Even before the pandemic forced Broadway to go dark, actors James Ludwig and Mark Aldrich had found a way to brew up support for the arts through their Broadway Brew project. And when COVID put a crimp in that plan, they crafted a Curtain Up initiative that is raising funds through breweries nationwide to benefit the Actors Fund and other performing arts organizations.
Locally, Walking Tree Brewery has signed on to Curtain Up and has concocted a Kölsch to benefit Riverside Theatre.
The Broadway Brews and Curtain Up initiatives evolved out of an earlier project that the pair of Broadway actors began co-producing and hosting in 2008 called the Happy Hour Guys, about craft beers and where to find them. Over the years, Ludwig says, they derived “tons and tons of content” through the production of nearly 400 episodes, including one filmed at Walking Tree in 2019.
At the time, Ludwig and wife Kristen Beth Williams were gracing the stage at Riverside Theatre as Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady.”
“Oh we had so much fun doing that; God what a great show. We love it down in your neck of the woods,” says Ludwig.
Always on the lookout for potential brewers to feature, Ludwig recalls that as soon as he arrived in town and unpacked, he made his way to Walking Tree.
He quickly talked Mike Malone, co-founder and head brewer, and wife Brooke, creative director, into taping a Happy Hour Guys episode, complete with a number of “My Fair Lady” cast members.
“Walking Tree is pretty special; they’re really doing it up right there. They make some great beer, they have an incredible space and they’re also literally around the corner from the new housing for Riverside Theatre,” says Ludwig, referencing the Star Suites Hotel, which houses cast and production members while they’re in town.
A few years before that Vero visit, when Broadway was booming and all was right with the theater world, they had begun thinking of a way to “get Broadway brewing for charity.”
“So we had this idea. Let’s get a Broadway show, find some actors in that show who think this is a cool thing, have them become the brewers of a one-off beer, and then decide amongst themselves who they would like the beer to raise money for.”
Through their previous interactions with brewers, they knew that the craft brewing community is frequently generous in using their products to raise money for charity, but the concept was a new one for Broadway.
“So we put this idea out there to a bunch of Broadway shows and got basically blank stares. It was laughable; we had a lot of really strange responses,” says Ludwig.
“And then the first show that really saw the value of it was ‘Hamilton.’ So our first beer for the Broadway Brews project, right out of the gate, was ‘Hamilton,’ which was a coup, obviously.”
Their goal was to create a Broadway Six Pack, consisting of “six different beers with six different shows for six different charities.” With Hamilton on board, they soon found a brewer in the Bronx who whipped up a rye saison beer called ‘Rise Up Rye.’
“They’re still brewing it, and it’s now being served at Madison Square Garden and out at Citi Field,” says Ludwig. Fittingly, the chosen charity was the Eliza Project, an educational initiative out of the child welfare organization Graham Windham, which was co-founded by Hamilton’s wife Eliza.
Three Happy Hour Guys episodes were filmed for each beer. The first was the exchange of ideas at the initial meeting of cast members and brewers, and next was the actual brew day with cast members becoming guest brewers of their beer.
And finally, the release of the beer, “which we turned into a big party, for the brewery, the cast and the charity,” says Ludwig, describing it as a ton of work but incredibly rewarding and fun.
The next four beers in the Broadway Six Pack were: ‘School of Hops’ beer, an imperial black ale with the “School of Rock” to benefit Sing for Hope; ‘It’s for Adrienne,’ a cherry cream ale for “Waitress” to benefit the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, that Ludwig says “paired very well with cherry pie”; ‘The Pint of No Return,’ a black lager created for “Phantom of the Opera” to benefit Musicians on Call; and ‘Islander Pale Ale,’ created for “Come from Away” to benefit Tuesday’s Children.
“And then we were just about to do the last beer in the six pack, and COVID happened. We were down to choosing from a couple of different shows to finish up the whole thing, and it was going to be this great big shebang, and then our industry completely collapsed,” says Ludwig.
He adds that the shutdown has been more devastating than anything they could have imagined. “I mean, no one ever imagined any circumstance in which all of theater would just cease to exist overnight. No one.”
Relatively quickly, a number of innovative fundraising initiatives began to gain traction, including in the world of breweries.
One that has seen remarkable success is a charity beer called ‘All Together’ that the Other Half Brewing Company created to benefit workers in the hospitality industry. Taking the concept a step further, they made it an open-source beer, putting the recipe and label online and inviting other brewers to become part of the initiative by brewing the beer and donating to the cause.
“The All Together beer has hundreds and hundreds of breweries worldwide associated with it.
We thought it was a great idea, so we came up with the idea of the Curtain Up beer, as the final beer in the Broadway Six Pack,” says Ludwig.
There are currently more than 75 breweries nationwide brewing the Curtain Up beer, using the original Hazy IPA recipe or the breweries’ own version of it, to benefit the Actors Fund, which assists those involved in the entertainment industry, or their local arts organizations.
As they already had an established relationship with Walking Tree, Ludwig says they pitched the idea and “they immediately said, ‘Well, we’ve got to do this for Riverside.’ They’re a wonderful group of people and obviously Riverside is a national treasure. We just adore that theater.”
The beer they created is a Kölsch, which Jack Wich, Walking Tree sales manager, described as an easy drinking, German-style ale, reminiscent of a lager.
“The original was a big IPA and we wanted something a little bit more tailored to the local theater that would move a little bit faster,” said Wich. “We took our Kölsch, and we blended it with a fruited sour – a pineapple/tangerine sour – and then re-dry hopped the beer with Mandarin Bavaria hops, to brighten the flavors up a little bit, and then we kegged it.”
The beer is currently on tap at Walking Tree, Riverside Theatre, Waldo’s Restaurant and Kilted Mermaid, and a portion of sales benefits Riverside. Better get hopping, though. It was a special batch limited to 26 sixth barrel kegs.
Although the pandemic hampered episode screenings of the Happy Hour Guys, Ludwig says they’re starting to do some in-person shooting again.
“Now that may be slowing down again because of the Delta variant. We’ll have to play it by ear. Broadway isn’t quite back yet, but my wife and I managed to pivot during the pandemic and have been teaching, which has been very welcome, here in New York at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy,” says Ludwig.
“There’s such an intersection, because so many people who work in restaurants and bars are also in one way or another connected to the arts. Whether they’re musicians or crew or actors, there’s been a lot of crossover with this. It’s been a great, really heartwarming thing to be involved with.”
For more information or to view episodes of Happy Hour Guys, including the one at Walking Tree, visit thehappyhourguys.com/curtain-up-beer.
Photos by Kaila Jones
