NYC post of d00m

[tenlittlebullets]

Usually I Greyhound up to NYC to see Les Mis, but that's mostly because the $35 round trip ticket is cheaper than a tank and a half of gas + parking, and it's less stressful than driving up 95 and parking in Manhattan. But the hotel was in Newark, the parking was free, and I finally figured out how to get up there without spending two hours wandering around the bowels of Delaware and Pennsylvania, plus I packed a bit more heavily than I would for a day trip and I hate dragging luggage onto the bus. So I drove. I actually installed the GPS I got for Christmas, which is a good thing, because I would never have navigated the maze of exits that leads to the hotel with just the crappy directions on the hotel web site. Somehow I got from the outskirts of Washington, DC to Newark in under four hours, probably due to the fact that, well, I didn't spend two hours wandering around I-295. My EZPass has been temperamental ever since it melted off my windshield in Indianapolis and subsequently got kicked through the gutter and spent six months in my glove compartment, so I had to go through the cash lanes because I never knew when the EZPass would work and when it wouldn't. Boo.

The hotel itself was about as skeevy as a Best Western can get; there was nothing really wrong or unpleasant about it, it was just a little dodgy. Run by the Patel family, down a partially unpaved road, reeked of cleaning fluid, in a nasty area, and the overall impression was just... slightly skeevy. Room was okay, internet worked, didn't get any late-night knocks from serial killers, so I won't complain further. Except about the location. Remind me never to stay in the Newark airport region when I need to get into NYC, because we ended up taking a $12.50 shuttle to the PATH station in downtown Newark. The lateness of the shuttle plus the looong PATH ride from Newark to 33rd street and a twelve-block walk to the theater meant it took close to two hours to get where we wanted to go. For an extra $31 a day, at that. Staying in Hoboken or something next time.

All the shows we went to that weekend were completely full cast except the Saturday matinee--not even any ensemble people out. The Young Cosette/Young Eponine rotation was all screwed up, but I suspect that's so Tess Adams could go on as Cosette on Sunday, since I think that was her last performance as well. This, unfortunately, led to us seeing Carly Rose Sonenclair twice that weekend, which... gag. Somebody shoot whoever told that girl to sing like that.

The shows themselves were fairly average for the revival, even Sunday to some extent. Which is still really good, mind you, but I was half-expecting people to be goofing around more than they were. In any event, I enjoyed myself at all four shows, was not bored except during Turning, and didn't even fall asleep during On My Own, which ain't bad for four shows in a row. Friday night I had a restricted-view seat over in left orchestra, which is fun--Norm runs right past those seats when he exits before Dog Eats Dog, the sailors in Lovely Ladies are right in your face, and of course Aaron as the captain who can wear his shoes strolls by there with Adam on his way past the lovely ladies. There was some dumb bitch who put her water bottle and a bunch of her personal effects right there on the stairs the actors enter on, and I took vindictive pleasure in seeing it get kicked off halfway through Act I.

The real kicker was at the stage door though. Because Aaron Lazar not only recognizes us and gives us hugs, he also comes up to us and tells us anecdotes about the show that, well, most sane people wouldn't tell to fangirls.

"Hello, ladies!" *obligatory hug exchange*
"Hey Aaron, we have a question for you."
"Was I choking on the tart acid of a lime-green Starburst that I ate right before the ABC Café, throughout that entire scene? Yes."
*snork* "No, which of the little ensemble roles is your favorite?"
"Well, I'll tell you a little secret, and you seriously cannot post this online anywhere--you can tell anyone you want, but nobody can post this online, because I will deny it to my dying day. Every Friday night--"
The rest of this conversation has been censored due to the fact that I am dutifully not posting this online, but it caused us to explode into giggles that pretty much lasted for the rest of the night. A lot of you have already heard the story anyway, and if you haven't and you're curious, IM me. :) It is quite simple, quite hilarious, and obviously calculated to egg on his fangirls.

So lady_iphigeneia and I went off to dinner giggling about that, then went back to the hotel room, giggled some more, and RP'd Frenchboy porn over IM while we were in the same room. Or maybe we did that before the show. In any case, neither of us has any life to speak of, obviously.

Oh yeah, and the drivers of the hotel/Newark shuttle were all really creepy and chatty. We attempted to fend them off by alternately replying in monosyllables or telling them we went into the city to see a musical that consisted of three hours of French people dying.



