Humidity, Heat, and Harry Potter

I made a few interesting discoveries when I woke up Monday morning:

1. My hair is curly--not curly like it used to be in Utah, but CURLY curly. My straightener and I are defenseless against the humidity. Since there's no fighting it, I threw my hair on top of my head this morning and let those curls go wild and free!

2. The CM Residence is air condition-less. I needed a fan or I was going to become--pardon the image!--a human waterfall of sweat. *Shudder*

3. Not many of the girls here at the nunnery actually attend breakfast. Luckily, I spotted my three new friends from Argentina and Uruguay on Monday morning and took the fourth seat at their table. Over porridge and fruit, they taught me how to say glass ("vaso"), plate ("plato"), and "mucho gusto." Orina, the girl from Uruguay, gave me some handy New York tips and sent me off after breakfast to a nearby grocery store (according to her, the cheapest one in Manhattan). I was glad to find that the prices are pretty comparable to Boston prices.

I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon unpacking, exploring the Lincoln Center, and wandering around a three-story Bed, Bath, and Beyond in the sort amazed stupor that only a small-town girl can muster. I rode up and down the escalators there twice. . .mostly so that I could feed my shopping cart into the "shopping-cart-only" escalator and watch it magically rise or fall to the next level on its own. I came away from the experience fully equipped to battle any New York discomforts. I bought a big fan for my room, a small fan to carry with me in the city, lots of clothing hangers (child-sized; they're cheaper!), soothing creme for my mosquito bites, and padded shoe inserts. New York, give me your worst! This girl is armed and ready.

Later, my friend Evie and I went to a Memorial Day dinner at her bishop's home. There I made several new friends, including the bishop's chatty doorman, a ward member who writes and records music for an off-Broadway show, and Amirfarbod, a young man from Iran who has been a member of the church for less than a year. The rest of his family is still in Iran, but he's worried about going back for fear of physically endangering his family and himself. At the moment, his brother is privately investigating the church in Iran. I also met Kat, a native New Yorker who converted to Mormonism from Judaism just a couple of years ago. (Guess how her interest in the church was initially piqued? Via the very television series that makes most Mormons sigh and shakes their heads: Big Love! If that's not poetic justice, I don't know what is.) Kat's a Broadway guru, and she suggested that I see How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

"Daniel Radcliffe is amazing as Finch!" she raved. Somehow, I couldn't quite picture The Boy Who Lived singing and dancing in a musical from the 60's, but--hey!--why not give him a chance?

*****

It's Tuesday night, and I just got back from How to Succeed. I went expecting good, and I came out thinking, "Great!"

There was nothing not to love about this sweet, energetic classic, brimming with eminently hummable Frank Loesser tunes. . .nothing, that is, besides all the 60's-era secretary/businessman stereotypes and stale jokes. It was all so good-natured and well-done, though, that I forgave the plot its sexism. The actors obviously had too; I've rarely seen a cast enjoying themselves so much onstage!

If I had to assign this show a color, that color would be cotton candy pink. If I had to assign it a depth, that depth would be a couple of inches, maybe. But although this was just fluff, it was fun fluff, and it was smart fluff too. Thanks to snappy choreography, bright costumes, and intelligent performances, the production really popped artistically. And who do you think held the starring role (and pulled it off, I might add, with an impeccable American accent)? Daniel Radcliff, that's who! And yes, I got him to sign my program at the stage door afterwards. The boy who immortalized Harry Potter on the big screen looked up at me for a split second (up because he's about a foot shorter than I am), took my program, and handed it back just as I was engulfed in a sea of screaming girls.

I don't think I've ever been stuck in a mass of squealing 14-to-21-year-olds like that. (I haven't been to many pop concerts. Any, actually.) I even saw one girl wiping away tears. But celebrity status aside, Daniel Radcliffe totally deserves to be giving out autographs. His comedic timing is spot on, his voice is great for the part, and boy, can that kid dance! Plus, he was just so darling up there on stage that I wanted to give him a big squeeze. I think the entire audience was rooting whole-heartedly for him to succeed in business--both as a character and as an actor! The rest of the cast was solid, too (with several Tony-nominated stand-outs), and the chorus numbers were a series of show-stoppers.

Best of all, I walked home after the show in less than twenty minutes. It was a cheap, no-hassle experience. Does life get any better for a die-hard lover of Broadway?

The Internship Begins

This is it: 57th Street! I walk under the green awning and through a set of glass doors. A blast of cool air hits me, and I gladly shake off the muggy heat of the street.

"Who are you here to see, ma'am?" The doorman is brisk but friendly. He waits.

