I have turned 28. Though it's an uninspiring age, the birthday celebration itself was fantastic. Look who I met... Yes, that's Audra McDonald. Though I know she's become famous for plenty of TV and recording work, I first fell in love with her when I was 16 and she starred in "Ragtime." It's my all time favorite musical and I was beyond excited to see her perform on my birthday in "Porgy and Bess." The experience didn't disappoint.
As an added bonus, the role of Porgy was played by Norm Lewis, himself a Broadway icon. He played an amazing Javert in "Les Miserables" a few years ago (and revived the role for the TV recording of the Les Miz 25th anniversary concert in London, which plays often on PBS), and he originated the role of King Triton in the musical version of "The Little Mermaid." I loved the score for TLM, and Norm sang one of my favorite songs from the show. As you can probably tell from the above photos, I got the chance to meet the two stars after the show. They were nice enough to sign my program and talk for a bit with those of us milling around outside. They were both very kind and generous with their time and, if possible, I walked away loving them both even more.
After talking to Audra, I had absolutely no idea what I had said. Fortunately, Cory got a bit of it on video, so I can now say affirmatively that I sounded like a complete idiot. I blame giddiness. I've also added a few clips below of Audra and Norm performing two different songs from the musical. In the first, pay attention to how Sherri Shepherd looks once they're done singing. That's pretty much how I looked the entire show. There was mucho weeping.
The blizzard that hit New York during a recent trip was shocking, mostly because the weather quickly moved from apocalyptic to bright and sunny, a la this: That's Becky and Lauren above, who were in town for a quick visit. Lauren had brought our British friend Matt (who you'll remember from posts like this) for his first trip to the Big Apple. Before a tour of the isle of Manhattan, however, we went upstate a bit to the cozy town of Sleepy Hollow. What awaited us was a snow storm the likes of which I hadn't seen since my days in London. (In this post I explain how mine and Lauren's first snow sighting was so incredible, it knocked our glasses off). We managed to navigate the blanketed town anyhow, but not without plenty of slipping and sliding. If you clicked on the snow post mentioned above, you may have noticed pictures of Becky teaching me how to make snow angels. Growing up in Florida, I was without the necessary know-how to properly make one of the things. Luckily, my northern friend was able to fill me in.
During this trip I pulled out that dusty tutoring session and put it to good use. The picture below is the end result, which looks fairly normal. The video below that is the entire embarrassing process. In my defense, I was remembering Becky's tips on how to avoid messy footprints getting around your pretty snow angel. My intentions were true but, as you'll see, my follow through left something to be desired.
PS: Again, if you read the past post on snowfall in London, you saw that it is typically Rebecca Dittmar's duty to remind me to wear gloves when playing in the snow. She was not here to remind me this time, hence my discomfort in the above video. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and re-post that video evidence. I just love Rebecca's irate voice as she yells "Those are my gloves!"
It has happened. Cory and I have officially left DC and have set up our new residence in Manhattan. Readers of the blog may remember we both lived in NYC two years ago, then moved to DC while Cory did a two year rotation for work. Those two years are up and we're back in the Big Apple. We're very fond of our new neighborhood in the Upper East Side and I'll post soon on some of the goings on we've been up to since moving back.
For now I'll say our leaving DC happened in a flurry, as we had just one day after returning from our Sundance trip. That day was spent procuring furniture for our new apartment, so we didn't get much of a chance to say goodbye to the wonderful city we called home for two years. Upon pulling out of our building in the rented van we were driving up to Manhattan, Cory and I realized there was one important thing we had been meaning to do our entire time in the Capital. It was around lunchtime anyway, and so we made our last official DC outing to this iconic eatery: I'm pretty pleased that this was our final activity in DC. Ben's Chili Bowl is way famous and delicious to boot. I enjoyed my half smoke, which Samantha Brown taught me was the thing to order when dining at Ben's. I was hesitant to allow Cory to snap the below picture, as I was trying to pull off the whole "I'm a local, I eat here all the time" thing. But I am glad to have the photo as a reminder of our last minutes in the city. Farewell DC, we loved you well!
Ta dah! Yes, faithful readers (you know who you are), the time has finally come. It's the "Channeling Kevin Spacey" post! Did the above logo give it away? I've been promising for some time (in posts like this and in frequent real life conversations with Cory) to devote an entire blog post to the off-Broadway sensation that is CKS.
As some of you know, Cory and our friend Elan are the writers of an off-Broadway play. CKS is playing at the St. Luke's Theatre at 46th and 8th on Saturdays and Sundays. Starting next week, the show will also run on Friday nights, and there was a bit of prep work to do for the new schedule. So, off to the city we went last weekend for a quick visit.
