The Sun Sits Low

Time is slipping away in the City of New York. There are but six weeks left to cram in all the excitement possible. With the departure of daylight savings time, it gets dark here at roughly 5:00 p.m. As a wise man once said, you don't know what you got till it's gone. Seriously, my every waking moment of daylight is spent indoors working (not that I don't love my internship). But it is already halfway through fall, and I am yet to experience the true wonders of autumn in New York City. I tried to make it to Central Park yesterday to see the vibrantly colored leaves (as I assume they are), but upon my arrival circa 5:00, the sun promptly disappeared, leaving me no gorgeous sights to behold. Time is precious and it's slipping away, and I've been waiting for you all of my life - yes, I'm talking to you, NYC fall foliage.

And with that, I will transport you back to Tuesday. The Manhattan Theatre Club officially took over my life this week. Let's count the hours, shall we?
Monday: 8 / Tuesday: 11 / Wednesday: 10 / Thursday: 8 / Friday: 4 / Saturday: 8
And the grand total: 49 hours. AHHHHH!
Of course, this tally includes 12 paid hours and 3 hours at the opening night party, but still. This week was full of crazy hijinks at MTC - opening night party for Nightingale on Tuesday, review day and fun quote ad meeting on Wednesday, Associate Artistic Director seminar on Thursday, double Patron Lounge duty on Saturday, etc. Not to mention that I worked at the front desk for an hour on Thursday and got to buzz Angela Lansbury into the 8th floor for rehearsal. We made eye contact - we made a connection.

Tuesday was a marathon of epic proportions. I went straight from working at my internship from 2 to 6 to working the front desk shift from 6 to 10 to the opening night party until 1 a.m. The party was a grand (and classy) time. It was held at the Beacon <--- seriously, click on that link - you can tell just by looking at the home page that this place is legit. I had an absolutely amazing time at the party - all us interns hung out for a few hours and bonded. We all discussed what we plan on doing next semester - about half of the interns are sticking around, and I really wish I could, too. Realistically, though, I need to get back to school so that I can graduate - yikes. But anyway, it was really great to be able to hang with the other interns - they're all really cool and nice and I don't get the chance to see them enough (if at all) outside of work.

At the same time, I am simultaneously impressed and frightened by the sheer ambition all of the interns have. They have grand plans to direct and produce theatre - and what's more, a lot of them are already doing these things on a significant scale. I'm just happy to be working at such a prestigious theatre company, getting experience in the field and learning about it all. I don't have so many strong, unflinching goals considering my future. It has been comforting, though, to talk to my adviser Sunil about such things. He definitely hadn't figured things out at my age, and at 30 he is still discovering where he wants his career to go. I think it would be advantageous for me to develop stronger goals, but I also need to accept that I will never really be able to fully figure everything out.

Anyway, I digress. I also packed in two shows this week. On Wednesday, I got student rush to Oleanna. I accompanied Sally and Kelly, who had comps for the performance (in orchestra seats far better than my third row paid-for mezzanine seats). I thought the play was good, but I wasn't completely sold on the direction and performances. Bull Pullman was solid and Julia Stiles was passable (of course nothing can beat her flawless performance in "Save the Last Dance"), but the show just didn't flow and build to the climax like it should have. This production promised to be incredibly provocative and apparently after original production many couples left the theatre arguing. Leaving the theatre, I expressed my disappointment that I didn't feel there was much to argue about... Of course, immediately following this statement, we began arguing - although it was more about the merits of the production, and not the subject matter. Oh well, it was definitely an educational theatre experience.

Although I'll tell what's not so educational - the poetry seminar I've been taking for the last 3 weeks. It is uniformly agreed that no one has gotten anything out of this class - it had its interesting moments, but was overall pretty lame. For our last session, the class went to a poetry reading that took place in an art gallery. This idea is pleasant enough on paper...except that it turns out that all of the poets were pretty bad. I enjoyed the second woman, because she was just a precious old lady, but other than that they were pretty expendable. I'm rather excited to have my Thursday nights back - more time to see shows or watch the leaves change...oh wait, it gets dark at 5:00.

On Friday night, Kelly and I (after losing lotteries for both In the Heights and Ragtime) attended In the Next Room or the vibrator play. I know, sounds classy, right? Well, actually, strangely, it was. It is a Lincoln Center production on Broadway, so you can rest assured that it is well done and legit. The show is a dramatic comedy of sorts set in the 1880s, during which time doctors were apparently treating women for hysteria using...well, you know. But the play turned out to be a surprising poignant commentary on human connection, and I found the ending stunningly beautiful. I won't give it away, but let's just say that it steadily snows - which is always a plus for me. In fact, check out my new list of shows I've seen that feature onstage precipitation!

And you may have noticed one gaping absence in my blog as of late. Well, no worries, I have ended my hiatus...and made a triumphant return to Jamba Juice! Yup, as it gets colder, my love of Jamba grows fonder. A good Peanut Butter Moo'd can turn any frown upside down, as it has indeed done for me many a time. And with that, have a plentiful Jamba week!

We Did The Mash! (We Did The Monster Mash)

Okay, so only two days out of the last week were actually dedicated to Halloween, but I felt terribly deprived of the Monster Mash song throughout the week, and as such I have decided to immortalize it as the title of this blog post. What now follows is a chronicle of the last week...

Tuesday and Wednesday were...(no surprise here)...fun show days. On Tuesday, I picked up some super-sweet student rush tickets for Memphis: front row. My eyes were just about in line with stage level, so it was a glorious view. I enjoyed the show a lot more than I expected to. The first act had some well-directed intense moments, and there were a good bunch of toe-tapping songs. Unfortunately, the second was kind of lame, and there were some extremely questionably book and lyric moments (Really, you just rhymed stupid with cupid? Really?!). The two leads were great - Chad Kimball owned his character and sang some beautiful high notes (even though he may have channeled George W. Bush a little), and Montego Glover could sing her face off - and the ensemble as a whole was incredibly energetic. All in all, it wasn't the greatest musical by any stretch, but definitely a good night at the theatre.

