Thirteen Things about Friday Night in NYC As I have promised to recount my weekend in New York City, today’s TT is going to take a slightly different format, as I tell you about Friday night and the Broadway Production of Grease. Before I launch into my TT, however, I just want to send out my prayers to the families and friends of anyone involved in the horrendous bridge collapse in the Twin Cities. My thoughts are with you today! Now, on with TT: 1. I arrived at the hotel in Queens at about the same time as Foxy, we met in the lobby, checked into our room and proceeded to gab non-stop for about two hours. As mentioned, there was no “introductory” awkwardness…we are old friends, we just happen to have never been in each other’s physical presence (curious?). 2. After getting ready, we took a subway into Manhattan, walked around Times Square for a bit, and then headed to the Theatre District to locate the theatre where Grease was playing. Found a nice Italian Restaurant called Scarlatto, conveniently located next door to the theatre. 3. We enjoyed a dinner of Spinach Raviolli, stuffed with goat cheese, sundried tomatos, and I forget what else, served with Portabella mushrooms. YUM. OH, also had an appetizer of mussels…delicious. OH, and my FIRST Martini in about 4 months…a chocolate martini of course. Let me tell you, the only good thing about swearing off martinis for my diet was how good it made this one taste! HEAVEN! 4. After dinner, we headed into the theatre, where we found our seats to be, quite literally, in the LAST ROW at the very top of the theatre. Thankfully, the Brooks Atkinson Theatre is a fairly small venue, therefore, we still had a great view of the stage.5. The show itself was fantastic! For those who don’t watch reality television (I readily admit I’m addicted to most reality tv), recently there was a show titled “Grease, You’re the One That I Want”, in which the goal was to find the next Danny and Sandy to play those roles in a Broadway production. Both Foxy and I watched this show, and were happy to learn we’d be in NYC in time to catch the production, so we bought tickets. 6. Max Crumm and Laura Osnes, the winners of the competition did a wonderful job. Laura has an amazing voice, and blew me away with her singing. She was excellent as the innocent new girl Sandy. Max was quite a character on the reality show, but more of a “class clown” figure, so even though he was one of my favorites, I wasn’t sure how he’d pull off the swagger that John Travolta brought to Danny in the film. I’m happy to report that he certainly “studded” up. He was perfect in the role. The supporting cast was all fantastic as well. Jenny Powers who played Rizzo had a fantastic voice, as did Ryan P. Binder who played Doody (he actually blew me away with his voice) and Lindsay Mendez, who as Jan had a pretty fantastic duet with Laura. Kristen Wyatt, as Frenchy was hilarious and fit the character perfectly. 7. The story line itself was changed a bit from the movie, but my understanding is that it was truer to the original script written for stage production. There were some of the favorite songs from the movie, but also other original songs. The writing was funny and witty, and although the sequence of certain events confused and even slightly disturbed such a Grease die-hard fan as me, overall it was a fun production. 8. It turns out opening weekend for this show isn’t even until August 19th, so what we were seeing was one of the preview shows. I honestly have no idea what that even means, but am really excited that I got to be a part of Max and Laura’s debut on Broadway. I have a feeling both of their careers will take off after this, and it’s kind of cool to be able to say I saw them when. 9. I bought a Grease t-shirt at the show. I’m not one to ever buy merchandise at shows or concerts, I find them to be overpriced and not even of the greatest quality, but this was Grease…I had to do it. 10. Once the show ended we strolled through Times Square for a bit, but both of our feet were killing us, we were not dressed to walk around, so we took the subway back to the hotel. 11. Upon arriving at our room, we had a message from Ms. B., she was also staying at the hotel that night, was back from her rehearsal dinner and was lonely and bored. She invited us to come hang out in her room with her for a while, which we did. 12. We brought a bottle of wine to the room, and all had a drink and gabbed for a few hours more. I updated the girls on the non-existing LawBoy situation, and we giggled like school girls as it just so happened he chose that evening to text message me, pretty much non-stop for the remainder of the evening. Every time my phone would shrill with a new text message, we would laugh, and then break into a chorus of “How do we respond??” It was a team effort at that point. 13. The bride-to-be then needed to get some sleep, so we headed back to our room around 1AM, at which point Foxy fell asleep, and I continued text messaging until about 3:30 in the morning. And yes, I promise details of the actual text conversations, as well as a post about the fantastic wedding on Saturday…stay tuned.

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