Beating the Clock

I feel like most of today's events should have been backed by a track of really intense chase music:

"Dun, duh-duh-duh dun. . .DUN, DUN!"

I was running to beat the clock all day long, and against all odds, I did it! I am now sitting safely on my Boston-bound Megabus, looking out the window and bidding New York a temporary farewell. (Well, technically, I'm alternating looking out the window and watching the screen while I type. . .so I apologize in advance for any typos! And yes, for those of you who are curious, I *am* cleanly showered.) ;-)

Here is a quick list of today's time-defying accomplishments:

1. Made it to the Imperial Theatre box office by 10:00, even though--once again!--I slept in (this time until 9:15). Glad I've developed good pedestrian-dodging skills! Asked, breathlessly, if they still had any student rush tickets for the opening night preview premiere of "Nice Work if You Can Get It," and, amazingly, they did! (The show is an original musical that frames some of the Gershwin brothers' most famous songs, a la "Crazy for You." Read about it here.)

2. Made it all the way from 46th to 96th street, on foot, in less than an hour.

3. Finished my Italian (aka "Spanish") homework. Check!

4. Took a scenic walk through Central Park and got to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in time to spend two solid hours taking things in.

I've been to the museum so often now that, this time, I decided to limit myself and soak in the European art and musical instrument galleries. A gray-haired lady approached me as I entered the first gallery and asked, brusquely, "Do you want this?" She started shoving something into my hands. I was confused. "Do you or don't you?" The woman was growing impatient. "Take it!" I nodded and obeyed as my mysterious Met angel disappeared.

Looking down at my hands, I saw that the woman had handed me--not a bomb or a million dollar bill!--but an audio guide to the museum. I ended up having a great time with that thing. :-) I learned all sorts of facts about the development of each instrument family in the orchestra and about the Steins and their patronage of late impressionist/early modern art. Did you know that the family's collection of Picasso paintings had to be smuggled out of Germany at the onset of WWI? Good stuff!

And now my schedule really starts getting crazy. Ready? Here we go. . .

5. Got back to the apartment just in time to field a call from my former missionary friend, pack up my things, and make it all the way to Times Square to meet him. We didn't find each other until about 6:30, and even though we began walking together towards my workshop, I had to sprint two full streets at 6:55 (the workshop begins promptly at 7:00). I slipped inside just as they were closing the doors!

6. Left the workshop at 7:50, giving me exactly ten minutes to bolt ten streets to the theater where I'd be watching "Nice Work if You Can Get It" at 8:00. Did I make it? I did, at a rate of one street per minute. Not bad!

7. Slipped out of the show during the 10:50 curtain call to walk four streets and two avenues to the stop where my bus was scheduled to leave at 11:10. Stepped onto the bus just before it pulled away!

Success!

And how was "Nice Work if You Can Get It?" It was fun--very much in the vein of "Anything Goes" (big band music; ridiculous storyline). In fact, they re-used the same director and orchestrator from "Anything Goes." Whereas "Anything Goes" packed some major star power, though, Matthew Broderick didn't quite cut it for me. (He's 50 years old, after all--not really the typical young hero. I don't know that he ever was the typical hero; he was terribly miscast as Harold Hill, for example, in the movie remake of "The Music Man.")

The chorus numbers were appropriately splashy, though, and the music was, well, Gershwin (read: "catchy and brilliant"). Unfortunately, the plot fell short. It felt like an oddly-modernized, wanna-be Golden Age story, and I wasn't really drawn in until the second act which ran a lot more smoothly than the first. It was definitely a first preview sort of night--the orchestra missed some notes, Broderick forgot some lyrics--but I guess that's part of the fun of live theater: It's not edited and airbrushed; it all happens in real time!

As for the musical presented today at the ASCAP workshop, I was pleasantly surprised--not so much by the content (I didn't care for that, actually), but by the musical language. This show was far more sophisticated musically than any of the earlier shows had been. The style seemed little too blatantly Sondheim-esque (one melodic phrase was lifted directly from "Sunday in the Park With George!"), but--hey!--Sondheim's great, and this guy obviously knew what he was doing too.

I've come away from this workshop experience realizing that I need to make heavy revisions to "Weaver"--especially in the first act. The opening number is particularly long and confusing, and it doesn't establish the central characters and the central conflict quickly and clearly enough.

I've got some interesting ideas brewing. :-) Stay tuned!

Showerless in Manhattan

Things happen in this city--crazy, wonderful things that could never happen anywhere else. You brush shoulders in a crowd with Sutton Foster (Anything Goes, The Drowsy Chaperone, Thoroughly Modern Millie), you're moved to tears by the simple beauty of an honest story, a toothless man from Alabama takes your picture, and then, suddenly, you're sitting feet away from Andrew Lippa (composer of The Addams Family, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown) and Lynn Ahrens (Anastasia, Once on This Island, Ragtime).

