TWS stands for The Wodehouse Society. All America's Sir Plum fans are consolidated in chapters of TWS, which is BTW the first society of Wodehousians in the world. It was established in 1976 - within year period after Wodehouse's death. In 2008 I'd had a chance to meet Wodehousians from Broadway Special Chapter of TWS. Here is the report or story, as you like, of how it was.

Let's begin from a point when Masha Lebedeva - our TRWS (Russian variant of TWS) devotee, always inspiring us to have more contacts with foreign Wodehousians - provided to me e-mail of Amy Plofker, the chairman of NY TWS chapter called "The Broadway Special". I sent her a letter where introduced myself, pronounced my desire to visit them and pointed period of time I'd be in NYC wide area - I happened to stay at my friend's place in NJ for several days. Amy had read a lot of Wodehouse, according to Masha almost 85% of all his works at that time. I found out from Internet that Amy had organized the Chapter not only as great votary of Sir Plum, but also to overcome post-traumatic syndrome after dreadful events on September 11, 2001. My preparations for the visit included mainly two issues: a) I selected several books of Wodehouse in Russian for presents to TWS (Masha's advice), paying more attention to attractiveness of covers then content - according to Sergey Kuznetsov aka Ssmith, right-hand man of Michel Kuzmenko, TRWS creator and "wodehouse.ru" site's owner; b) So-called "speech" or "reclame" small document was elaborated with the help of Masha Lebedeva and other prominent TRWS member aka Doublin, describing a little bit more about topics published as programme for Wodehouse's Week in Moscow (10 - 16, August, 2008). That "reclame" should be voiced before Wodehousians or just handed to Amy depending on circumstances and its main purpose was additional help for Americans who hasn't yet decided to take part in the event. Before printing, I managed to show it to Dan Melby, my acquaintance, living now in Moscow. He looked through the document and made several suggestions to make it more American in style. Finally I printed it together with 20 sheets containing the programme on both sides.

Amy answered me cheerfully and mentioned about John Lithgow performance we were lucky to attend and asured dinner beforehand. The date was first set either to April, 27 or 28. John Lithgow, the Shrek's voice, is rather famouse actor and storyteller. His performance was held in Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center. Let me put here passage from theater's observation, before telling about Mr. Lithgow invoking memories of reading Wodehouse's story "Uncle Fred Flits By": The organization observes Lincoln Center founder John D. Rockefeller 3rd's mandate that "the arts not for the privileged few, but for the many." Guided by the motto, "Good Plays, Popular Prices," Lincoln Center Theater makes every effort to keep admission prices low and its doors open to all. Why I put it here? Just to show that in America "Wodehouse" name is treated as for mass audience, for there were almost no empty seats later on during performance inside large arena. Though a few young faces were observed, mostly more than a thirty and more than a forty people. I would say a few words about Mr. Lithgow performance later, now returning back to correspondence with Amy. Amy greeted me as "long-distance friend" when issuing the final dinner plans. They were set to Sunday, April 27. She made a reservation for 4:30 PM for 12 people at Kennedy's Steak and Seafood House. John Lithgow's performance had began at 7 PM not far from that place. My friend, David, said about restaurant, after booking tkts for 4 of us to the Lincoln Center Theater: "Seems to be decent Irish place!". But David insisted on going to other restaurant for his wife and my other friend: "Why? What we know about Wodehouse?", - he demanded. "Practically nothing!". I agreed at that time, but later on (as true Wodehousian) granted him and his wife one book by Wodehouse in Russian, for familiarization. Translation was made by N.Trauberg. They left Russia 20 years ago, thus neither translation, nor the language won't be obstacles to "taste" Sir Plum's writings.