South Pacific, on the other hand, was another story. This was one of the most genuinely beautiful productions I have ever seen, which is a result of both the perfect writing and flawless direction. To my great disdain, the (supposedly great) Kelli O'Hara was out that night, so I was stuck with her (passable, but overall pretty dismal) understudy. It's okay though, because other than this girl and the absolutely dreadful Lt. Cable, the production was pretty much perfect. Paulo Szot gave one of the most heartfelt, effortless performances I have ever seen as Emile - he did win a Tony, and rightfully so. I wish they still wrote musicals like this. I would classify this night at the theatre as...(ahem)...some enchanted evening.

And now for the saga that is Halloween in New York City. I procrastinated a little in finding a costume, so I was left to whatever resources I had available...Fortunately, while looking around my room for inspiration, I spotted my good old reliable Snuggie. I put in on and paired it with a vest given to me by the lovely Chelsea Barberi. And through sheer serendipity, I had my costume: A Snuggie-clad Jedi.

The Halloween festivites began on Friday with a rousingly enjoyable party at the New York Arts residence. At 6:00, a pumpkin-carving contest was waged in the backyard. There were three pumpkins...and three people showed up. I competed against the well-equipped Kellie Holm and Jessica Black. I had neither the will nor the strength to compete, so luckily Kelly came to the rescue and pretty much single-handedly carved the pumpkin. At the eleventh hour, I made a crucial decision and carved out some hair for the pumpkin. Some would call this unnecesarry and bizarre, but I maintain that it was completely beneficial and genius. In the end, no real winner was determined - which is fine, because we all ate the championship candy throughout the course of the contest anyway. At 8:00, the real party began. The festivities included a donut-on-a-string race (I lost), a costume contest (I won "Most Creative"!), and a strange impromptu game that involved spraying whipped cream into each other's mouths (I did not partake). All in all, it was a wonderful evening of rabblerousing and camaradarie.

With Saturday came All Hallows Eve itself. I had been hearing talk for weeks about this famed parade that happens in West Village. It's supposed to be a grand time, and even better if you dress up and actually walk in the parade. So we all did just that. We got to the parade around 6:30, and promptly got let into the the parade...or rather, the waiting area for the parade. We waited around, packed in like sardines in a huge crowd for about an hour...during which time it started raining. I brought my umbrella, but that did not make it okay. We finally got moving, and endured this parade for a good 20 blocks. Maybe more. We basically just walked along the outside of the floats, cars, strange dancing people, and basically anything interesting - thus blocking the view of people trying to watch and detracting from their good time. We escaped a few blocks before the end and promptly headed to the Chelsea Square Restaurant for something to get our blood pumping again. There is nothing better than escaping the pouring rain in order to eat some delicious, nutritious breakfast food. By the time we got home, we were all completely exhausted. Bedtime: 11:30 p.m.

Sunday was a day of closing performances. The second closing, Off-Broadway's Still Life, was a less than enjoyable time. The play was alright, but overall jumbled and disappointing. I don't think anyone is too sad to see this one close.

The same cannot be said about Brighton Beach Memoirs by Neil Simon, which tragically closed on Sunday after only a week of performances. It was seriously one of the greatest things I have ever seen on the stage. It was deeply moving, heartfelt, and genuine. I don't think I've ever been so affected by a play. The set was intricate and gorgeous (done by Jon Lee Beatty - who also designed The Royal Family) and the performances were right on. Who can say exactly why the production didn't succeed, but the marketing campaign definitely didn't do any good (I know these things - I work in Marketing...). After the show, we waited around the for the actors. The first person to emerge was this old man who none of us recognized. People started swarming and asking for autographs, and Amanda, Kelly, and I stood by and pondered loudly (and rudely) who this man was. A kind gentleman next to us informed us that was indeed the Neil Simon...whoops. Well, we promptly rushed over and got his autograph as well. The rest of the cast exited carrying all of their dressing room decorations - it was a very sad sight, but they still gladly signed for us. I sincerely wish I could see this production again, as well as the sequel Broadway Bound (isn't that an ironic title...), which will not open now. Oh well...(sigh)...at least I know what Broadway should be.

Well, the Manhattan Theatre Club is a-hustlin' and a-bustlin', as usual. Last week, all kinds of fun things happened - I met with my mentor Jeff (the Director of Finance) and we discussed all kinds of fun things concerning finance and life in general. I also had my midterm review with Sunil and Caitlin, and they informed me that they think I'm a great intern and they love having me around. This week will be phenomenal as well - tonight is the opening for Nightingale Off-Broadway, so I will be heading to the post-show reception. In the morning, it's review day, so I have to come in early and compile all the reviews - then, in the afternoon, I get to go to an exciting quote meeting! I'll learn all about how they choose quotes and design the post-opening ads and all that mess. It should be a good time.

And finally: quite possibly the two most exciting things that have happened thus far:
1) Today, I finally got to see Angela Lansbury in the flesh. A fellow intern informed me that she was downstairs, so I promptly headed down. She was sitting in the lobby studying her script. We didn't talk or anything, but that is enough for me.
2) I will finally have my name in a Broadway Playbill! The final edits have gone through for the November Playbill for The Royal Family, and I will be listed under the Interns. This is pretty much the pinnacle of my career, and I can stop working now.

So that's the week (and then some...). All this posting procrastination has given me (and you, I'm sure) a real big headache. I will be getting back on track this week. I swear it's true this time. Okay, ta-ta for now.