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| Ellen Hart, owner of Ellen's Stardust Diner. (Courtesy Photo) |
Singing for Their Supper, and for Their Dreams
The other afternoon, I found myself at Ellen’s Stardust Diner—the Times Square institution where waitstaff sing Broadway ballads while serving burgers and fries. If you live in New York, you’ve seen the line—curving down 51st and Broadway—tourists and locals waiting hours for a table and a show.
I didn’t wait. Instead, I was invited to something far rarer: a press lunch where six children, the youngest just 8 and the oldest 18, performed for a packed dining room. They had been chosen from more than 300 submissions across the country in a search for the next generation of “Stardusters,” as the singing waitstaff call themselves.
The word isn’t just a job title. It’s a badge of belonging. These performers—whether teenagers with Broadway dreams or adults juggling auditions—refer to each other as family. Watching these six children step up to the microphone, it was clear that Hart, the diner’s founder, has built more than a restaurant. She’s created a home for dreamers, a pipeline for possibility.
Lunch With Ellen
I was sitting across from Ellen Hart herself—petite, poised, and dressed with the kind of precision that signals both theater and business. She leaned in, her energy filling the space.
As the kids sang, diners clapped along, cameras lifted, and the room swelled with music. I found myself singing too. And, unexpectedly, I was happy. The outside world—its noise, its politics, its weight—faded. For an hour, joy had the floor.
A Lineage of Dreamers
Hart’s presence pulled me back to another Ellen in New York’s artistic history: Ellen Stewart, who founded La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Stewart was a revolutionary, insisting that dreams belonged to everyone, that allies mattered more than labels, and that when visions aligned, possibilities multiplied.
The connection is more than a coincidence. Hart has done something similar in a different register. Where Stewart created space for avant-garde theater, Hart carved one for Broadway hopefuls—keeping the pipeline alive in a city where ambition is often crushed by rent. The checkerboard floors of the diner echo Stewart’s creed: keep the door open, keep the dream moving forward.
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| Ellen Hart and Clara Bishop, 8 (Courtesy Photo) |
The Junior Stardusters
The six new voices carried that idea forward:
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Clara Bishop, 8, Ambler, PA — A child prodigy who has already sung the anthem at a Phillies game.
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Benjamin Law, 12, Long Island, NY — A young Peter Pan, with Matilda and Seussical already behind him.
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Addison Wynkoop, 14, Bellefonte, PA — A NATS national champion with Newsies and The Little Mermaid on her résumé.
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Ava Gallo, 18, Staten Island, NY — With 20 shows to her name, she delivered “The Winner Takes It All” in honor of her grandfather.
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Ashley Bowling, 15, Scotch Plains, NJ — Singing as tribute to her mother’s battle with stage 4 breast cancer, turning performance into activism.
They were chosen from nationwide auditions, judged by Broadway veterans Jessie Hooker-Bailey, Gilbert L. Bailey, and Bailey McCall. To watch them was to glimpse not just the future of the diner, but the future of the stage.
A Diner, A Family, A Legacy
For nearly four decades, Ellen’s Stardust Diner has been more than a kitsch throwback with milkshakes and neon. It has been a way station for artists, a place where rent money meets rehearsal, and where “family” is not a metaphor but a working truth.
Sitting there, I realized: the kids aren’t just auditioning for the stage. They’re auditioning for the family table that Hart has set, where singing is survival, waiting tables is part of the act, and joy—loud, messy, undeniable—still has a place in New York.
• www.ellensstardustdiner.com
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