Everything I could have hoped for and MORE!

I’ve never been so happy to be wrong. I am in NY and I obviously hadn’t gotten my dates right because not only did I just see 110 in the Shade but, my God I was absolutely blown away by he performance of Audra McDonald. The show is a true gem. Beautiful sweeping music, ripe and juicy drama, and great musical theatre moments—the kind of stuff that makes you gasp, draw your hand to your mouth and get a lump in your throat--simply wonderful. Of course I’m not an objective observer. I put a lot of work and study into this piece when I was in Grad School so I was intimately aware of the beauty of this show. But this was my chance to actually see it performed, and not just performed but on Broadway, and not just on Broadway but with the best musical theatre performer of our time in the lead. Have I given you the impression that I enjoyed this show?

And here’s my real validation. My Jury Project for Grad school was this show. That project was kind of like an architect’s final project. He creates renderings, has the tech drawings made for how the building is going to be built, makes a model of the building, perhaps with a removable roof to show how a typical floor plan might look, but he doesn’t actually build the building. Well I didn’t actually produce the show but I created all the stuff you would need to do so. Costume and set renderings, lighting plots, elevation drawings for set pieces, and of course script analysis and rehearsal books. Well here’s my chance to see someone else build the same building that I designed and I get to see how their choices affected the final product. The two biggest points of contention I had with my project were with my Set Designer and with my Program Instructor. This show is a fanciful dreamy riff on sensible down to earth themes. I thought that the script screamed for a turntable. There’s a flow of action and movement in the piece that only a turntable will bring to a show. My Set Designer dug in her heals hard against a turntable; she didn’t see the need for it and would not give in. I finally prevailed in the end and our design had the turntable. Well this professional production included a turntable within a turntable and all the fluidity and whimsy of the show was highlighted by their use of this piece of scenic design. The Program Instructor thought that using real rain at the end of the show was cliché and obvious. She thought that using something that symbolized rain was a better choice. I thought that the celebration and delight at the cleansing and cooling rain was something that the script was leading up to for the whole show and to not give it at the end would be averting the very catharsis that I was promising my audience. Well sure enough this production brought on the real rain at the end and there could be no better exclamation point at the end of the show. So you can see that while I’m not impartial I still see this as one of my very best theatrical experiences. That tends to be true for most fans of theatre. If you ask what was there favorite show the response will often be prompted not merely by the quality of the piece but by that person’s life experience as they saw piece—how the piece affected them because of what they were going through at that time in their lives, or how it related to something they had been through. The real life affect of viewing live drama is the true essence of theatre and the reason why it has always existed and always will.

We (half the San Diego contingent to the conference) took the Red Eye in and normally I would abhor that, but I had a strong suspicion that the day before a big conference like this that the hotel would likely be able to check us in right away—that they would need to clear their rooms because they had a full capacity situation coming up—and indeed they did check us in. That meant that when I got to my hotel room at 6:00 in the morning (3am back in San Diego) I could go right back to sleep. I’d slept quite a bit on the plane so when I woke up in the hotel I was in really good shape. It’s a good thing too as NY has put out its rainy and cold reception for us. Luckily the room came with a hair dryer because I had to use it for my shoes. I’ve had to hang wet socks and pants in the shower and funnily enough, it has an extendable laundry line built in. I guess I’m not the first hotel guest who needed to dry out their clothes in New York.

Another reason that I’m glad I arrived early for this conference is that I finally have a chance to really nail down my itinerary. I’ve been so busy at work leading up to this trip that I haven’t had any chance to prepare. But here is a list of shows that I’m going to see while I’m here. 110 in the Shade, A Chorus Line, Mary Poppins, The Pirate Queen, The Color Purple, Curtains, Frost Nixon, Grey Gardens and Talk Radio. If I do succeed in getting all those shows in it will leave me one theatre slot remaining. I’m thinking I’ll sacrifice that so I can take my very good friends Josh and Jenny out for a wiz bang New York swankified dinner. Or maybe sneak off to a Soprano’s New Jersey, Italian food establishment like we did last time when Paula and I were here. That was so good. My only regret is that this trip, my honey couldn’t join me. But we will have other NY trips together in the future. Many, many others,