Broadway and the Big Apple--Part Four & Five

Catch up on the whole story by reading Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

Since Sunday was Mother's Day, we decided we would go back to Alice's Teacup for breakfast. I tried the ham and cheese scone, and I also had the Curious French Toast. This was a concoction of french toast served bread pudding style with a Vanilla glaze in it. It was delish!

We then went back to Central Park for a bit to see some things we missed while we were there the first time: Bow bridge and Bethesda fountain.

We said goodbye to Megan's brother, Aaron and went to see Anything Goes. This play is set on a cruise ship, and the music is written by Cole Porter. I wanted to like this play, I really did. I mean, this is a Cole Porter musical. I am familiar with some of the songs, it was nominated for 7 Tony awards, and my college friend Adam had worked on the production team. I was prepared to be blown away by this musical.

I found the plot line to be VERY boring. I couldn't care less if the two lovers ever got together at the end. And I found the conflict to be trivial. I kept looking at my watch the whole time.

Even as a person who likes musicals, I found the songs to be completely random. It seemed as though in the middle of a scene, the characters would just stop and break into song, though their song didn't match the action on-stage. The songs seemed to come completely out of left-field. I'm not sure whether to blame Cole Porter, or the authors of the story, Bolton and Wodehouse. Perhaps they had difficulty finding a story-line to match Porter's songs. But as a musical this just did NOT transition well. 

The only thing I DID like about it was Sutton Foster who played Reno. She was fantastic, and absolutely lit up the stage whenever she was on it. She delivered her lines with impeccable comic timing, and sung her songs with a HUGE chunk of personality.

It seems the authors wanted to tie everything up in a neat little bow. At the end of the story they paired Reno off with the most unlikely, stupid, ridiculous character, Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, which again, completely came out of left-field. My friend Megan liked it a lot better than I did, so you can go read her review here.

After the show, Larissa and Megan went to the stage door to see if they could meet Sutton Foster (she didn't come out). I had a nice conversation with my daughter, husband, and mom on the phone for mother's day. I was missing my family TERRIBLY. Then we had dinner and decided we should have a girl's night in. We went back to the hotel to eat junk food and rented "The Adjustment Bureau."

The next morning was leaving day, so we packed all our stuff and brought it to the porter to hold for us while we spent our last few hours walking around New York.

Our first stop was High Line Park. It used to be an elevated train bridge that got overgrown with vegetation when it stopped being used, so they decided to turn it into a park.

Next we went to South Street Seaport to see the Brooklyn Bridge.  

Finally, we stopped at Crumbs bakery for a GINORMOUS cupcake to take back home, grabbed our luggage and went to the airport.

Broadway and the Big Apple-Part 1

Last week I went on a 5 day girl's trip to New York City, a.k.a. the Big Apple. I know, I know, I just got back from Jamaica. But I gotta get all this traveling in before Baby Girl arrives, and ya know, Carpe Diem, right?

This was not my first trip to New York, although I didn't see ANY Broadway shows the first time I went. My traveling companions were Larissa and Megan.

After taking the red-eye, we arrived in New York around 7 a.m. Our first stop after dropping our bags at the hotel was a cute little place called Alice's Teacup.  I saw something called Spicy Hot Chocolate that I wanted to try, but they said it was a seasonal item that they only served during cold weather. Ironically, they still had a full selection of teas that were not seasonal. Megan and I shared a fruity, floral tea that had rose, hibiscus, and apple in it.

The food was amazing! I had a belgian waffle, Larissa had blueberry cornmeal pancakes, and Megan had rasberry Nutella crepes. It was so good, we decided we MUST come back before we left. (As an aside, I'm going to try REALLY hard not to make this post all about the food we ate, but I'm pregnant, so food is my best friend. Everything was GOOD!)

Next we went to the Harry Potter Exhibit. Megan is a HUGE fan, and was totally geeking out over the costumes and wands, particularly of Lucius Malfoy, whom she has a GINORMOUS crush on. 

We then ventured to the Rockafeller Center and the NBC store. Larissa was tickled to see they had a Bayside Tigers sweatshirt. I proceeded to chant the Bayside cheer as done by Jessie. If you don't remember what I'm talking about, see the picture below:

We were offered standby tickets to see the Jimmy Fallon show, with guest Tina Fey, but we would've had to be there at 3:15, and then wait for the show to start at 5:00. We decided after our red-eye flight that we'd much rather take a nap before our Broadway show that night.

That turned out to be a wise decision. Once we got back to the hotel, we set the alarm for 5:00 p.m. so that we wouldn't miss our show that night. The alarm went off twice, and neither me nor Megan even stirred. I didn't even hear it!! So, Larissa reset it for 6 p.m.

The show we saw our first night was called Wonderland. It's an Alice in Wonderland theme, but with a few twists. Alice is a grown woman from Queens. She has a young daughter and is separated from her husband. She would like to be a writer, but is currently making a living as a teacher. She must go through the Rabbit Hole in order to find her inner child, her inner "Wonderment".

The music reminded me a little of Wicked. The set was a bit simplistic, as were the costumes. Instead of the White Rabbit looking like a rabbit, he gave the general impression of being a rabbit. Same for the Catepillar and the Cheshire Cat. Perhaps it is because the audience already knows what the characters are supposed to look like, so your imagination fills in the gaps. The story-line was a little cheesy, but ultimately enjoyable.

In this story, the villian was not the Queen of Hearts, but the Mad Hatter. This Mad Hatter had overthrown the previous Mad Hatter, and was looking to overthrow the Queen. Oh, and by the way, she was a WOMAN with a floor length peacoat and thigh-high, lace-up, stilleto boots! How cool is that? 

Other notable parts were the Hispanic Cheshire Cat, who had John-Leguizamo-characteristics. In this version of the story, he had lost his ability to turn invisible. However, the other characters didn't have the heart to tell him, so whenever he came around, they would say, "Oh no, where did he go?"

I especially liked the characters of the Knights who stole the show with their 90's boy-band dance moves.

You can read a more in-depth review of Wonderland by reading Larissa's full review here.

Don't miss the next installment in the series,  Broadway and the Big Apple--Part Two.