Update! (Brilliant title.)

Hello friends, family and people I don't actually know,

It has been a couple of weeks since I’ve written which is lame but as I always point out things here are busy busy busy! Since I last wrote I went on a Broadway SPREE seeing everything though paying no more than $36.50 per ticket. I actually saw 4 Broadway shows and spent $110. And I had excellent seats for ALL of them. (West Side Story, Shrek, Hair, 9 to 5 and Guys & Dolls) There are tricks to seeing Broadway shows on the cheap. And boy did we turn tricks! The first show I saw on Broadway since moving to New York—West Side Story—(which I saw from horrible standing room seats in the back of mezzanine in February—don’t do it!) I got to see again from the perfect lottery seats on the FRONT row. It was really like seeing a different production. My other favorite show that I saw this week was (I can’t believe it) SHREK! I went to the performance with the lowest expectations and was blown away by the music, staging, costuming, production creativity and performances by the leads. A little tip—go see shows RIGHT before the Tony nominations are announced in May because every performance is stellar top notch. We saw a Sunday matinee of Shrek (which is historically the most wah-wah performance of the week) and it was FABULOUS! Please go see this heart-warming show. I dare say Shrek could make you cry. He made me cry. So touching. And the anthem of the show is “Let your freak flag fly!” Who doesn’t love that?

This week while Josh was here we also traveled down to DC to attend another audition I had been invited to from when I went to the Washington Unified auditions earlier this year. I actually got to introduce my twin cousins (My dad’s twin’s twins. Who knew that happens?) to Josh and Leslie. Everyone loved life and the delicious chicken and fries we munched on.

In other news! Sunday night we saw Hair which was great music and great performing though I didn’t really connect with the disjointed plot. I think Hair is just one of those shows you either love and totally get or you’re like…hmm…the music is good but why are they dancing on the audience members? The greatness of Hair though is that after the show we went to the stage door to meet some castmembers and one of my Broadway heroes—Audra McDonald—was chilling, waiting for a friend. You’d probably recognize her from “Private Practice” on ABC. She’s truly one of the best vocalists out there and really was the face of color blind casting that waved in during the 90’s. Audra is phenomenal. And she starred in one of my favorite musicals of all time “Ragtime.” So I got a photo op with Audra and Josh got a photo op with his bway hero Gavin Creel (the original “Jimmy” in “Thoroughly Modern Millie”)

There were also a thousand other brilliant highlights of Josh and Leslie’s weekend in the City including strolls through Central Park, a carbide home in a hummer limo, cupcakes, Grey Dog brunch, and lots of rooftop chilling. And laughter. Laughter. Laugh.ter.

The great thing about having a job that is technically “part time” is that I can request off and arrange my work schedule around my life. So basically I put my two “weekends” together and was able to take off 6 days of work. Now is kind of intense because I have 8 days of work straight but the payoff of taking off during friends vacations is just fabulously worth it.

Other excitement: I nailed down a part time nannying gig for the summer watching my 2nd cousin Rufus. This is great on a variety of levels: fun cause Rufus is hilarious, helping out family feels good, money is better, consistent schedule is fab and I’ll be getting off by 9 pm so I’ll be able to get a decent night’s sleep for early auditions the next morning! Major yays.

Audition update: this week I am making efforts to attend (brace yourself) 11 auditions. They are as follows: Gary Musick company (they cast for various cruiselines), the Disney Cruiseline, the Beauty & the Beast national tour, A Little Night Music (broadway revival), the Cincinatti Playhouse (they’re doing the Fantasticks), Long Wharf Theatre (also doing the Fantasticks) South Pacific (Broadway) chorus call, the Sound of Music at the North Carolina Theatre, Georgia Love (a play about Georgians—I think.) a chorus call for Wicked (Broadway and tours too I’m guessing) and a chorus call for Molly Maguires a new work that is going to be performed in Pennsylvania and broadcast on public television!

Now I will inevitably not be able to be seen for all 11 of these auditions. With auditions in New York there is SO MUCH to go to you have to prioritize, figure out which roles you’d be most right for, which roles you’d be most likely to book, which auditions are in the same locations that you can hit at once and which ones are equity/non-equity and play the guessing game of if you will get seen or not. It takes a lot of plotting—that’s for sure.

All the while this week I have to begin (can you believe it?) looking for another sublease. I have leads on 3 places through friends (which I definitely prefer) so hopefully I won’t have to Craigslist my way all over town. Although, the place I am in now (a Craigslist find) has turned out to be perfect. But this next go around I’m looking for more: a bed included, cheaper rent and closer to a Starbucks. You know, the important things.

Oh one more highlight of this past week was getting to meet a slew of my 2nd cousins at a brunch on Saturday! I met my mom’s first cousins Lisann, Rick and Ken and their families. All New Yorkers. It’s kinda crazy to think that if my grandfather had not left New York on military service and settled in the south I could’ve grown up Jewish in Manhattan. What a different life that would’ve been…ya know, I quite like my mix of musical theatre singing Baptist Jew. I think it fits me. ☺

Addendum added tonight: I got a callback for some roles on the Disney Cruiseline! Think glass slippers and 7 little guys and you’ll figure out which roles. ;-) Hooray for a victory! As they say a dream is a wish your heart makes...