A Christmas Day Celebrity Telethon to Save West Bank Cafe is planned for Friday, December 25 from noon until it ends. To date, 140 performers are on board, including Betty Buckley, Debra Messing, Martha Plimpton, Alice Ripley, Joe Iconis, Lewis Black, Megan Hilty, Kerry Butler, Telly Leung, Cheri Oteri, Isaac Mizrahi, Dylan Baker and David Eigenberg.
The show will be streamed at SaveWestBankCafe.com, showcasing the variety of talent that’s called the restaurant and its cabaret room, The Laurie Beechman Theatre, home over the last 42 years. Located at Manhattan Plaza on W42nd Street, the cafe has been an anchor in the neighborhood since 1978.
Even before the pandemic, New York has been littered with the remains of closed iconic venues—The Algonquin Oak Room, Rose’s Turn, Eight Eights, Danny’s Skylight Room—the list goes on and on. But the COVID pandemic is the very thing that’s brought the West Bank Cafe to its knees. When owner Steve Olsen was near to closing down, theater producers Michael and Tom D’Angora stepped in, and with composer-writer Joe Iconis and actor Tim Guinee, devised a plan to hold a telethon. Additionally, a GoFundMe page was launched that’s already raised a significant chunk of the debt that the cafe has incurred.
The fundraising target is set at $250,000, which will allow bills to be paid and provide a cushion for the West Bank to operate and weather the rest of the pandemic.
The West Bank Cafe has always been a comfortable go-to for the artistic community and its friends and patrons. Celebrated there have been birthdays, weddings, opening nights, closing nights, Tony wins, Tony losses, and much more. Olsen’s hospitality and high standards are well-known in the industry and beyond, with many patrons praising the familial atmosphere that the restaurant has created.
Such appreciation of the venue will save it, no doubt, but the same can’t be said of other establishments in New York. The pandemic has been hard on restaurants, which at the best of times operate on narrow margins. With indoor dining limited to 25% capacity since July, and now shut down, and with winter upon us, closures can be expected at an alarming rate.
On nostalgic level, the Laurie Beechman Theatre under the restaurant has a storied history. It is the stage where Joan Rivers performed her final set in 2014; the room where the original cast of Sunday in the Park With George rehearsed; and where Aaron Sorkin’s first two works were produced—not to mention the many celebrities and stars who’ve performed on the Beechman stage.
To contribute to the West Bank Cafe’s GoFundMe page, click here.
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