NYC Redux

Yes, we went to New York and saw several shows for my birthday in January.

Yes, I am about to get laid off from my job.

Yes, we went back to NY last weekend anyway.  Someone has to stimulate the economy.

A couple of weeks ago, I happened to see an advertisement for "Broadway Backwards", which is a benefit for the NYC Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgendered Center.  Packed with stars, it is Broadway love songs with a decidedly different portrayal.  Tickets were expensive, but available, airfare and hotels were really cheap, so we went!

We saw 5 shows in 3 days!  I think Anita & I may have to go to Broadway Anonymous to curb our addiction, but I'm pretty sure that BA is Bulemics Anonymous.  That won't work for us.

So we arrived Saturday morning, checked into the Doubletree on Times Square, then went directly to the TKTS 1/2 price tickets booth.  We saw "Speed the Plow" with William H. Macy, Raul Esparza and Elizabeth Moss.  It was funny and very short.  It's a pretty cynical dark comedy about how things get done in Hollywood.

We got out of the show and headed back to TKTS to pick up tickets for the evening performance.  We decided on something lighter - "Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps" which is supposed to be a farce with 4 people playing a bunch of different roles.  TKTS always has tickets for the long running show.  We get up to the window and kablammy - they're sold out!  Since they always have tickets, we didn't have a backup picked out, so we decided to see 2008's Best Play Tony Winner, "August: Osage County".  We then saw that it was 3 hours and 20 minutes long!  We got a couple pieces of pizza and headed back to the room for a nap - we hadn't had much sleep in days.

I think we were both pretty worried about a 3 hour play.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that Elizabeth Ashley, John Cullum and Estelle Parsons were in this family tragicomedy.  They were all excellent.  There's a special place in my heart for Elizabeth Ashley from my childhood.  She starred in a horrible movie of the week, "One of My Wives is Missing" with James Franciscus and Jack Klugman.  It was awful, but I loved it and fell in love with her.  

We loved the play.  It was hysterical and dark at the same time.  No laughing through tears like "Steel Magnolias", but pretty close.  We had no trouble staying awake during it and though the seats are pretty cramped, the show kept us entertained from start to finish.  We even got autographs at the stage door, which was a lot of fun.  We missed Estelle Parsons and John Cullum - John was only in the very first scene and didn't take a curtain call.  I guess it wasn't really worth it to stay 3 more hours!

Sunday we again headed to TKTS!  I've promised Anita that we can go to NY sometime when it's warm and not just go to Broadway!  She seems OK with it though.  We got tickets to the normally sold out, off-Broadway show, "Becky Shaw".  This is also a dark comedy, what a surprise.  It was great and we laughed a lot.

The comedienne, Kate Clinton and her spouse, Urvashi Vaid, sat in front of us for Becky Shaw.  I urged them to come to Richmond - she asked if I was just trying to get rid of her or if we were from there.  We chatted quite a bit after that and funny thing that Richmond was referenced in the first 5 lines of the play!  They both turned around and stared at us at this!  We chatted more at intermission and they are both extremely charming and humorous folks.  Both are extremely active politically.   Check out Kate's website www.kateclinton.com to see what she's got to say about the state of the world.

After the play, we decided that since "Broadway Backwards" was a benefit, perhaps we needed to be more dressed up than we planned.  Naturally, that meant we had to shop!  yes, we are REALLY good at stimulating the economy.  But I'm afraid we added to the deflation woes as we got some incredible deals at Macy's.

Sunday night, we saw "Avenue Q" for the second time.  It's really a fun little musical if you can stand the R rated puppet sex that is performed and all the talk of porn.  Being from NY, this is not a problem for me, but it's funny how uncomfortable it can be to watch puppets having sex.

I know my posts are too long.  Sorry.  I'll save the description of "Broadway Backwards" for another time!