Only A Week, But A Lot To Catch Up On

Now I've only been here by myself for a little over a week but I had lots of great times with James, RJ and Jen before they left me here. Boo hoo. Anyway, here are some highlights from when they were here:

James and I got in on Saturday from Florida where we had just seen the opening of Joel's graduate directing thesis project "Waiting For Godot". It was awesome and I am so proud of him! We went to the opening night and then the opening night party and the after party and then we hopped in our rental car and drove two hours to the airport for our 6:00 a.m. flight to New York. Let me just preface this by saying I had NO idea how far away Jacksonville is from Tallahassee when I booked that flight - so stupid. I thought it was similar to the distance of SEA-TAC. Haha. Basically, we got to New York and hadn't slept for over 24 hours. Gross. Then we managed to get the one taxi cab driver in the city who doesn't know where Washington Heights is. Seriously?! Here's the hilarious exchange between our cab driver and the taxi dispatcher:

CD: I can't take them to Washington Heights - is that in Manhattan?
TD: (incredulously) Are you a taxi driver? If you don't know where Washington Heights is, I can't help you.

Yikes. Thank God for Google Maps on your phone - yay technology! We managed to tell him how to get to my new place and I wondered, "Why don't all taxis have GPS nowadays?" Ah well.
We got to the apartment and crashed - soooooo sleepy. That evening we went out to dinner with Betsy, Caitlin and Julia - it was so nice to see some familiar faces that we adore. Even if the service was terrible. =)

SUNDAY:
We met up with RJ and Jen for brunch and then later went to Caitlin's 18th birthday party! I can't believe she is now officially an adult - time flies. The funniest part though was that almost everyone there was from Seattle - what a random collection of Seattle-ites all there at the same time. Later that night we went to go see Next To Normal which we were all very excited about since our very own Brian Yorkey wrote it - how awesome is that? And our friend Louis Hobson is in it - we really lucked out because we had intended to see it on Tuesday but Brandon got us tickets for Sunday instead and it turns out Louis was leaving for vacation on Monday so we would have missed him! The show was amazing and the entire time I sat there staring at Alice Ripley thinking, "I want to do THAT. That is awesome."

MONDAY:

We got to meet up with an old roomie of ours: Lauralyn. Love her! We had a great date at Amy's Bread - yummy. I can't wait to go see her in West Side Story - hopefully we will see her go on sometime after Thanksgiving when James is here. She is a vacation swing so it's hard to know when she will be on. That evening we went to see Cutting-Edge Composers II - a concert very much like Brandon Ivie's New Voices concerts in Seattle. It was fun to hear new music and see some great performances (Katie Thompson - wow).

TUESDAY:

This was a wreck of a day. Started off well with lunch at a diner, seeing David Freidman's beautiful apartment, a sighting of Stephen Schwartz (or his homeless doppelganger). Then everything went south - James headed back to the apartment but didn't realize he didn't have the keys. Doh. Lots of mix-ups ending in a person picking something up from the apartment and no one's there disaster. Let's just say it's impossible to get ahold of someone when they are on the subway on their way to the Staten Island Ferry and by that point, it's way too late. RJ, Jen and I went on the Staten Island Ferry which is an awesome way to see the Statue of Liberty for free! Later, we were supposed to go to New Jersey to see a dress run of On The Town at Papermill Playhouse since Brandon was in town assisting Bill Berry but our key fiasco had put me in a bad mood and I needed to just go home and chill out. James and I had a very romantic candlelight dinner of hotdogs, chips, soda and candybars for dessert. =)

WEDNESDAY:

Wednesday was jam packed with theatre - we saw Ragtime and Dreamgirls. Ragtime had great performers but I was disappointed with the choreography. At times, the numbers looked like KIDSTAGE ensemble choreography when you have 50 children on stage and they follow each other around in lines. Very frustrating. Also, the sound didn't wash over you like a symphony - it sounded very small and far away. This made me crazy because I love that music and the orchestrations. Argh. Dreamgirls was AWESOME! I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it very exciting. It was the first show I've seen that used the LED technology in a way that really worked for me. My friend Jarran was in it and it was soooo fun to watch him. It was also really cool to see it at the Apollo - rich with history and perfect for this show. Afterward, we met RJ, Jen, Anthony Federov (our Joseph at the 5th Ave) and Diana DeGarmo. They had gone and seen Diana in The Toxic Avenger. It was so nice to meet her - she was so sweet and down to earth. We hung out at Snug Bar and ordered some burgers. They screwed up our order multiple times so we finally just ate the messed up one. Later, they brought the correct one and after James and I left, they were upset that we had eaten both burgers. Wait, what? It was your fault and so we ate the messed up one thinking it was all we were getting and then you finally bring the right one so, what? We're supposed to pay for the messed up one? Bogus. Ah, well. At least we were already gone.

