Monday, January 28, 2008

The Eagle "Theatre"


I have a friend who recently moved to the City and he has been trying to go out and see different parts of the City and take in some of the cultural attractions. He invited me tonight to a belly dancing performance at some theatre downtown. He didn’t want to go alone and even offered to pay for my ticket – How could I refuse?

He called me later with the address for the Eagle Theatre. It was over near the Westside Highway on 28th. I thought this must be a little theatre nestled among this industrial block near the highway. I was a little suspicious when the door to the theatre said you must show your I.D. to enter. It looked more like a club, but hey, who cares, we just wanted to see this belly dancing show.

We got in and there was only one person at the bar, but lots of Arabic belly dancing-like music coming from upstairs. We figured that must be where the performance was taking place, but when we got up there, there was only one person at the bar. My friend asked when the performers would start and the guy said the place opened at seven, but the performers would start a little later in the evening, when more people got there. We sat at the bar and caught up on how everything was going in our lives. I became a little suspicious because every guy that walked by seemed to be checking me out and I realized I hadn’t seen any women. I had to go to the bathroom, and in the bathroom was a poster for the club. This was not any regular bar – it was a gay leather bar! And tonight was Arab night! Oops! (FYI – It was voted best leather bar by New York Magazine in 2007).

My poor friend thought this legit belly dancing performance would last an hour or two and than was planning on going to a different show that started at 10 in Brooklyn.

Oh well. I was really excited to see a belly dancing performance, but there's always next time. I told my friend he needs to read more carefully.

1 comment:

Seth Hill said...

You gotta be careful about those gay leather bars. They really do sneak up on you.