"Umm. . .Charles Strouse?" (Why did I phrase it as a question? Confidence, girl! Confidence!)

"Your name?"

"Erica!" (A little too confident. Dial down the enthusiasm. . .)

"Just a moment." The doorman picks up the phone. "There's an Erica here for Mr. Strouse." He looks over and nods. "You can go up now. It's room 19c."

As the elevator ascends, I run my fingers through my bangs and adjust my backpack, hoping I don't look as nervous or as sweaty as I feel. Will the elevator open directly into Mr. Strouse's office? Who should I ask for: His secretary? His business manager? Will they know who I am, or should I have my internship contract in hand?

Ding! The doors slide open, and I step out into a residential hallway. I suddenly realize that I'm not walking into a business office; I've actually been directed to the home of Mr. Charles Strouse. I'm paying a personal call on the man who wrote Annie and Bye, Bye Birdie--the man who studied with the legendary Nadia Boulanger and Aaron Copland and who was a close friend of Leonard Bernstein! Feeling as Mr. Strouse must've felt himself when he knocked on Nadia Boulanger's door in Paris for the first time, I ring the bell to 19c.

A maid opens the door. "Come in, please. Can I get you some water? Some coffee?"

"Umm. . .water would be great." (Confidence! Confidence!)

"Hi, Erica! I'm Jewel." A pleasant-looking woman in a sundress walks into the foyer and extends her hand. An elderly gentleman about three inches shorter than me is coming down the hallway towards us. It takes me a few seconds to recognize his face from the cover of my copy of the Charles Strouse autobiography, Put on a Happy Face.

"Hello! You're so glamorous!" he exclaims. (Is he talking to me?) "I thought you were gonna be, like, a teenager or something." (I can hear in his accent that he's a true New York-er, born and bred!) "Now I've got two glamorous women working for me," he says, nodding at Jewel. "Come into my office."

His office consists of little more than a small sofa, a desk, and old upright piano drowning in stray sheets of notation paper (half-written songs, I assume). Posters and Broadway advertisements cover the walls.

"You took me by surprise," he said. "I don't know why. Tell me a bit about yourself."

"Well, I'm attending the Longy School of Music right now," I said. "I grew up in Utah. . ."

"So does that make you a Mormon?"

"Yes, I'm a Mormon."

"I have a son-in-law who's a Mormon!"

"Then you know all about us?"

"Actually, I know nothing about you. I saw the Mormon musical that just opened, and it was okay, but it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. Didn't feel quite right to treat a religion the way they did, you know? So tell me about your chops. Can you play the piano--pop charts and such?"

"Well, I was trained classically, and I worked as an accompanist for several years. I've taken one jazz piano class."

"Come try this out." He plops a sheet of music on the piano. It's fairly simple, but the meter shifts irregularly between 3/4 and 4/4, and it's syncopated. My nerves kick in and I fumble a bit.

"That's fine. You sightread okay. And on all other counts, you seem overqualified for the position. Really, I feel lucky; I think you'll be very useful, and I'll do my best to make sure you're happy here. Do you want to help accompany at the rehearsal for our musical review tomorrow?"

He shuffles through a file folder and pulls out five handwritten scores (a hodge-podge of traditional notation, jazz chords, symbols, and edits) and hands them to me.

"This isn't homework or anything, you know. Just give them a look-over if you get the chance."

"Mr. Strouse? Mr. So-and-So has been waiting to meet with you for awhile, and he only has an hour." Jewel has just poked her head in the office. I stand and shoulder my backpack.

"It's been so nice meeting you!" I can hardly believe I've just spent the past half-hour in conversation with Charles Strouse.

"Nice meeting you too."

Jewel takes me into her office, and we start hashing out the details of my internship. She is very friendly and helpful; she offers some useful information about the city and tells me that I'm welcome to take advantage of Mr. Strouse's occasional free tickets to Broadway shows. She also tells me a little about his family (his wife and all four of his children are very involved in Strouse IP) and suggests that I'll probably get along well with his daughter.

My work schedule officially starts tomorrow, and Jewel tells me that several Broadway bigwigs will be at the rehearsal then (and that I'm welcome to stick around and "schmooze" afterwards!). The apartment even has a large room with a digital piano and a wall of windows overlooking Manhattan that Jewel plans to set up as my temporary transcription "office." Apparently, Charles has an entire closet full of handwritten scores that eventually need to be transferred into the computer, so it looks like I'll be busy.

"We'll try to introduce you to as many useful contacts as we can while you're here," Jewel says. "Charles has a lot of connections. Oh--and here's my cell number. Call me day or night if you need anything."

