(Tony Perrotte's article appeared in The New York Times, 5/8; via Pam Green.)
The mysterious business card was tucked into one of the vitrines at the Ziegfeld Theater in Midtown Manhattan, where rare costume pieces from the “Follies,” the review staged by the impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. from 1907 to 1931, are on display. Bent and coated with dust, it bore the words “The Ziegfeld Club, Inc.” and offered several telephone numbers and an address on Park Avenue.
“We thought it was some sort of seedy gentleman’s club,” said Syrie Moskowitz, who had gone to the theater to research her role as a Jazz Age showgirl in “Ziegfeld’s Midnight Frolic,” an immersive theater production that recently opened at the Liberty Theater. “But when we called, this woman with a very sweet voice picked up. It was totally not what we expected. I asked: ‘What exactly are you?’ ”