So, packed with prepared artefacts, I entered the spacious non-crowded hall of Irish restaurant in a hurry, being late for a quarter. Gaelish music was playing. Fireplace was on. I couldn't find Amy immediately according to her image she sent to me previously, this was her photo in fancy dress from conference in Providence, and asked bright head waiter (keeping in mind Amy had made reservation) whether he knew about group of Wodehousians headed by Amy Plofker. Head waiter didn't know about it but demonstrated good feeling. Then I take closer look over the hall - I saw pairs and singles first, only in the left corner group of 4 visitors were sitting. I recognized Amy among them, when came nearer. Amy resembled "student with the haversack", though sack was lying near her. She looked much more younger than on the photo. Greetings. I introduced myself, two more Davids introduced themselves. They were David Jasen and David McDonouph. Then Amy introduced to me Susan, very kind-looking woman, who could be possible the best aunt for Wooster, I thought, for my mind already switched to Wodehouse. Later on, afterwards, I found out her sirname was also Jasen. Waiter had appeared and I made an order for 2 different goes. Americans looked at each other and Amy warned me about amount of portions. I felt myself rather hungry after a good walk beforehand, so reacted as usual, - AOK! Speech seemed to be inappropriate at the place, so I handed to Amy and others artefacts described before. Two of presented books had well-known images from "Jeeves and Wooster" serial on front cover, third - Russian variant of Mr. Mulliner. Americans succeeded in recognizing him! Susan asked about Russian vision of Fink-Nottle - I missed communication, but Amy helped me to understand the question. I hadn't any idea of particular Russian vision of Gussie, except from serial. Neither I saw drawings of him in translated Wodehouse books. My answer was like "don't know, for I had no much experience in Russian interpretation of Wodehose". Hope that didn't ruin my reputation!

Right here my first order arrived and I "frozed". Such large norms for a portion I couldn't imagine! Amy said - "Welcome to America!". Thanks to David McDonough - he immediately refused from second course on my account, saying to waiter - "Sorry, sir, a kind of lost communication!". Here we began to eat and sometimes throw words about other Wodehousians, events, food. In a while I didn't catch the full question from David Jasen. It seemed to me he asked about my age, so I quickly reacted with "53" figure and David repeated it with important spirit and waved his head. Here I realized that question was about number of members in our society. Everybody laughed a lot, especially D.Jasen, when conceived the matter. I said that we have a few very active members, much more compassionates and more than 1,000 registered in official site's forum. We talk a little bit about forthcoming event in Moscow in August - only Amy among others (including me) was preparing to attend it. Unfortunately I had already planned trip along Volga river right at the time of Wodehouse's Week. We also spoke about "consulate officers" in embassys and I agreed with D. Jasen, that Americans executed perfectly, by preventing relatives from coming to America.

Dinner came to final stage. David Jasen presented me a book as remembrance of evening in Kennedys, subscribing it before. He said a few words about the book. Later I found out he wrote introduction to it. I think Wodehousians would prefer to look through details for that interesting book, so please, follow next links:

• Subscriptions of attenders
• Subscription of David A. Jasen
• Contents
• Introduction by David A. Jasen
• Back cover

Lincoln Center Theater was in staging. We met once more with Amy and Wodehousians near booking-office. Many boards alternated by billboards were along our way to "Mitzi E. Newhouse" stage, where John Lithgow performed. I saw Amy in the theater. She sat not far from us (I was with my friend David, his wife Lida and my Moscow friend - Sveta). I introduced Amy to David before the performance. Here I want to say a few words about John Lithgow playing. "Mitzi E. Newhouse" stage is comparatively large arena and rows are rising rather steepy from scene in amphitheatric style. Almost all seats were occupied - ours were booked by David previously. We sat at 20th row to the left side of the scene, but we clearly viewed all Mr.Lithgow's eloquent eyes spectrum. Here they are firing with inspiration, here - glassy, then - blinking archly... Minimum artificial effects led to John's show of his possession in mimics, voice and calisthenics. Mr. Lithgow has wonderful diction (the best his power was in pronouncing phrases with a lot of words - he made a sort of stringing them over each other with different frequency depending on content, which always resulted either in applause, or laughter). Filigree, I would say, sometimes felt parallels to circus. Neat calisthenics resembled master of fence. To say hornestly, I understood not all the nuances, but main structure of clues were catched and much positive energy and emotions had been gotten. Now about Wodehouse (I put text from billboard next): In Stories by Heart John Lithgow invokes memories of three generations of his family history while tracing his own life as an actor and storyteller. Mr. Lithgow tells of reading P.G. Wodehouse to his father when he was gravely ill - the same story his father had read to him 50 years before (a jazzy tour-de-force, he plays 9 characters!) It rallied the old man's failing spirits and in the sound of his father's laughter, Mr. Lithgow discovered the healing power of storytelling - and so will audiences through this funny and touching performance. The story in subject was "Uncle Fred Flits By". I spoke to Amy once more after performance, compared notes about John's play, said her to contact Masha Lebedeva for organizational purposes, greetings from Masha I already sent during dinner. Pleasant evening had ended and I said good-bye to Amy. Sorry, that couldn't do that to Susan and David McDonough also!

All interested how things accompanied with discribed event were going (in Russian) are welcomed to this place: www.mtu-net.ru/stampus/america/2008_am_02.htm