Sarah Jessica Parker and Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff hosted a luncheon gala on Monday to celebrate 25 years of New 42 Studios, the rehearsal studios at the epicenter of the Broadway industry. 

“I first walked into these studios 21 years ago. I made my Broadway debut in a short-lived show called In My Life; I was the understudy, swing and dance captain,” Groff told The Hollywood Reporter. “And then we rehearsed Spring Awakening here two years later, we rehearsed Hamilton in this exact room, and we rehearsed Merrily We Roll Along here.” 

The event was modeled after MGM’s Studio luncheon to commemorate their 25th anniversary, which also welcomed actors, producers and other luminaries. Attendees on Monday included board members Cynthia Nixon and Rachel Dratch, producers John Johnson, Greg Nobile, Eva Price, Mara Isaacs, Barry and Fran Weissler, directors Michael Greif and David Cromer, songwriting team Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman and dozens of Tony Award-winning actors. 

During speeches, Broadway directors and actors reflected on their time in the rehearsal studio and in the industry, with longtime director Jerry Zaks, who led the recent Hello, Dolly! and The Music Man revivals. Speaking about forgetting a line onstage as Kenickie in the original cast of Grease, and André De Shields, a Tony Award winner for Hadestown, telling a dirty anecdote about auditioning for The Full Monty, a show in which the actors do a striptease. (“Are there children in the room?” he asked before delivering the punchline.)

“I am not one of those actors who feels that rehearsal is the best part. I kind of hate it,” quipped Carolee Carmelo, who has starred in Mamma Mia!, Parade and several other titles. She added that New 42 helped ease the pain. 

The non-profit organization behind the studio also runs The New Victory, a children’s theater that offers $2 tickets and free tickets to families in public housing. In her speech, Parker, who has appeared on Broadway several times, referenced bringing her children to the theater as something that turned them into lifelong theatergoers.

”I”m here as somebody who has been the beneficiary of every single thing this building has offered,” Parker said. “I have come to support friends in workshops. I have picked people up after auditions that have gone well and have gone very poorly, and I have dropped off lunch to a special, certain person in my life who has spent several years not at home, but in this building.” 

The event featured performances from Brandon Victor Dixon, who sang “Heaven on Their Minds,” reprising his song from his role as Judas in NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert. A quintet of Broadway leading ladies, Hell’s Kitchen’s Jessica Vosk and Tony nominees Joy Woods, Jasmine Amy Rogers, Nikki M. James and Lilli Cooper, singing an original song about the rehearsal space with lyrics including “New 42, who will I run into?” 

To that end, in a packed elevator ride down from the event, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who recently starred in Purpose on Broadway, turned to actors Nikki Renee Daniels and Celia Keenan-Bolger and director Jerry Mitchell and jokingly asked, “So what are you working on next?!” as the elevator erupted in laughter.