THURSDAY:

Saddest day of our trip - James, RJ and Jen had to go back to Seattle. We grabbed lunch and ran a few errands and then met up for them to head to the airport. Anthony is a total sweetheart and gave them a ride to the airport. He had a keyboard in his car so we packed them all in like it was a clown car and they headed off. I cried a lot - I cry every time I have to leave James or he has to leave me. I can't help it. I always cry when my family leaves too. It's how I roll. This is going to be really hard without him. Later that night, VP let me audit his class which was a nice distraction. Oh, did I mention that I'm staying with him and being his dog nanny? Yup, pretty awesome gig. =)

FRIDAY:

I got to go to dinner at Montenapo in the New York Times Building and then Finian's Rainbow with Grad. It was such a treat! We had a great time and the show was really fun. What a strange plot, though - very weird. Afterwards we headed to Sardi's which I have never been to before. We had some great creme brulee - so tasty. He invited me to go to the NYMF gala - some awesome people are going to be performing and it will be great to meet some people.

SATURDAY:

I audited VP's class which was fun - it's always nice to see that there is no one like you. Everyone is so unique. I was feeling inspired to go home and work on my book and practice but when I got home I had a sinking feeling because I couldn't find my audition book. Are you kidding me?! It made it's way home in the front pocket of James' suitcase - argh.

SUNDAY:

I had a great chance to go on a walk with Kirsten and she got to meet Violet. We took a lovely walk in Fort Tryon Park and then took Violet home so we could go out to dinner. We ate at a really yummy restaurant called La Estufa (I think?). Very tasty. It was great to catch up with Kirsten - it's been a year since I saw her last.

MONDAY:

This day was all about errands - I ran up to Target and came home with a taxi load of stuff. I finally got a dresser and some underbed storage bins so I could put all my stuff away and actually be able to find it again! Then I went to Midtown to have lunch with Caitlin and then we went to Equity to pick up my temporary card while the actual one is in process. After that, we did a little shopping for some items I needed - very fun! We found a cute wallet and the perfect hat/scarf combo. It's always nice to have another opinion when shopping and Caitlin is very helpful.

TUESDAY:

The day of my first "I live in New York" audition! Due to the prior audition book fiasco, I had to improv together a book and run to Kinko's etc. to get everything together. Normally I would freak out about this kind of thing, but I was unusually calm. It's nice to learn that you can handle things on your own and there's no need to freak out. The world will not end if you get there late or don't know where a Kinko's is. You can deal. And I did. =) When I got there, the line was very long and I was number 37 on the waiting list. Luckily, I was free to wait around and the waitlist went very quickly. I was seen by 11:30 - not bad! I had finally found a great 32 bar cut of Gorgeous and was very excited to do it. Thanks to VP's class - I had a blast! It's so great to feel that being in Seattle has prepared me so well for being here now. The people I've met, the connections I have, the credits I've been able to build up, it's all been perfect for now. I had an awesome time at my audition and even though I was nervous, I was able to apply David Friedman's Thought Exchange and just acknowledge that my heart beating faster is just a physiological thing. No big deal - move through it. It was so fun and I didn't care what the auditors thought - it was just awesome to get to do what I love and play! Thanks VP! =) They asked me if I had just gotten done doing Joseph at the 5th Ave and I said I had (they are actually reading my resume - huzzah!) and then I thanked them and left. Very positive start to this auditioning journey. Then I headed out to Chelsea to go check out a reading of Shadows that Grad had told me about. His friend Randall is the writer and they were having a backer's audition. It was great to meet Randall and I really enjoyed the piece - a very interesting story told with scenes, music and ballet/dance.

WEDNESDAY:

My friend Brian got us free tickets to Phantom of the Opera. It's been AGES since I've seen it - James and I went to Kansas City to see it when we were in college. I had a great time and it was nice to set aside the usual disdain for the show and enjoy the music and interesting story again. It seems like the theatre community is usually so over it but I went home and I was singing that music - I couldn't help myself! =)

Well, that's not quite everything so far but I think a few of them deserve their own post so I'll save them for later.