Only in New York!

I woke up yesterday morning with a jolt--not because my alarm had gone off, but because it hadn't. Light was already streaming through the windows of my temporary third story home on 96th street! I looked at my watch. (Yes, I still wear a watch; I'm old-fashioned like that.)

8:30!

I'd been planning to take my place in the early rush line for the new musical Once around 7:30 or 8:00, and I wasn't going to miss my chance to grab a cheap ticket! There was no time to shower, so I threw a hat over my hair (secret: I wear this hat way too often--especially when I haven't had time to wash my hair!), and I dashed out the door.

Luck was a lady that morning, because I made it to the line just before 20 or 30 others descended, and I was the last person to get a rush ticket. Hurrah! (My apologies to everyone standing in line behind me.) After strolling through Central Park, perusing 5th Avenue--they gave me free chocolate in the Lindt store!--and ogling the displays in 57th street's Steinway store, I headed back to the theater for the matinee performance of Once.

It had just started to rain, so the entire audience was huddled under the theater awning. Suddenly I heard a familiar voice, "Where are we supposed to be? Do you see the box office?" I turned to the woman standing next to me, looked away, and then did a double take. It was Sutton Foster!!! Or was it? I snuck another glance, trying not to be too obvious. Yup! Her hair was down and she wasn't wearing any make-up, but it was Sutton Foster alright. We jostled shoulders as she and her friend disappeared into the crowd. (Maybe just a liiiiiiiittle bit of her talent rubbed off on me in the process. Maybe???)

As the usher lead me to my seat, I realized that I was sitting in one of the private boxes, and I felt a rush of girlish excitement. The box was draped with--yes!--red velvet curtains, and I had a great view of the stage. The show began before any of us really knew it had started. As the audience filtered in, the cast members--every one of whom plays an instrument!--mingled with the audience members while dancing, playing, and singing Irish folktunes. Then, suddenly, the lights were down and one of the tunes became the opening number of the show.

The first scene was riveting: Guy (a discouraged Irish musician) comes face to face with Girl (a solemn, starry-eyed Czech immigrant whose English is charming and whose Czech is close enough to Russian that I understood bits and pieces). The dialogue was clever and unpredictable, and the music--although not traditionally jazzy or hummable--wove an atmosphere of sweet melancholy. I loved the fact that I genuinely admired and respected the female protagonist and that, even in the end, she remained true to her morals. The love story was subtle and understated (more about the love of music, in some ways, than about human relationships), and I was grateful that it refused to be cookie-cutter. The ending was perfect (happier, at least in my eyes, than any other ending would have been), but it still left me in tears.

NOTE: Before I tell you what happened next, let me emphasize the fact that my eyes were red and puffy from crying. Let me also remind you that I'd rushed out the door without taking a shower that morning. In short: I was gross. Got that? Okay.

So as I walked across the street after the show, an old, toothless man stopped me and asked, "Hey, Miss, kin ah take yer picture?" When I asked him why, he said, "I'm frum Alabama, and I'm collectin' pictures of all the purdy socialites in New York City." I shrugged in a bemused way, and he zoomed in within inches of my nose before snapping the shot. "Thank yeh!"

???

A few minutes later, as I was ordering food from the Shake Shack to share with my friend, Stephen, the cashier said, "Ordering a lot of food today, are we?" "It's not just for me," I explained. "Oh, I always encourage models like you to eat more," he said. "You're on vacation from modeling school, aren't you?"

Wha. . .?!?

Lessons learned here: 1) Shower less. 2) Cry more often. Beauty is a mysterious thing.

After those bizarre encounters, I met up with Stephen at the Gershwin Theater to enter the Wicked lottery. . .for the 15th time! (When I'd told my mom earlier that I was meeting up with Stephen to try for lottery tickets, she started laughing. "Stephen Schwartz?!?" Ha! If only.) Long story short: I didn't win the tickets. . .but it ended up being a good thing. I had a great talk with Stephen (one of my music buddies from the good, old ASU days), and then I headed to the ASCAP workshop to discover that two of my Broadway idols, Andrew Lippa and Liz Ahrens, were on the panel. Thank heaven I didn't miss that workshop to see a show!

Had I not gone to the workshop, I would also have been deprived of the chance to get to know a delightfully dazy woman from Arizona. When she saw me analyzing a Debussy piece and working on my Italian homework, she turned to the man sitting next to her and said, "We've got a smartie sitting next to us! Look at her--writing her guitar chords and practicing her Spanish!"

