the Gathering to Do

Give me a beautiful room, some great music, good food and interesting people, and I’m a happy guy. That part has not changed. These days, though, I find myself thinking more about what we could do with everyone once we’ve brought them together.

Can we throw a hell of a party AND raise money for something important? That was the question in my post, and I mean it fairly literally. There is already a room. There are people who want to be there. There is someone who knows how to make the introductions and keep the evening moving. What could happen if helping somebody were part of the reason we gathered?

I don’t have a particular event to announce here. I’m talking about where I want to spend more of my time. The practical questions interest me: who needs the help, what would be useful, and how could the people in that room contribute? Those questions deserve attention while we’re thinking about the food and the music, before everybody arrives.

And the people who need a hand ought to have something to say about the answer. I can get excited about an idea very quickly. Hospitality has given me plenty of practice at that. I’d like the excitement to leave enough room to hear what somebody actually needs.

I’m still interested in the pleasure of the evening itself. A good conversation, a beautiful space, music that makes people glad they came. GOOD LORD, I’m not giving up the parties. I’d just like to put more thought into what they make possible. Gatsby sent me back to that question with considerably better scenery than I usually have when I’m thinking it through.

The Green Light on the Cocktail Card

There is a cocktail card in my photographs, too: The Great Gatsby, The Green Light, $22. Gold lettering, a coupe glass and a lime wheel. Of course the hospitality guy photographed the drink card. The design carries the show right out to the bar.

I keep coming back to that little detail because it shows how thoroughly an afternoon can hold your attention. The room, the stage, the clothes, even the cocktail card. I enjoyed all of it. Nobody had to talk me into the glamour.

Then a story I’ve known for years got me thinking about my own guest list and what I might ask of the next room I help bring together. I’m still working on that. In the meantime, I could happily look at those damn sets again.

The Great Gatsby at the Academy of Music: Parties With Purpose