Java Spots & Coffee Stains


A curtain call for the caffeinated


By Scott Snyder

People who work in theatre do love their coffee -- or at least, they love their caffeine. When the play you're in amounts to half a full-time job, and you're nowhere near giving up the day-job, a little caffeine boost can come in pretty handy.

Fortunately, across the street from one local theatre, where I'm currently serving empty glasses as a waiter in Follies, there's a little coffee shop called Anylise's Hava Java. It's a dumb name. I know. It practically barfs the words "quaint, would-be-trendy coffee house." The place has pretty good coffee, though, and location is everything.

The custom of sprinting out for a jolt has become so pervasive that the lengths of breaks are keyed to how much business Anylise's has. "It's open-mic night," the director might say. "There's no way we'll make it back in 10 minutes. Take 15." If the place were suddenly to close (which it never will, with that captive clientele), most of the actors who do productions at the theatre would collapse into a sort of thespian catatonia, wearily monotoning tunes from Oklahoma! and chanting, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" in hopeless despair.

More than once, an actor has escaped reprimand for arriving late to rehearsal by saying, "They were cleaning the espresso maker." No more needs be said. No one says, "Who was?" They all know. I would imagine that some people don't even know what the place is called. It's just Over. As in, "Go Over and get me a cup of hazelnut creme." The Over Coffee House.

Anylise's also has really good pie. Many's the time I've gone directly from the lovely, capacious skew offices to the theatre, and I've had to resort to eating Anylise's pumpkin pie for supper. And they have those nifty little round cookies -- sometimes for free, I think, depending on how floofy you like your coffee.

No one I've talked to knows whether there really is an Anylise. It's the Betty Crocker mystique. If Anylise does exist, though, she must be a theatre fan. She's done more for local drama than the most generous contributor in the program insert.


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