New York
Spring break has been pretty lazy/relaxed for most of the week. I've been hanging around Olin except for yesterday, when I met up with AM and her mom in NYC. We did various things around the city (some pictures on flickr) but the highlight was definitely going to see I Love You Because.
AM had suggested earlier that we try getting discounted tickets for a show while we were in New York, which sounded okay to me, so we waited in line to see what was available. As we waited, various people kept coming up to us trying to convince us to buy tickets for this or that show. This one guy approached us and tried to draw us in by asking if any of us were fans of Friends or Sex and the City. He looked kind of incredulous when we shook our heads, but gamely kept trying to engage us: "But you know that they're... I mean, you're familiar with the shows, right?" We made non-committal noises and he tried a different approach: "How about Rent or Avenue Q? Do you know those?" Again we made polite noises and AM's mother allowed that we were standing under an Avenue Q poster, so maybe that counted as being familiar with the show. At this point I think the guy gave up on trying to establish a personal connection with us, and started rattling off what seemed like a generic pitch: "... stars who have been in Rent... Tony-nominated for her work in Avenue Q... a musical all about dating and friends with benefits (I swear he winked while he was saying this) and all those crazy things that happen when you're dating in New York..." AM took the little flyer that he was handing out and we moved up in the line.
I guess I had an unrealistic idea of how much "discounted" Broadway tickets would cost, because our first choice, The Producers, turned out to be $76 per person, and our second choice was $50-something. Choosing a show that we'd never heard of seemed like kind of a crapshoot, but we ended up going with "I Love You Because," based mainly on the fact that we had a flyer for it. I didn't have particularly high expectations, but I hadn't been really excited about seeing a show in the first place, and I was mostly relieved that it was relatively inexpensive.
We wandered around Chinatown and then had dinner in Little Italy before walking up to Greenwich Village, where the theater was located. The theater was small but not shabby. The stage was a platform about 12 inches off the ground, spanning the width of the room, with seating on either side of it. We handed our tickets to an usher, who discovered that we had been sold seats that didn't exist, and resolved the problem by seating us in the front row, about a foot away from the stage.
As I said, I didn't have great expectations for this show, and when the first character burst into song, I rolled my eyes a little on the inside, not because it was really bad, but because musicals always seem fairly ridiculous to me. Anyway, it quickly got much, much better, and we had a great time. It was hilarious. Some fun songs and associated dances, notably "Friends... with Benefits!" I wish they had mp3s available... anyway, the show is pretty much about two couples: one of the couples consisted of two people rebounding from fairly long-term relationships--they're dating each other because they're exact opposites and they know there's no danger of falling in love. The other couple is not really a "couple"... they're friends with benefits, until emotions get involved.
Anyway, as you can imagine, both couples end up in love and confused because things weren't supposed to happen like this. Marcy tells Austin that she loves him in spite of the fact that he's perfectly wrong for her... in spite of the fact that he's uptight, that he's un-adventurous, that he's... Republican... she loves him anyway. This doesn't go over terribly well, but eventually Austin comes back and declares that he loves Marcy, not in spite of the fact that she's impulsive, emotional, and a liberal, but because of all those things (get it? "I love you because?" yeah). Anyway, it sounds like a corny resolution when I write it out, but sitting in the theater, AM and I were having an extended that's so true moment. It was a happy experience.
AM had suggested earlier that we try getting discounted tickets for a show while we were in New York, which sounded okay to me, so we waited in line to see what was available. As we waited, various people kept coming up to us trying to convince us to buy tickets for this or that show. This one guy approached us and tried to draw us in by asking if any of us were fans of Friends or Sex and the City. He looked kind of incredulous when we shook our heads, but gamely kept trying to engage us: "But you know that they're... I mean, you're familiar with the shows, right?" We made non-committal noises and he tried a different approach: "How about Rent or Avenue Q? Do you know those?" Again we made polite noises and AM's mother allowed that we were standing under an Avenue Q poster, so maybe that counted as being familiar with the show. At this point I think the guy gave up on trying to establish a personal connection with us, and started rattling off what seemed like a generic pitch: "... stars who have been in Rent... Tony-nominated for her work in Avenue Q... a musical all about dating and friends with benefits (I swear he winked while he was saying this) and all those crazy things that happen when you're dating in New York..." AM took the little flyer that he was handing out and we moved up in the line.
I guess I had an unrealistic idea of how much "discounted" Broadway tickets would cost, because our first choice, The Producers, turned out to be $76 per person, and our second choice was $50-something. Choosing a show that we'd never heard of seemed like kind of a crapshoot, but we ended up going with "I Love You Because," based mainly on the fact that we had a flyer for it. I didn't have particularly high expectations, but I hadn't been really excited about seeing a show in the first place, and I was mostly relieved that it was relatively inexpensive.
We wandered around Chinatown and then had dinner in Little Italy before walking up to Greenwich Village, where the theater was located. The theater was small but not shabby. The stage was a platform about 12 inches off the ground, spanning the width of the room, with seating on either side of it. We handed our tickets to an usher, who discovered that we had been sold seats that didn't exist, and resolved the problem by seating us in the front row, about a foot away from the stage.
As I said, I didn't have great expectations for this show, and when the first character burst into song, I rolled my eyes a little on the inside, not because it was really bad, but because musicals always seem fairly ridiculous to me. Anyway, it quickly got much, much better, and we had a great time. It was hilarious. Some fun songs and associated dances, notably "Friends... with Benefits!" I wish they had mp3s available... anyway, the show is pretty much about two couples: one of the couples consisted of two people rebounding from fairly long-term relationships--they're dating each other because they're exact opposites and they know there's no danger of falling in love. The other couple is not really a "couple"... they're friends with benefits, until emotions get involved.
Anyway, as you can imagine, both couples end up in love and confused because things weren't supposed to happen like this. Marcy tells Austin that she loves him in spite of the fact that he's perfectly wrong for her... in spite of the fact that he's uptight, that he's un-adventurous, that he's... Republican... she loves him anyway. This doesn't go over terribly well, but eventually Austin comes back and declares that he loves Marcy, not in spite of the fact that she's impulsive, emotional, and a liberal, but because of all those things (get it? "I love you because?" yeah). Anyway, it sounds like a corny resolution when I write it out, but sitting in the theater, AM and I were having an extended that's so true moment. It was a happy experience.
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