?!?!?!

"Speaking of smarties," she went on, "my husband's a cardiologist. I'm drawn to men--and women too, of course--because of their minds. But you know what usually happens to people like that!" I shook my head. Her face got serious. "They just, you know, SNAP. They snap! My husband's crazy." She looked thoughtful. "But he's still a nice man." Later, I asked this woman if I could borrow a pen to take notes with. "Oh, sure!" she said, "But I'll need it back. This is a Japanese pen from my hotel. I can't stay with my daughter in Harlem anymore because she's married. You know how that goes. Are you married? No? Have you ever been to one of those Asian hotels? They're so strange! They give you these free little slippers, but they won't give you free pens. Crazy, right? I had to keep bugging the man at the front desk until he gave me this."

I accepted the pen a little nervously. . .and then forgot to give it back! Oops. I guess it's my souvenir: A hard-earned pen from a Japanese (?) hotel.

After watching an hour of a stirring musical called "The Cost of Living" (a show about the difficulties of living in New York as an Asian immigrant) and an hour of incredible feedback from Lippa and Ahrens, I headed to the Grand Stand in Times Square to meet a church friend from New York and a former missionary friend from Kiev. Sadly, my phone ran out of batteries, and after waiting forty-five minutes at the Grand Stand, I hadn't seen either of them.

Then it started to rain!

I was ready to admit defeat. But as I was heading back to the subway station, I just happened to bump into Allison--my friend from New York. (In the crowds on 42nd street, that is a bonafide miracle!) We grabbed s'more concretes at the Shake Shack--Shake Shack should start rewarding me for my recent patronage!!!--and then ended up wandering around the midtown/Central Park area for the next three hours, just catching up.

It was a full day from beginning to end. Who knows what today will hold? Anything can happen in New York--especially if you're brave enough to skip your morning shower. ;-)

Today's Top Twenty

Life is never boring in the Big Apple! At various points today, I have:

1. Passed Lauren Molina in a hallway. (Laura Molina is a big Broadway actress--in name, not size! In size, she's actually pretty tiny. Today she was wearing large amounts of eyeliner.)

2. Felt a lot like Karen in Smash.

3. Inhaled a Shake Shack burger.

4. Watched as dozens of hopeful actresses sat in a hallway waiting their turns to audition for the role of Mary Jane in Broadway's Spiderman.

5. Looked down across Lincoln Square from inside the LDS church building while practicing the piano.

6. Popped popcorn.

7. Eaten the whole bag (of popcorn).

8. Considered the possibility of signing on as the keyboardist with a Broadway national touring company.

9. Sat in a room and talked, one on one, for over an hour with Todd Ellison (Broadway legend and music director of Spamalot).

10. Analyzed a Debussy piece and finished some Italian homework during a workshop of a show that I didn't particularly like.

11. Chatted with a producer and listened to the sage advice of Dean Pitchford (lyricist of Footloose and Fame).

12. Vented on the phone.

13. Sat on a fence (a literal, not a figurative one! It was on 46th street.)

14. Been re-inspired to write a wholesome, uplifting Broadway hit.

15. Witnessed a fist fight that took place right in the middle of traffic.

16. Learned that the guy who wrote "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" still makes $250,000/year from that one song alone. Holy moley! (I wonder if I could do that well with a variant like, say, "Almonds Sizzling in a Closed Grill". . .)

17. Accidentally shattered a bottle of liquid makeup which, it turns out, is as about as clean-up resistant as wall paint!

18. Learned that Elphaba in Wicked used to sing a typical "I Want" number before leaving for Shiz--a number that Stephen reworked for five workshops before his son finally pointed out that the song just didn't work.

19. Made plans to visit the Metropolitan Museum and see the matinee performance of "Once" tomorrow.

And, finally, I have. . .

20. Gone to bed! (Or I will. . .soon. . .)

'Night, all. :-)

A Run-in with Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz spoke to me today!

I'm as giddy as. . .well. . .as I always am when I run into a Broadway celebrity. (Imagine a scientist meeting Stephen Hawking or a tween meeting [insert pop icon], and you'll start to get the idea.) My giddiness shot through the theater roof and left me completely speechless when Bernadette Peters signed my playbill in 2010. The next year, as I walked into the Strouse home and shook the hand of the man responsible for Annie, I couldn't do a thing but smile and pray that his razor-sharp composer's ears wouldn't pick up the sound of my pounding heart. And now here I am in 2012, running into Stephen Schwartz. . .literally! That's right; the man whose genius gave rise to a little show called Wicked actually bumped into me tonight, looked deeply into my eyes, and said, with great feeling, "Excuse me."

