New York is Thatta Way, Man: Just Another SaUD Miracle Review- May, 2010 (Part 2)featured
Ahhh day two in New York. Our first full day. I slept in until around 10 and then got dressed really fast to run with Stephanie to Cosi to get breakfast for all of us. It was really windy and rainy out and not really the best explore-the-city kind of weather. Luckily for us, our tour was planned for the next day. Today? Stephanie and I were going to see Hair. Again.
An egg and bacon and an egg and ham bagel sandwich, a breakfast quiche and a specialty oatmeal with three bottles of Vitamin Water and a diet Coke only set us back around $20 and we took the goods back to the hotel to have a quick breakfast before Stephanie and I set out for Times Square.
The play was at 2:00 pm, so we set out around noon thinking we had plenty of time. The ticketing still confused the hell out of us (at some point, we bought unlimited ride tickets only to find out they only worked on the MTA and not the PATH, which rendered them a waste for us) and the directions Stephanie pulled up on her phone weren’t exactly…right…so it ended up taking us longer than it should have to reach Times Square.
The rain had faded into a drizzle by the time we hit Times Square, which was packed (when isn’t it?) with a ton of school groups. Maybe it’s the ADD side of me (because I really do have the attention span of a fruit fly…which is probably one of the reasons it takes me so long to write these blogs), but I’m always so taken by Times Square. There’s so many lights and colors…a constant flurry of activity. There’s always something to look at and I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to notice everything there. We don’t have anything like that in Chicago and I’m kind of glad…it makes visiting it in New York that much more special.
After feeling our way around and trying to regain our sense of direction, we made our way over to the Al Hirshfeld theatre for the show.
Stephanie and I had been confused to what row we were in when she bough the seats because the seating chart was confusing. I think we had row B, but we couldn’t tell from the seating chart if there was a row A in our section. There wasn’t- we were ushered to our FIRST ROW SEATS! I’d make a stupid joke about my excitement, but I really can’t. It was the best theater experience I’ve ever had. I quickly texted my friend Ali to brag about our seats before I had to turn the phone off and the show began.
It’s hard to compare this cast to a cast that won a Tony (2009, Best Musical Revival). I was really attached to that cast and it was hard to see all of them replaced with a new tribe (the original cast was shipped over to London to open the play on the West End). Gavin Creel’s portrayal of Claude last year really affected me in a way I never really had been by a stage production before. Ali is a big fan of his replacement (Kyle Riabko, a Spring Awakening alum), so I was interested to see what he’d bring to the show. One of my favorites, Caissie Levy, was replaced with American Idol (season three) runner-up Diana DeGarmo, who I really, really didn’t like when she was on American Idol. Replacing Will Swenson as Berger, though, was one of my favorite American Idol contestants ever, Ace Young. See, I’m pretty sure I fell in lust with Ace Young the first time he hit my TV screen. I keep a video of his Father Figure performance on my iPod. He’s stunning and I kind of, maybe, sort of insisted we see Hair on this trip so I could see him in the role.
And as expected, this cast just couldn’t quite live up to the revival cast we saw the year before. They were fantastic, but they just weren’t quite *there.* The chemistry between Young, Riabko and DeGarmo just really wasn’t there, whereas the chemistry between Swenson, Creel and Levy just kind of jumped out at you. That aside, having such amazing seats really gave the show a new perspective. It was almost as if we were part of the show, interacting with some of the Tribe members as they reclined on the stairs in front of us, observing the intricacies of the show that we had missed the last time. A Tribe member played with my hair, Diana DeGarmo handed me a flower and at the end of the show, we ran up on stage to dance around and sing Let the Sunshine In and play around with Wallace Smith (Hud). It was the perfect experience. And then somehow, I ended up in some huge bear hug by a very sweaty (and insanely gorgeous) Ace Young and I was telling him about how much I had enjoyed him on Idol years earlier and we were making random chatter that I don’t remember because I was taken by his gorgeousness. Stephanie wanted to take a picture of us, but he said to meet him at the stage door and he’d come take a pic with us.
