a poor player

Tommy Flynn

Dunkirk NY – No, you don’t know him, unless you worked in Buffalo theatre somewhere between the mid-80s and the late 90s. He was the proprietor of Ray Flynn’s, a little hole-in-the-wall dive of a bar on the 800 block of Main St. in Buffalo, next to the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo building. It was at one time the city’s theatre bar, where theatre people of all stripes used to come and hang out after rehearsals and shows. There was a time in Buffalo when your day’s or night’s work in the theatre wasn’t complete until you went over to Flynn’s for a drink and some conversation. There was always someone over at Flynn’s to talk to, and even if there wasn’t, there was always Tommy himself. Everyone was Tommy’s friend.

(UPDATE: click here to see Jeff Wilber’s reminiscences about The Golden Dollar at Buffalo Rising, and then check out this page on Forgotten Buffalo on the history behind Tommy’s bar, which includes an image of the Buffalo News story about Flynn’s final night.)

When I first came to Buffalo in 1989 it wasn’t long before I was taken over to Flynn’s. The place was named for Tommy’s father, Ray, who started the bar. Before it started hosting the theatre crowd, it was a popular hangout for newspaper people, in particular those who worked at the defunct Buffalo Courier-Express. The C-E had ceased operations in 1982, and slowly the patrons of Flynn’s morphed from the newpaper crowd to the theatre crowd. The bar was a two-block walk from Buffalo’s Theatre District, an area around the 600 block of Main St. It was close enough to walk to after a show or rehearsal, but in just a bad enough section of downtown that nobody but theatre people wanted to go there. There were maybe four or five booths, three or four tables, a curved wooden bar, and one hell of an odorous bathroom. You had to get buzzed in by Tommy due to the potential for robbery.

Many people credit Flynn’s as being single-handedly responsible for the phenomenal growth of Buffalo’s theatre community in the late 80s and early 90s. The place was a beehive of activity and networking. You wanted some acting work? You went to Flynn’s to chat everyone up and see what was going on. Opening night parties were all held there. On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturday nights, from 11PM-4AM you couldn’t hardly move in the place. It was smoke-filled, boisterous, energetic and dynamic. Wheeling and dealing took place constantly. Tommy had a jukebox with some of the best music from the 40s-60s, and it played constantly. You knew everyone, and sooner or later everyone knew you. No matter where you sat or with whom, the talk was theatre. What show were you working on? Who was in it? What did you see? Was it good? Who’s auditioning? People crammed six in a booth, eight at a table. Friendly arguments fueled by alcohol were always breaking out. It was SRO on many nights. If the place was SRO people would help him out. If you were lucky, about 2 in the morning Marie, Tommy’s long-time waitress/bartender, might get up on a table and dance. It was a joyous time, and the good times and friendships built up around this bar fueled the theatre community’s growth and development. I sometimes think we all continued to do theatre not because we were so dedicated, but because it gave us an excuse to go drinking at Flynn’s and gave us material for conversation.

Tommy himself was a little Irishman with blond hair combed 50s-style, in a pompadour, the epitome of a blue-collar Buffalo bartender. He was generous to a fault. Practically every actor in Buffalo had a tab running at Tommy’s place. Tommy never mentioned your tab; if you couldn’t pay, he’d wait until you could. Some people had tabs running for over a year. He didn’t mind. One of my friends said that Tommy had tabs in his box going back to when his father ran the place. He poured a generous drink and kept his prices low. He knew his clientele.

When the bar became popular with the theatre community, Tommy began to decorate the place accordingly. As soon as you became a “regular,” Tommy would take your résumé photo (if you gave it to him) and hang it up along the wall. The walls were lined with headshots of Buffalo actors, as well as posters from all the current shows throughout the year. I never did have the nerve to give Tommy my headshot, but eventually there was a shot of a scene I was in from Twelfth Night of me and two other actors hanging from the upper level of the Shakespeare in Delaware Park stage. The whole place was like a dive version of Sardi’s.

I absolutely loved the place. Once he knew you (which did not take long), you’d appear at the door, get buzzed in, and practically before you could get to the bar he’d have your drink ready for you. Marie had a routine for everyone. When I’d show up on nights she was working, she’d throw a dishtowel in my face and scream for me to get out because I was a loud-mouthed trouble-maker. So we’d get into a shouting contest (Marie’s voice sounded like three layers of gravel road) until I couldn’t keep myself from laughing anymore. Everyone would greet you. You’d receive congratulations on whatever show you were in (and return the compliments), asked what you were up to, how was rehearsal going, and of course pumped for gossip. One year I lined up my whole season there, right from the barstools.

More than once on this blog I’ve stated how much I enjoy the Buffalo theatre community, and how it has served as my artistic home. The true strength of Buffalo theatre comes not just from the strength of its talent pool, but from the fact that we all have “grown up” together in many ways, and that we all know each other well and respect each other’s abilities. Flynn’s, with Tommy behind the bar, was instrumental in our growing up. The passion, the laughter, the discussions, the arguments, and the networking that took place there, combined with the hard-nosed working-class low-rent atmosphere that made the place as comfortable to be in as your best pair of old shoes, was the glue that bound us together as a community. Tommy gave us all a home to be with each other, and in turn it gave our theatre community its home-town character and home-town strength.

When Tommy retired and closed up the place in 1999, it was a sad day indeed. Nothing has taken its place since. One or two places tried, but no place could capture the ambiance and atmosphere of Flynn’s. A “reunion” of sorts was held a few years back by one of the theatres, whose producer managed to get all the pictures on Tommy’s wall for his lobby area. He was a man beloved by everyone in Buffalo’s theatre community. Despite never having stepped on a stage (with the exception of one or two cameo appearances), he did more to strengthen and develop Buffalo theatre than any single artist in the city. He will be remembered with fondness and not without one or two glasses raised in his honor. Godspeed, Tommy!  -twl