True story.

I was sitting on my backback at the time, successfully blocking the aisle between chairs in a little room on the 10th floor of the Ripley-Grier studios in NYC. The room was packed with music theater enthusiasts, and there weren't enough chairs to go around. As half of the workshop auditors shuffled uncomfortably on their feet, I set down my bulging backpack (I'd just stepped off the bus from Boston) and--with an apologetic look that masked my secret, inner satisfaction--plopped down on my makeshift seat. The woman in the chair next to me glanced a few times in my direction. I wondered if she was going to ask me to move. Finally, she turned and said, "Okay--I've got to ask: Are you the actress from Newsies?" I grinned inwardly as possible responses flashed through my mind. Part of me wanted to rise from my awkward perch in a dignified way and proclaim, "I am! Offer me your chair, you commoner." Instead, I smiled and shook my head. "Oh. Well, you look like her. Great show, by the way; you should see it if you get the chance."

I was soon glad that I wasn't sitting on a chair, though, because my middle-of-the-aisle seat gave me both a perfect view of the workshop and the aforementioned opportunity to brush knees and exchange pleasantries ("Excuse me!" "Sorry!") with the man of the hour. The panel consisted of Stephen Schwartz, Dick Scalan (the lyricist for Thoroughly Modern Millie--my all-time favorite musical and the first one I ever saw on Broadway!), and a producer who shall remain nameless. . .mostly because I don't remember his name. :-) In my defense, I wasn't the only one who didn't catch it! The elderly ladies in my corner kept poking each other and whispering loudly, trying to figure out who the producer was. They never did.

The show being workshopped was a clever re-imagining of Jane Austen's Emma, set in 1964. The tunes were catchy, the dialogue was snappy, and the actors were incredible (all seasoned Broadway veterans). As Stephen Schwartz pointed out later, it was the best free show in town! I don't think I stopped grinning from beginning to end. As it turns out, though, what I thought was a nearly-perfect book and score was actually a solid concept that suffered from cluttered execution. The panelists suggested clarifying the character arcs, steering away from musical pastiche, and re-storyboarding (yes, Broadway recognizes that verb even if Webster doesn't!).

During the panel discussion, Stephen--we're totally on a first name basis after brushing knees, right?--related a story from the early workshopping phase of Wicked. "We had a lot going on in the show back then," he said. "There were secondary characters. . .magical creatures. . .you know. Glinda and Elphaba did all sorts of things in little scenes on their own, and it just wasn't working. After awhile, we finally made a sign for ourselves that said, "It's the girls, stupid!" We had to remind ourselves that when Glinda and Elphaba were onstage together, they made theater magic. When they weren't, the show died." All three panelists agreed that a musical can't just be about an idea, a historical setting, or a political agenda--it has to be about a shared human experience, and it has to zoom in on a particular relationship. If it doesn't, the audience won't invest.

I wonder if my new buddy, Stephen Schwartz, might be able to get me into a showing of Wicked. (At this point, it seems like a personal "in" might be more successful than the lottery! I've entered 14 times now and never won.)

I left the workshop inspired to re-work Weaver. As I walked towards 42nd street, I discovered, to my delight, that both Crumbs Cupcakes and the Shake Shack were within easy walking distance of the studio! It was a good discovery and also a very, very bad one. I think I might have impose a single trip limit during my week here! After perusing 8th street, I crossed over to Broadway and said hello to Times Square.

I've missed you, you big, noisy city!

I felt a sudden rush of fondness as I stepped onto the subway with a huge crowd of theater-goers and headed uptown to the apartment where I'd be staying with a church friend and her roommates. (Mama: You'll be happy to know that my commute takes me directly from Times Square to Adrienne's apartment, no transfers or long walks involved!)

I ended the evening by researching current Broadway shows, looking up free things to do in the city, and chatting with the four amazing girls in this apartment. They're all friendly and fun. . .almost as friendly and fun as my own roommates in Boston. ;-) Now I'm drifting off to sleep with the sounds of the city reminding me that, in New York, things never really slow down. My own pulse is starting to match the pulse of this city again, and the excitement is invigorating.

So where should I live this summer? Although I've been in a dedicated, long-term relationship with Boston, when I returned to visit the Big Apple today, all of my old feelings rushed back. Sitting on the top deck of the Megabus and watching each familiar street slide by, I remembered my first Megabus entrance to New York last summer. I was an outsider then, and everything was unfamiliar. This time, I was making a triumphant, top deck return to my home turf!

I love you both, Boston and New York, in separate but equal ways. *Sigh* What's a girl to do?