Words and Music

Audiences come early to Porter first nights to see the entrance of the Porters and party, who arrive courteously on time and sweep, in a wave of chatter, perfume, and furs, to their seats in the second row. Porter always buys seats for his own first nights and pays for them at the box office, and—unlike many authors and composers who spend such gruelling evenings downstairs in the men’s washroom with a bottle of bromide tablets—he enjoys the opening performance enormously, beaming and applauding without restraint. One time, strolling up the aisle at intermission and waving and stopping to chat with friends in the audience, he was heard to say repeatedly, in a tone of honest admiration, "“Good, isn’t it?"

-- Margaret Case Herriman in the New Yorker