House of Ushers

According to Patrick Pacheco (“In His Book, Broadway Is Tops,” Jan. 3), Peter Stone, book writer of the musical “Titanic,” “recalls taking a bus down to the old Biltmore Theatre to see the ‘second or third’ road company of some musical from New York with few people in the audience.”

I think Stone remembers the scene as darker than it was. Between 1946 and 1951, I saw every transplanted Broadway musical that played the Biltmore. I ushered, unpaid, one night for each show. I was the drama critic for my college newspaper but couldn’t spare the five dollars for a ticket.

Stone is right about the road companies but I remember the attendance as being good. When Judith Anderson appeared in “Medea,” admittedly not a musical, the theater was sold out every night and there were so many volunteer ushers that we were hanging from the chandeliers.

KATHLEEN M. LANZAROTTA

Pacific Palisades