Then the door closes behind me, and I'm back in elevator. The whole episode starts feeling a little surreal. Did I really just walk through Charles Strouse's home, past his breakfast table and the piano where he hashed out the tunes for Annie? Am I really going to be working there myself all summer? Will I really be meeting a whole group of successful composers, producers, actors, and singers tomorrow? I open my backback. Yes, the five scores that Charles sent home with me are really there. This is my life for the summer.

I'd better get to work on those pieces!

(Side Note: This morning, I waited in line next to some British tourists for cheap rush tickets to "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," starring Daniel Radcliffe. It'll be the official kick-off for my summer in New York! I'll let you know how Harry Potter fares in a singing/dancing/acting role on Broadway. . .)

Get Thee to a Nunnery!

A painted statue of the Virgin Mary smiles down at me in benevolent welcome.

"Prayer for Vocations: Bless the Young Persons that does not have it."

I'm standing in the front lounge of the CM Residence, reading the signs on the wall as I wait to be taken to my room. About half the flyers are in Spanish. The English ones say:

"$7 Performance at Avery Fischer Hall."

"God, send us good girls who will serve You."

"Happy Memorial Day! Breakfast is at 8:30."

I'm going to love this place. I've already got a personalized name card hanging at the top of the check in/check out board alongside two other Erica's. The building is nicer than I'd thought it might be; everything is in good repair, and the lobby is well-lit and comfortably furnished. The outer facade looks just like an old church (in fact, that's exactly what it used to be): Stained glass windows, red brick, heavy wooden doors with iron hinges. Inside, I can see a door that leads to a functioning chapel, and I suddenly remember the scene in The Sound of Music where Maria walks into the ballroom only to be caught by Captain Von Trapp. I glance up at the wooden Mary standing watch above me.

"Hello, Erica! I'm Sister Mary! Welcome."

A little startled, I turn to see that, like her sentences, Sister Mary is short and sweet. She certainly looks the part of a nun: Gray dress, gray habit, smile as benevolent as the one painted on the wooden Mary above her. This nun is scrappy, though. "Come on! I help you," she announces, hoisting my 80-pound suitcase by herself and taking off down the long hall. I grab my backpack and hurry after. She opens a wooden door, slides back a metal grate, and beckons me inside. I step in and am surprised to find myself inside a tiny elevator. "You'll be on the 3rd floor," she says. She pushes the button, the grate slams shut, and up we go! A sign hangs on my door. It reads: "Enter with a happy heart!" (Picture these words surrounded by lots of smiley-faced flowers.) My room is more functional than fancy--it reminds me of the Wighram House where I stayed during my London adventures--but it has a large desk, two closets, two dressers, two chairs, and a well-lit sink and mirror. And the bedcover is pink! I'm sold. (We also have free wifi which is good news for my blog!)

Sister Mary gives me a quick tour of the residence: Four flights of bedrooms (three for the eighty girls that live here; one for the eight nuns), communal bathrooms (clean, pink), vending machines, two or three lobbies ("For your boyfriend," she explains), the chapel, the cleaning closet, the cafeteria. Apparently, the nuns cook two meals a day for the residents, and if girls plan to be absent during mealtimes, they can purchase a container, and the nuns will save their meal. How sweet!

Sister Mary and I continue past the cafeteria and into the adjacent room. As strings swell in my imagination, my eyes come to rest on. . .a beautiful Steinway grand! "You can the play piano whenever you like," Sister Mary tells me. The room also features a wall of bookshelves filled with old classics and a little stage, complete with curtains and a backdrop. (I would love to see these nuns perform a la Nunsense!) I wander towards the piano, open the lid, and run my fingers over the keys. It's a little out of tune, but all in all, it isn't too bad. "Play for us Chopin!" someone calls. I turn to see three women sitting at a nearby table. One, I discover, is from Uruguay; the other two are visitors from Argentina, and all three are very friendly. In accordance with their request, I play for them Chopin. (I play terribly, of course, but they are so appreciative that they almost make me forget it.) When the woman from Uruguay finds out that my brother is living in her country, she is thrilled and asks if she can send him a letter. I tell her I'll figure out which city he's in and get back with her.

Later, I take the elevator to the basement and run into Sister Antonia for the first time. I continue on to the first floor to pay my first month's rent and start chatting with the girl in line ahead of me. It turns out that she's a dancer from Canada, here for a three-month dance camp, and she stays in the room next to mine. I ask how long it takes her to walk to Times Square from the CM Residence, and she says, "Oh, fifteen minutes max."

