On Broadway

Monday, September 23rd.

We woke up Monday morning... well, actually not. We woke up Monday noon and decided to head back down to New York for another day of Big City Adventure. Getting up late wasn't really part of the plan, and we were delayed further when we got down to Beacon Station shortly before the train left only to find that there were absolutely no parking spaces available. So we missed the train and had to wait another hour. But the hour was well-spent; we refilled our gas tank which was just short of empty, and finally put some air in our tires. They'd needed it pretty badly and had been screeching every time we took a turn. Which we thought sounded sort of cool, but was hardly doing the tires any good... :)

We made it down to NY, though, and headed straight for the "tkts" booth on Times Square to see what tickets were on sale for that evening's Broadway shows. And we managed to get two tickets for "Rent", a kind of modern rock version of Puccini's "La Boheme", playing at the Nederlander Theatre!

We still had the rest of the afternoon to spend before going to the show. So we took the Subway downtown to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. We got off at Wall Street and then walked down towards the water trying to find the entrance to the bridge. We ended up walking underneath the bridge and up on the other side where we could see the walkway but couldn't find a way over there. So we ended up running up the hill to the entrance of the bridge, crossing the off-ramp and scaling a fence to get on the walkway. Which in some strange way made us feel like New Yorkers... :)

We walked across the bridge and enjoyed the view of the skyline on one side and the statue of liberty gazing towards the sea on the other side. Across the bridge we continued on into Brooklyn and then took the Subway around for a while before heading back to Manhattan in time for the show.

We were there early and had plenty of time to look through the playbill for the performance. So we read up on the background of the play and scanned the roster of actors to look for celebrities, as one does. We found none at first glance, but then discovered that the lead was actually being played by Joey Fatone from the pop group *NSYNC! That group is not exactly at the top of our list of respected musical artists, and it seemed odd to find a member of a boy band on a Broadway stage. But he really played the part well!

In fact, everyone on stage played their part well. The show was amazing!! The plot was potent and came across as meaningful without being preachy. And the musical score was great! It was the kind of exhilarating experience that leaves one wanting to dance and sing all the way home. Which we did. On the inside, at least :)