Notes

Lin-Manuel Miranda on Twitter
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by Amanda Faye Rosengarten
The Drama Book Shop, in the heart of the New York’s theater district, hit its 100-year mark on Monday in style, with an all-day birthday celebration featuring notable panelists and one-on-one interviews with celebrities such as newsman Bill Moyers and playwright Robert Schenkkan. The event drew a crowd of theater enthusiasts with a passion for the arts, as well as a host of aspiring actors, writers, and directors’ eager to break into the industry.
Amid the array of white, silver, and blue balloons lining the shop’s entrance, were event attendees with books in-hand, lounging on plush, red chairs, while others sipped glasses of sparkling champagne between colorful bookshelves. Pages ripped from plays were strewn about light blue tablecloths like bits of confetti, alongside tasty treats, including salted walnuts, the favorite snack of the owner of the Drama Book Shop, Rozanne Seelen.
The Tony Award–winning store, with its humble origins of making plays available to the general public at the turn of the 20th century, has earned global acclaim as a site sacred to theater-lovers. But recently the shop has acquired a new reputation as a “patron” of the arts for its dedication in fostering the talent of young actors, playwrights, and directors.
Stuart Brynien, 62, who has been working as a salesperson there for 18 years, said he has witnessed this transformation. “Young, aspiring people of the theater,” he said, are drawn to the Drama Book Shop for the assistance they can receive from employees who know its diverse selection of plays, monologues, and other resources better than anyone.
“It is very rewarding for us,” he said. “[Customers] say they got into the perfect arts program because of what you helped them find and it makes you feel like you are not working in a vacuum.”
Brynien, who in his spare time is working on a “written history of the shop,” said he further attributes the booming business of the Drama Book Shop to Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the Broadway sensation Hamilton, who appealed to his thousands of Twitter followers in an effort to help the shop after a pipe burst in 2016 and ruined much of its inventory.
“It raised our profile,” he said. “The global business exploded, whether in-person or ordering by mail.”
Miranda became the unofficial spokesperson for the shop, but the motivation behind his tweets was also personal, Brynien said, since the shop is where he wrote one of his earlier plays, In the Heights — specifically in the black box theater located in the basement. A black, Yamaha piano still sits there today, ready for the next generation of talent to play its cords.
Jeremy Landes, 24, an aspiring actor who moved to New York from the Bay Area, said he hopes to someday acquire the same level of fame as Miranda. But in the meantime, he frequents the shop “at least once a week,” he said.
“I don’t know what I would do without this store,” Landes said. “Every person you talk with has a different perspective. Some are good for contemporary materials, and others for Shakespeare.”
Chen Drachsman, 30, an aspiring actress from Israel, was drawn to the Drama Book Shop, which she called, “the place to be” for the performing arts community.
“I always stay longer than dropping by,” she said. “I love storytelling, all forms of it. It affects my whole life… I hope to make people feel the same way.”
Both Landes and Drachsman said they are regular readers of the shop’s bulletin board, which features auditions and casting calls. As graduates of college drama programs, they recalled spending hours in the shop, in preparation for an audition or, as Landes jokingly added, doing a “homework assignment.”
Seelen, 87, who has owned the Drama Book Shop for 48 years, said she once shared the enthusiasm of her young customers at the start of her own career. Growing up in Texas, she fell in love with the theater and moved to New York with dreams of becoming a dancer and actress. “Seeing people dance was the most wonderful thing in the world,” she said. “The rest is history.”
Seelen pointed to her shoes, red patent, two-inch heels. “I am wearing my Tony Award shoes,” she said, laughing. The liveliness of the shop could be heard from inside her office, and that is exactly how she prefers the atmosphere of the shop to be, with customers “running around and creating things.”
“There will always be a group of new, young people who come to New York and need to find plays to audition for, acting books, or a series of monologue books,” she said. “I want them all to be stars.”

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