Here's the show's stars, Jamil Chokachi (left) and Justin R. G. Holcomb (right).
These guys are a riot to watch onstage, which is good, as it's a comedy. And you don't have to take my biased word for it. Here are a few links to some reviews:
The play's been showing since April and has an open-ended run. As for what's next, I'm making a push for a West End opening in London. Nudge, nudge. For anyone who's interested, here's a link to the play's official site, CKStheShow, and a link to buy tickets on Telecharge.
Before the play opened, Cory and Elan took some publicity photos. I find them humorous so I'm including a few. Here's a candid shot of the two of them writing in Times Square. You know, the spot where most people go to get serious work done.
Here's Cory throwing Elan into oncoming traffic. It's a daily occurrence.
I'm not sure what this is. It troubles me how happy they look.
And, since this post was slightly related to our past weekend visit, here's the lone photo taken over the trip. We stayed with Cory's sister Lindsey in Queens and here we are in a deli bodega. I call this photo "I Have an Abnormally Large Head."
So, I have been remiss in not doing a NYC post. Not just because it's a great city and I've traveled there quite a bit over the last year, but because my boyfriend has a play off-Broadway right now. I'll take a moment and apologize to him once again for ignoring this point thus far on my blog.
Cory and our friend Elan (who you've read about here and here) wrote Channeling Kevin Spacey a few years ago, and after some tours in Canada and Florida, the boys have brought it to the Big City. The play has been open since April 15, and we've done a lot of back and forth between NY and DC since then. Luckily, the show has been doing very well! There have been some developments recently to add shows, which I'll write more about soon. In fact, I plan to dedicate a whole post to more info about the play in a few days. For now, here's a link for anyone interested in checking the play out at the St. Luke's Theatre: http://www.ckstheshow.com/
For now, this post is all about a recent NYC trip we took over July 4th weekend. Like most of our recent NYC travel, the trip was heavy on the CKS (that's Channeling Kevin Spacey for those of us playing the at home version). But some other factors made this weekend extra special. One, it was the anniversary of our country's independence from imperialist England. Just kidding. We all know who's side I'd be on in that fight...look here if you're not sure.
No, we were super excited for this trip because my Dad would be joining us for the weekend, all the way from Florida. Also, our good friends Ben and Kacey were moving to Philadelphia just a day after we arrived. Not that we were happy they were leaving, just that we would get to see them before their Exodus.
Here's a pic of our room at 70 Park Avenue. Yes, that is the hotel's name as well as its address. This is how the rooms look before your suitcase explodes on it.
And this is a picture of the dinner we had with B&K in the Village. Ben is a chef and I think he was a little over-proud of how much we were able to eat. We hung out a bit after dinner and got a little photo happy. Here's me and Ben, looking normal (and the first pic of me on this blog since I cut off 10 inches of hair!): Here's Cory and Ben, looking un-normal: Here's me and Kacey trying to look as strange as Cory and Ben. Except Kacey looks pretty, and I look like a jerk: The next day, Dad arrived. I have a fun history of sharing places with my Dad, like here and here. He checked into the same hotel as Cory and I so it was a quick trip down the elevator to find each other. His first night in we went to Kuma Inn in Alphabet City. This place is amazing, it's a tiny Asian fusion restaurant built in somebody's old apartment. There's, like, six tables in the whole place. Here's a blurry photo of us enjoying the spot: After Kuma we saw Anything Goes. I think I liked it a whole lot more than the boys. Whatever. It starred Sutton Foster and, more importantly, Joel Grey. All you Cabaret fans holla' out there! The next day Cory attacked the TKTS booth. I mean he nicely encouraged TKTS patrons to kindly buy tickets to his play. In the meantime, Dad and I visited the Bouchon Bakery in Rockefeller Center for some homemade Nutter Butters and HoHos. Also, we saw Avenue Q. I was lucky enough to see this in London and I knew Dad would enjoy it. Fortunately, he did. So, in one weekend I got to see a theater legend and other people got to enjoy themselves as well.
That night we went to CKS then Sparks Steakhouse. It's a tasty place famous for being the spot where Mobster Gotti had some famous other-mob dude killed. Plus, they do a mean filet, so we all won. I know, I know. Bad photo...
Afterward we went to Little Branch, a speak easy bar in the Village. The place was first introduced to us by B&K so it seemed appropriate. The bar has no sign outside, you just have to stand near an unassuming brick building and wait for someone to appear from behind a secret door. The place has lots of fun drinks named after Prohibition-era peeps, like The Hemingway and The Fitzgerald. There was also a tasty drink I sampled called the Bobby Burns, out of place for the era they were going for but still appropriate as it was made with Scotch. Come on Rebecca, I know you know this one...