So after the show, we headed out to the stage door to meet the cast. Why not. All of them came out (except for Diana DeGarmo, who I guess couldn’t take the time to meet her fans…I didn’t care…I’m still not really much of a fan) and were positively delightful. When I met Kyle Riabko, I made sure to tell him that my friend Ali was such a huge fan of his and he told me to tell her he said hi (I called her as soon as we left the theater…I squeed over Ace, she squeed over Kyle and we acted like the teenagers that we….aren’t). And then Ace came out and he came right over to us, saying how it was time for that picture. Sigh. I love this man. I do. It’s so awesome when you’re a fan of a musician or an actor (I’ve met many of both) and find out they’re super awesome in real life with their fans. After we got our programs autographed by the cast and got our pictures, we had someone take our obligatory picture with the marquee, made a quick stop so Stephanie could take a picture with a Gavin Creel poster and headed back into Times Square for some grub.
We wandered around Times Square for a bit, taking it in, but we hadn’t eaten since just after 10:00 that morning and it was after 5:00 pm at this point so we went looking for a quick bite to eat.
Since eating street food was on our list of things to do in New York (since we failed to do it last year), we found a street cart and grabbed some hot dogs. Gotta say, though… Chicago-style hot dogs > New York-style hot dogs. It’s not even close (and I only eat ketchup, mustard and pickles on my ‘dogs…and that’s, like, sacriligious in Chicago). It’s in the ‘dog. And the bun. Sorry, New York. But they’re cheap and filling and they aren’t untasty…just not AS tasty as the ones at home.
After our foray into Times Square street food, we stopped in some touristy-type shops and bought some scarves on the street. We found M&M World and decided to stop in because…why not? We were in New York. It was overcrowded, overpriced and nothing special, so we left almost as quickly as we entered.
We found a vendor selling hot candied almonds on the street and grabbed a few bags to munch on while we were on the train. On our way, we were stopped on the street by some guy pimping a comedy show. He made it sound super cool (taping with the cast of Saturday Night Live on the Letterman set, food and drink included, this and that and the other, best experience ever, jibba jabba) and like all things that sound too good be to true, this was, as well. I don’t remember what the catch was, but I remember we laughed at him, turned on our heels and went to catch our train back to Jersey. Keep this in your back pocket: there is ALWAYS a catch.
When we got off the train, we were still kind of hungry so we stopped at the street cart outside the PATH station. The vendor was offering many made-to-offer sandwiches and other delights (gyros, knishes and sausages, amongst other things) and we both settled on some Philly cheese steak sandwiches ($5 each) and bottled water ($1 each). It took about 10 minutes to make the two sandwiches (because everything is grilled and sliced to order) and he and Stephanie were chatting it up while he made our sandwiches. She mentioned that we were from out of town and that we have nothing like this at home (we really don’t. Chicago doesn’t do street food) and he told us his sandwiches would make us remember New Jersey, and they really did. Street vendor man didn’t lie- his sandwiches were DELICIOUS. So fantastic, in fact, that Mom ran down and got some for her and grandma after smelling ours. If you live in Jersey, his cart is right outside the Newport/Pavonia PATH station and he’s open until 10:00 pm everyday except Friday and Saturday, when he’s open all night.
Mom and grandma had a nice, relaxing day. I think they took a little trip to the shopping mall next to the hotel and caught up on their rest from the previous day’s drive, walked around the Jersey City shore front a bit. Stephanie and I, though, were exhausted. We took a rest. I used up the rest of my internet time, and we ended up staying in for the rest of the night.
We had planned to visit this restaurant in Hoboken for dinner, but it would require a trip on the light rail and there were storms brewing. Instead, we took our showers so we’d be fresh and clean for the next day, watched American Idol, ordered Chinese food from a place down the street (the name of the restaurant escapes me at the moment- I’ll look it up later) and Stephanie hooked up her portable DVD player to the TV so she, Mom and grandma could watch Sex and the City while I used my internet time up and watched movies on my laptop.
They fell asleep pretty early, but my sleep schedule was all messed up and I didn’t end up going to bed until well past 2:00 am (which is still kind of early for me at home, but pretty late for me on vacation). I sat in one of the leather armchairs by the window and looked out at lower Manhattan while I typed out the day’s events in my journal, which just might be my ideal writing environment (instead of writing as I am now- at 4:30 am, looking out at a cluttered desk and a random movie playing on the Disney channel). I headed to bed with a flurry of ideas cluttering my mind. We were doing tours the next day and we had so much we wanted to see…and only a few hours to get it all in. One thing was for sure, though- I *had* to see Strawberry Fields.
