Because I'm a tourist, so why wouldn't I visit the tourist amenities that were created for me?
Such as...
Times Square!
Like yes, obviously, Times Square is not any tourist's *favorite* place, but eh. I've never been hassled or hustled there, it's got places to sit so you can contemplate your next move and/or your life in general, everyone else is also a tourist so I'm not in anybody's way when I stand and gawk gormlessly at a huge ad, you don't have to watch out for traffic, we saw some people attempting to film a music video in the middle of all the chaos and that was pretty entertaining, and while my partner and I stood in line at the TKTS booth the kids wandered in and out of the big touristy stores and kept bringing us little Hershey bars they said the store gave out for free but honestly I wouldn't be surprised to learn they'd simply nabbed them.This day on Times Square was especially cool because the detritus of New Year's Eve was still apparent:
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| Did you know that the Times Square New Year's Eve ball is a legacy of the same type of time ball that we saw in Greenwich? So cool! |
The ball is a LOT smaller than it looks on TV...
Anyway, our hotel was actually just a couple of blocks from Times Square, so we wandered through there a LOT:
I'd never done the TKTS booth before, and I was pretty amused to discover that reps from the different shows work the line while you wait, talking up their various productions. I was dithering between The Outsiders and Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), but even though I know people have been loooooving The Outsiders I'm partial to original shows so I chose Two Strangers. And omg I am SO glad that I did!
But first, bagels!
Then, a bookstore!
The Drama Book Shop was on my want-to-visit list just because of this amazing sculptural piece that was even more impressive in person, but I also found the script for Ada and the Engine and a book about the making of Jesus Christ Superstar. Jesus Christ Superstar was my first musical, if you count watching the movie version on cable a billion times (which I do!), and now I'm obsessed with musicals, so there you go. Ada and the Engine is a play that I dragged both kids to a few years ago after we'd done a unit on the history of computers, and it also has a surprising and shockingly touching musical component.
This trip to New York City has a theme, it seems!
Would you even be in New York City if you didn't spend some time each day wandering around lost?
Also see: wandering around looking for a drugstore because one of you might have just come down with that adenovirus that's been all over the news, and then sitting in the middle of Times Square and dosing yourself up on Mucinex and Robitussin and a cough drop in each cheek.
Fortunately, I also packed plenty of masks. I *have* been to New York City in winter before!
Hadestown is the musical I'm most obsessed with, and honestly, it was KILLING me not to be in this line:
But it's okay, because I was across the street in THIS line!
I walked into this musical completely cold--I hadn't even paid attention to the promoters working the TKTS line. All I knew was that it was 1) indeed a musical, and 2) comedic.
This is the set:
Dudes, this musical was AWESOME! It was hilarious, which serves to distract you so they can also sneak a bunch of feelings up on you, and the songs were great, and the actors were amazing.
And if you sit in the first two rows they throw movie props at you!
One night my partner ran out to a shop, and he swears that they had one of these props taped up behind the cash register with a sign telling the cashiers to watch out for "counterfeit bills," lol.
SUCH a good play.
Afterwards, the big kid and I stayed to stagedoor Two Strangers, while the little kid and my partner ran back to the hotel for her copy of Six of Crows, then hopped across the street to stagedoor Hadestown, because IYKYK!
Alas, Jack Wolfe didn't appear (although they did get to see Kurt Elling!)--
--but both Sam Tutty and Phoenix Best came out to the Two Strangers stagedoor, so the big kid and I got signed playbills. I told Sam Tutty that this was the big kid's first Broadway show, and he told her that this was his first Broadway show, too, which was pretty adorable.
Also VERY modest, because he's genuinely West End famous and this is simply his first time on this side of the Atlantic.
I wonder if he ever hangs out with the other genuinely West End famous actor who works across the street?
P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!