Firsts

After nearly eight years in New York, it’s a joy that some things are still new not just to me but to the people I love. Watching friends work hard for years on their dreams and seeing them come true is a gift I feel privileged to have seen first hand, these past few weeks especially.

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The last week of April, I get a text from SW. He is making his Broadway debut as a conductor the following week, and would I like to attend? YES OF COURSE springs from my fingertips and into my phone, because how could I ever say no to something like that? He had been working on the show Escape to Margaritaville, the Jimmy Buffett musical, for a few years by this point, from its early stages to its placement on the Great White Way. I saw this kid work his way through Music Composition courses at our university, to the music staffs of shows like Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen, and tonight he’d be in charge of an entire show’s orchestra. I wrote it down in my calendar in big letters: SW MARGARITAVILLE 8PM.

A few weeks earlier, he and I had dinner and drinks in Hell’s Kitchen to catch up; it had been a long time since just he and I had hung out. I heard about the work he had been doing at the show over guacamole and tequila, then the hopes he had for his career over whiskey. It’s like someone had heard him and then a few weeks later there all of us were in the audience of the show watching him.

In all manner of floral or beachy attire--Hawaiian shirts were requested as the show has a less formal atmosphere, to the point of having frozen margaritas at the concession, along with tiki torches and surfboards--we made our way up the escalator to the Marquis Theatre.

While the show was a bubbly ride of delightfully over-the-top song and dance, the best part by far was watching SW pop out from a tiki booth at the top of the stage at the end and wave to the audience in a bright aqua shirt printed with big pink flowers. I’m fairly certain I gasped and shouted YAY SW!!! much louder than one is actually supposed to do that while sitting on a red velvet seat in a theatre. My jaw fell open in wide-eyed amazement: that was my friend on the Broadway stage, whose compositions I had seen first in the student concert halls on campus and later in rehearsal spaces on 8th Avenue.

After the show, we all skittered over to the stage door and cheered wildly for SW, asking for autographs of our Playbills and beach balls while people stared, wondering who he was and taking pictures with their phones just in case. “HE CONDUCTED THE SHOW!!!” I said with glee to elderly women looking on next to us. A magical sparkly feeling ran through me, and I can only imagine how SW felt, having his parents and friends in the audience. I hope it’s the first of many Broadway appearances. And while I don’t wish I ever feel like his appearances aren’t special anymore, part of me hopes they happen often enough that hearing about them becomes old hat. Oh, SW’s conducting again? Well, that’s what he does, my friend the Broadway conductor.

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While SC has been working in tech for a long time and is good at what he does, since I have known him he has had an artistic side that always lived in more of a hobby space. We met in college doing student theatre while he studied business, and once we moved to New York he worked with arts and gaming non-profits. In the last few years, however, he began taking playwriting classes, really pushing himself to sit in coffee shops and get writing done that he was proud of, thinking about unusual plots and nuanced characters and taking constructive criticism from his workshops.

I am not entirely sure how the play submission process works for workshopping in different theatres, but it happened that one of SC’s plays was accepted at Manhattan Repertory Theatre, a black box theatre in midtown. My jaw fell again with joy. When starting from scratch, everything is a little victory. Not to mention a few weeks earlier he had been granted a playwriting residency in Arkansas for the month of July. The big victories count too, of course…

So the night of the performance arrives, and up I go into a tiny elevator, into a tiny theatre stacked tall with rows of seats. SC’s play is the third of four plays that night, and the only comedy. Called “Et Tu, Padre?” it deals with polyamory and hypocrisy, but it really is funny. I knew SC could make me laugh, but writing comedy is so difficult that sometimes it can be like a game of telephone from the writer to the director to the actors. When the stars do align, though, it’s beautiful, as they do when watching SC’s play. It’s magnificent to see someone stretch their new and developing muscles in such a successful way, where they are nothing but potential. I shake my head again at the wonderfulness of being able to see such lives take shape. Even if something great happens or doesn’t happen in the long run, these are still the moments people look back at and think “I knew you when,” where you smiled and hugged your friends, their joy for the evening also yours. Later at the bar next to the theatre, I buy SC a beer in congratulation. Here's to many more, and may my bar tab runneth over.

Good Dates, Part II

It seems to be that time of year where we are all doing our best to tide ourselves over with the drunken evenings or brunches that define our friendships before we're resigned to spending time with our families for the next week or two. Fine by me.

SJT

Having mistaken the time we were to meet for dinner by a full hour, I am a half-hour late to meet SJT and my brain is falling out of my head. I am many things but a flake is not one of them, so I am instantly forgiven. Nevertheless, we meet at a different restaurant than we originally intended, one closer to a train we'll need later in the evening, but it's just as lovely. We avail ourselves of Nepali soups (dal, a lentil soup, for me and chasha thang, a shredded chicken and corn soup, for me) and sha momo (beef and herb dumplings) at Cafe Himalaya on 1st Avenue and 1st Street and make it to our next destination, an opera house in Brooklyn, in plenty of time.

