Marie's Crisis Cafe, where have you been all my life?

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) 5 Enthusiastic Snouts Up (Understanding My Snout-Based Rating System) for Marie's Crisis Cafe in NYC's West Village.  OMG, where has this been all my life?  This place is so great I can't even imagine how I didn't know about it before now.

Nowhere but New York City could this possibly occur.  Picture a typical below street level Greenwich Village tiny dive.  The focal point is this upright piano shown above (there's also a bar beyond it as you can see in the background).  The patrons on barstools surrounding the piano belt out every single lyric (mostly from memory) of show tune after show tune complete with harmonies, hamming it up, pairing up for duets, etc. The pianist queues lyrics with gestures and is often hilarious.

The friend who took me had tried to get in several times before and always encountered big lines (the fire marshall must limit capacity to 35 people max, maybe less--it's really small).  We waltzed right in at 9:30pm on a Tuesday night post Memorial Day--by 10:00pm it was packed.

Some of the singers pose as drunken barflies asleep on their stools and then come alive suddenly when their favorites are played--sitting partially upright and releasing these gorgeous tones--hilarious to watch.  Others seem like girlfriends with babysitters in from Jersey to request Mama Mia (a request that goes largely ignored by the piano player--why play Abba when you can play Rogers and Hammerstein, Sondheim, or Miranda and Diggs?)

Some you get the impression are there pretty much every night.  They know every song by heart.  They have gorgeous voices, certainly they performed in these shows, and wanted to do them on Broadway--maybe they even did.  Maybe they even still do.  

I got to chime in on songs from Gipsy, Chicago, and Oliver but felt most confident with My Fairy Lady and Guys and Dolls (because I've been in them).  Honorable mention goes to me for coming up with a missing harmony in Hair's "Aquarius"--i was unduly proud of myself for that.  My friend and I told ourselves that the regulars were wincing as we sang, but they probably paid us no notice (what could be worse, lol?)

We didn't try the food in the "café," but it is served.  We ate first at one of those great longstanding Indian restaurants in the East Village and then walked over through Washington Square--one of those rare summer spring nights where it was warm enough to languish in the park but not too hot.

Anyway, if you like singing or show tunes are just hearing live free music (did I mention, no cover charge?--although maybe on weekends)--this is the place to be.  You can bet I'm going back there!