Here's another blurry pic of me and Dad hanging out: Our last day I made Dad walk a really long way to Papaya Dog where we had, he admitted, the best hot dogs ever. We then moseyed down to the Upright Citizen's Brigade in the Lower West Side, an improv comedy club started by Amy Poehler. We saw John Lutz from 30 Rock and Zach Woods, who plays the really tall and pale guy Michael Scott can't stand on The Office. It was very entertaining, and then we had a nice dinner at ABC Kitchen. I say nice, but I mean fantastic. ABC Kitchen was named the best new restaurant in the city for 2011, and I agree. We'd been trying to get in for a while ever since our friend Ben (yes, that Ben) began as a chef there last year. It seemed appropriate to finally sample the place the weekend we honored Ben and Kacey's leave from the Big Apple. And it was well worth the wait. The four-day weekend was a great time. I find sharing the places you love with the people you love is always good fun. Now, I leave you with this amazing mash up by the Glee kids. Please take note, Finn is standing on the TKTS iconic red steps in the first shot. Some people, like those named Erica, Cory and Lindsey, like to stand there and peddle CKS tickets...a lot. Also, in the first shot you can see a huge poster behind Finn of Daniel Radcliffe promoting HTSIBWRT, a delightful madcap. You can read about my giddy opinion of this musical here. New York, New York indeed!
Note: The soundtrack for this post is the song On Broadway. If you prefer The Drifters' version, click here. If you're partial to George Benson's version, click here. Are we all hearing it now? Excellent. Please proceed.
Did everyone watch the Tony's this weekend? Or were we all too busy watching the very sad Miami/Dallas game? I dabbled in both, as I'm loyal to the theater world and South Florida. I always love the Tony's, but I was extra excited for them this year. I've spent a bit of time in NYC this past year (more on that later) and I was fortunate enough to see a number of the shows nominated for the Big Award. As such, I've compiled a list here of some of the Broadway happenings I'm loving right now:
1.) First and foremost, this behemoth of a show...How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. There's much to recommend it. Peabody Award, Best Revival, Matthew Broderick, blah blah blah blah. Bottom line, Daniel Radcliffe is in it. Now, this is a travel blog, so there hasn't been much Harry Potter reporting (except for here and here and here and here). So some readers may not know about my mild obsession with all things HP. But it's exactly that, an obsession. I'm a nerd. Lauren and I were lucky enough to see D Rad in Equus for his 2007 London performance. That was fantastic, but this took the cake. Radcliffe's dancing made me giddy, and co-star John Larroquette was a hilarious surprise. And, of course, the former Night Court actor won best supporting actor in a musical Sunday night.
In closing, let me reiterate my joy for this show with the following video, taken immediately after seeing the musical:
2). The Book of Mormon, which I briefly touched upon here. This is probably the best theater experience I've had in a good long while. (Hard to believe after seeing the video above, right?) The music is fantastic and it manages to be hilarious and touching at the same time. I'd go on and on about it, but I really don't have to. The thing won nine Tony's Sunday night and has been such a critical success this year it prompted Chris Rock to say, upon presenting the award for best musical of the year: "I don't really need to read the nominees, right? We already know the best musical, right?"
I hear the show will start a national tour in December 2012 and seriously, if it comes near you, see it.
3). The Mother*#@%er With the Hat, known on censored television Sunday Night as The Mother With the Hat. A much less-cool name. This play has a lot of start power, with Chris Rock, Annabella Sciorra of Law & Order fame, and Bobby Cannavale, who Will and Grace friends will remember as the guy Will ends up with in the last season. We decided to see this play randomly a few months ago, when we were in the city with Elan. Elan had never seen a Broadway play before and has a tendency to be picky about the theater he does see, so we wanted to go to something we thought he'd like. The foul language seemed like a good choice to us. And it was. Cannavale was nominated for best actor in a play and I thought he would win, but alas I was wrong. He did take home the Drama Desk award, though, so good on him.
Honorable mentions go out to Sister Act and Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Both were nominated for several awards each and both are really fun, but Priscilla is fantastic. It won best costume, which it deserves. That show has some insane drag queen outfits going on. Here's a peek: In closing, I'd like to leave you with this video of Tony host Neil Patrick Harris. How much do we all love NPH? He's adorable and he did an awesome closing rap at the end of the show. But his opening number was the scene stealer. As Neil teaches us here, the theater is not just for gays anymore. Please enjoy!