I have written this before, but perhaps one of my favorite things in the world is to go to the opera with SJT. A dramaturg, opera writer, and self-described "opera queen," he affords me deep insights into an arts field I'm not the most familiar with, so even if I don't particularly enjoy the opera, I've learned so much about it that the evening is never a waste. Such was the experience we had on this jaunt to the Gowanus-ish neighborhood in the wilds of Brooklyn, where we saw an opera in English of which I didn't understand a word. First I thought it was me, that perhaps I was so dense about opera and that my ears just didn't work. Thankfully, though, this was not the case--SJT shared with me there were incredible problems with the diction in the show and I was so happy when, during intermission, he shared with me the story of what was actually going on. I did like that the company featured performers with gorgeous voices who were our age--so often, SJT tells me, there are 50-some-odd year-olds who will play teenagers just because their voices are so much more well-developed and, well, they're stars so who wouldn't want to come see them. But the younger age of the cast I think lends itself to expanding the notion of who opera can be for. Next time they just need a better director, or maybe even a dramaturg like SJT.

On the train back, we are both feeling nibbly, so we stop into one of my favorite haunts, the Olive Tree Cafe on Macdougal Street in the West Village, for babaganush and chicken wings. By the end of the evening my eyelids are drooping, but that's how you know you've had a full, and fully marvelous evening.

MS

On a Wednesday night at around 8:45pm, I see a text from MS. "What are you doing tonight?" he says. Having just come back from yoga, I didn't really have any plans other than to shower and lope around the house in my sweatpants. I wrote this to him. It turns out his parents had tickets to a gala at the Neue Galerie, a museum of 20th century German and Austrian art. It ended at 9:30pm. Could I make it? he asked. I hemmed and hawed probably for a little too long before I said, Oh hell, I'll give it a shot. Worst comes to worst, I said to him, we'll just grab a bite and have to actually talk to each other. I threw on a cocktail dress, smeared some eyeliner on my face and raced a razor over my legs before hopping into first heels, then a coat, then a cab to hustle to the museum. I got there at 9:35 and the girls at the front door were like, "Uh, I guess you can come in..." Thanks, guys. People were in line for their coats and the bar had closed. And I didn't really care at all because I'd still get to spend time with my friend just the same. MS got his coat and we hobbled (rather, I, in heels, hobbled) over to Bocado on 87th and Lexington for late-night vittles. We dipped bread in olive oil and I tried valiantly to stab a brussel sprout with a fork but to no avail, while we chatted about dating and MS's potential move to Nashville. We ended up shutting the restaurant down, the lights turning from dim to bright as the clock reached a certain hour and we parted ways.

RaGo

"Wanna see a Broadway show with me?" RaGo asked.

There are few things that I will drop all planned activities for, perhaps none more than an activity like this. I was raised going to the theatre--when I was growing up, my mother got tickets to almost any show that came through South Florida: Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, Cabaret, Cats, you name it--but strangely, now that I live in New York, mecca of theatre that it is, I hardly ever go. I simply cannot afford the ticket prices, so I usually only go when my parents come to town because that's one of their favorite activities. But RaGo had a gift certificate to the TKTS booth in Times Square that was soon to expire, and she had been kind enough to think of me to accompany her on her theatrical sojourn for the day. I of course agreed, and we met on the TKTS line at 10am on a Sunday morning. A line had in fact already formed though the booth would not open until 11am. We were in line with many a backpacked out-of-towner, their Midwestern or Australian accents giving them away. I realize now that I may have appeared as a city dweller, as the woman behind me began asking me for recommendations while I was waiting for RaGo. This fills me with pride as I write this, and a small smile crosses my face. Anyway, once Rachel arrives we gossip and then decide what our top shows would be. It's her birthday present, and her top choice is An American in Paris which as a huge dance nerd I am more than excited to see. We luck out with a crisp, 60-degree weather day, so waiting is not an issue; though I can't imagine what it would be like in the summer or in the depths of winter. Sheesh.

Once the booth opens, we are in and out in 15 minutes, with incredible orchestra seats to a Broadway show for a relative pittance. We squeal joyfully for about a minute, then RaGo says, "Now let's get out of this hellhole." It's true, Times Square is most definitely the bane of most New Yorkers' existence, but it also allowed us to get these amazing seats at unheardof prices, so it's a give and take.

We go for coffee at Kahve in Hell's Kitchen and then brunch at the ever-delightful BarBacon, where we stuff ourselves with mimosas and bacon-laced treats like a corn torta (she) and a BLT with sunny-side up egg and avocado (me). Pleasantly filled, we then head over to the theatre and our fantastic seats therein. The choreography, by Christopher Wheeldon, is so beautiful I well up several times watching it. After intermission we just look at each other. I squeal and she goes, "I KNOW!" We are having a blast watching dance together, a sheer delight I only rarely get to share with my friends. The second half is just as swoonworthy, and I well up again, not only loving what I'm seeing but feeling honored that RaGo wanted to share this day and her birthday present with me. We hug and part ways and, feeling particularly sappy, I listen to George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" as I walk down Fifth Avenue.