Soon it's my turn to pay, and I enter a little room where a nun sits with a handwritten ledger and calculator. When she looks up, I realize that this nun is none other than Sister Antonia! I feel like we are already good friends and, apparently, so does she. As she explains how the initial deposit works, she leans across the table confidentially and says, "Some girls, they no want to clean their rooms. No problem. You no have to clean your room; we just charge you forty dollar! Or maybe you want to put holes in wall to hang big picture of singer like Michael Jackson? Yes? No problem. We just charge you fifty dollar! But room clean, no holes whole time? You get money back!" Somehow I don't anticipate problems.

And now here I am in my own, cozy little room, itemizing today's battle scars. I count ten mosquito bites on one leg and five on the other. Oh, and I'm also missing a toenail. Because I left straight from church in Boston to catch the bus to New York, I ended up traipsing around both cities in high heels and a dress. I never imagined it could be so difficult getting one piece of luggage up and down the stairs in the Metro stations! Luckily, some kind people offered assistance, and I made it onto the platform just as my train was pulling in. Not wanting to waste any more time, I hurried aboard and jerked my 80-pound suitcase over the gap between the platform and train. It landed squarely on my big toe and took with it more than half my toenail. (I stood there helplessly on the subway, watching blood slowly cover my toe and hoping, more than anything, that it wouldn't drip onto my favorite shoes!) Of course, my little sob stories seem pretty insignificant whenever I remind myself that I'm actually here. I'm living New York!

Good night, my dear city. Tomorrow is Memorial Day, and it's time that the two of us were better-acquainted.

My Life in a Suitcase

On May 27th, I was partying it up in Utah, British-style. My entire family had indulged in a Magnum Bar-Eating/Downton Abbey-Watching Fest that night in honor of my birthday. (Besides my spiritual beliefs and music, British stuff and chocolate are two of the things I love most!) Afterwards, I attempted to stuff my gifts--an itunes card, chocolate-covered acai berries, multivitamins--and the rest of my life into a single suitcase. It took a lot of squeezing, squashing, and squishing, but I finally got everything vital inside (three pairs of heels count as "vital," right?). The suitcase was 18 pounds overweight, but rather than charging me $90, a kindly airport worker let me transfer 15 pounds of shoes, fruit leather, and beef jerky into my bursting-at-the-seams backpack. That was two days ago.

Yesterday, my roommates in Boston surprised me with oreo ice-cream cake and an outdoor s'more party. My friend Shooka from Iran roasted her very first marshmallow and looked more delighted than disappointed when the whole thing started

on fire and shriveled into a charred lump. We all played a game of Life, and I ended up as a highly-educated lawyer with three children, a mountain retreat, and very little money.

Today it's just me (well, me and the Portuguese gentleman sitting to my right). I, Erica Kyree, am officially twenty-five years old. The first quarter-century of my life has passed, and I've just kicked off my second. I'm off on a new adventure, armed with a dream, enough jerky and nature bars to feed me for a month, and the address to the CM Residence. The world looks different from the upper deck of a double-decker bus. I'm perched at the very front. The windshield is wide and covered in splattered bugs, but beyond that, the summery New England scenery is beautiful. I feel like I'm floating above the traffic in a self-propelled vehicle as the bus winds through the forest-lined interstate in a purposeful way, closing the distance between me and New York!

The bus is taking us though Connecticut now. I'm trying to figure out whether or not this is Hartford, Hartford being the only big city in Connecticut that I know by name. I just caught a glimpse of a golden onion dome that brings back memories of Ukraine. . .ha! "Hartford Supplies!" We are in Hartford. (Well, were. It's amazing how quickly you can pass from city to city and even from state to state on the East Coast.)

And suddenly the bus is on 147th Street, moving downtown. I've been to New York enough times that I know my way around, but this summer the Big Apple is going to be my home. I'm going to be working here, eating here, sleeping here. I'm going to be interning with Broadway legend, Charles Strouse (composer of Bye, Bye Birdie and Annie), and I'm going to be living with the nuns at the CM.

The Lincoln Center! Columbus Circle! Carnegie Hall! Times Square! The square is so flooded with people that the sight alone makes me feel a little claustrophobic. We pass right by a band performing on the main stage. I've never driven into New York in the daylight; in the past, I've always taken the overnight Megabus. I've got the best seat in the bus for this free tour of the city, and the day has been made-to-order.

Our bus stops. We're at 28th street. I grab the handle of my suitcase, and--acai berries, books, and heels in tow--I hit the pavement for the very first time as a summer resident of NYC!