Holland Taylor Instagram – The Kennedy Center Ushers for the Eisenhower Theatre, specifically the Thursday night gang, were a wonderful group who responded so incredibly to ANN during our previews there, speaking their mind to my director Ben Klein, that I became determined to continue to hear from them. The ushers generally had no access to the innards of the artist’s side of the theatre or the fabled Green room, which was a huge chandelier and couch filled haven where the great and garden variety folks came after the performance. I pled the case with KC management that, since I was the only performer, I felt they should allow the ushers to visit after the show along with other friends if I wanted that. So, permission was granted, and for the first time, the “Redcoats,” as I called them, started appearing after the show — three one night, eight another — during the month ANN played there. Our last Saturday night happened to be my birthday, and the gang just floored me by arranging on their own for champagne and a birthday cake to celebrate, and ALL of them (a big group of about 30), it seemed, in attendance. I never will forget it. But nothing prepared me for the night on Broadway, more than a year later, when about 35 of them appeared IN THEIR Kennedy Center REDCOATS at a performance of “their” ANN at Lincoln Center. They had come up to NYC in a caravan of buses, trains, cars, and airplanes. They made an adventure of it and I consider it the greatest honor I’ve ever been given. They were rewarded, too, in a way — at the performance they attended were also President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton, Meryl Streep, Gabby Giffords, and Mark Kelly. Quite a night!