Picture the Carnation Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street at Disneyland, sometime in the early sixties. Two Boston University sophomores are bussing tables twelve hours a day. Walt Disney comes in every afternoon, sits at the counter, and eats chili. When the busboys take their lunch outside on the milk crates, Walt sometimes walks out and eats with them. Within three weeks, he fires one of them for drinking on the job.
That busboy was Al Tapper’s fraternity brother and roommate. His name was Stuart. He died a few years later.
That is not a footnote in Al Tapper’s life. That is the reason there’s an empty glass at the center of his new show.
He tells the story on screen. Then someone sings it back to him.
After All These Years: The Musicals of Al Tapper opened September 9 at AMT Theater on West 45th Street, and the format is unlike anything else running in New York right now. Tapper, a songwriter and producer whose shows have been kicking around Off-Broadway since iMperfect Chemistry in 2000, appears entirely on video. He tells fifteen stories from his life. After each one, a live company of four singers performs the song he wrote about it. Part concert, part comedy, part affectionate roast, 80 minutes, no intermission.
Why video? Because he panics on stage and, in his own words, “I can’t remember the lyrics to my own songs.” He taped his parts until he liked them. Honestly, respect.
The Stuart song is the one this audience will feel in their teeth.
When I talked with Al the morning of first preview, I asked him how long he’d been sober. His answer: “I’ve never been anything other than sober.” He’s not one of us. He’s something we don’t write about often enough: the 19-year-old in the passenger seat who watched a friend pour scotch over breakfast from Boston to Anaheim and didn’t know what to do about it.
Halfway through the show, Al tells Stuart’s story and lands on this: they were just kids, and they didn’t know any better. Then a singer takes the stage alone, drink in hand, and performs a number about a glass that mirrors a life. I’ll never take another drink. Who am I kidding. He keeps drinking through the whole song.
Sixty years of feeling like he should have done more, compressed into one number. That’s the whole thing.
Fair warning, and a discount.
This is not a sober show. The marketing promises lost weekends and the occasional dirty martini, and a character drinks on stage. Your call, your tools, you know yourself. What it is: a funny, sentimental New York theater memoir with one of the most honest portraits of watching someone drink that’s been set to music lately, plus post-show talkbacks with the cast, the creative team, and Al himself on select nights, including a running series on Jews on Broadway and one on baseball.
Al Tapper is an recovery advocate, and this production gives us a fresh way to talk about fellowship, recovery, memory, humor, and the role the arts can play in carrying hope.
AMT Theater is offering Sober Curator readers 20 percent off: $50 tickets for $40, and $25 student and senior tickets for $20. The theater is at 354 West 45th Street. Use code SOBER at checkout.
Go for the entertainment. Stay for Stuart. Say a quiet something for the friends who didn’t make it out of their twenties. Then catch the up-tempo closer, because Al lied about not having one, and it’s a woman beating out all the guys in the business world. He knows his audience. Now you know too.
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Where is After All These Years playing? AMT Theater, 354 West 45th Street, New York City. Performances began September 9, 2026.
How long is the show? 80 minutes with no intermission.
Is After All These Years a sober show? No. It’s a musical memoir covering Al Tapper’s whole life, and alcohol appears on stage. One number deals directly with a friend’s alcoholism.
Is there a discount for Sober Curator readers? Yes, 20 percent off: regular tickets $40 instead of $50, student and senior tickets $20 instead of $25. Use code SOBER at check out.