I don't remember much about Saturday morning, just that the alarm failed to go off because it was set twelve hours off from when we actually wanted to wake up. So we got into the city too late for lunch and I was freaking starving all through the performance, and a little woozy from hypoglycemia or something. I think that was the performance where the barricade broke--well, a random bit of the barricade broke off after On My Own and one of the barridade boys tripped over it before carrying it offstage. Celia was out for the matinee; I think she has some sort of prior obligation on Saturday afternoons, because that's about the fifth time in a row she's been out on Saturday matinee and on for Saturday evening. We had Megan, who isn't bad, but I wanted to see Marissa. Nobody else out, principal or ensemble. Utterly bizarre. Kylie Liya Goldstein sounded like she had a cold or something, which didn't really annoy me since it's Little Cosette and sounding sick is believable.

After the performance lady_iphigeneia and I grabbed J.D. Goldblatt and asked him to corroborate Aaron's fangirl-encouraging tall tales. He refused to divulge anything specific and swore it was all supposed to be secret, but he did confirm that the barricade boys do silly (and secret) things the audience doesn't get to see. And his response to "We're trying to figure out whether Aaron was full of shit" was "It's Aaron, he's often full of shit and you can tell him I said that." Hahahaha. So I still have no idea whether Aaron was lying his pants off about what, specifically, he did in a certain ensemble role, but it sounds like something he'd do. He just grinned when we told him J.D. said he was full of shit, so who knows. XD

After the matinee we met up with pocapiccolina and mmebahorel and headed off to dinner. We found a nice little diner three blocks from the theater and sat down to fangirl; we had already covered stage-door gossip, smutty fanfiction, and random actor talk, and had moved on to all the cracked-out dreams we'd had involving Les Mis actors, when I looked up and saw Adam Jacobs sitting two booths away from us. With his wife. He didn't seem to notice us, so I can only pray that he didn't overhear our conversation, haha.

And then there was the evening show. pocapiccolina got standing-room at the last minute, but fortunately mmebahorel found her an empty seat for Act II. And I had Box A and I swear J.D. was looking right at me when he entered through there in Look Down.

After the show we said hi to assorted 3nt people, then Aaron comes up to us with his exhausted!face on and just goes "I need a bed" and staggers off. Bless him.

Wandered around with pocapiccolina and mmebahorel for a while longer, had a minor attack of flailing in Starbucks when they gave me a chai latte instead of straight-up tea--I'm sure you've all heard me bitching about my evil deathly milk allergy. Said flailing probably wouldn't have occurred if I hadn't been really tired and socially overloaded, but whatever. They were nice about it. Got back to the hotel at some ungodly hour of the morning and flopped into bed.



Sunday dawned bright and early and then we went back to sleep. And woke up two hours before check-out time--yay laziness! We got out of there with reasonable speed and drove to Hoboken, land of parking, PATH stations, and less dodginess than Newark. Did not get there in time to greet anyone before the show, as we were busy walking up to the florist on 51st so Jenn could buy flowers for Aaron. (Yes, we are dorks.) Probably just as well that we missed pre-show stage door, since the flowers might have led to a few odd looks.

Sunday matinee was more fun than overly emotional; I didn't see anyone actively goofing off, but everyone seemed to be having lots of fun, and I'm 95% sure there were shenanigans going on that the audience didn't see. Nehal and whoeveritis weren't humping off on stage left in Lovely Ladies, what's up with that? And the gate broke again, haha. This time it was fine in Act I but all crooked and not-in-place for the letter scene in Act II. Celia missed her entire first "I have a letter, monsieur" verse, and somehow wound up saying "She said to give it to Cosette." Snerk. Gary was actually the most animated one--maybe it was the cast change, maybe it was the Producers closing, maybe a little of both, but I suspect cast change because he was really only acting extra-camp with Jenny and Norm. Audience seemed to know what was going on; Waltz of Treachery, dangling!Enjolras, and Javert's Suicide all got right proper rounds of applause, spurred on by me and Jenn and a few other overenthusiastic fans. Celia looked like she was crying at curtain call, awwwww. The four people leaving (and Tess Adams, who I think is leaving too) got together for a last bow, and Alex and Gary gave Norm and Jenny hugs. Bless. (Drew gave Aaron his send-off an hour earlier--smacked his ass during Upon These Stones. Oh, Drew.)

Also, do I give off dork vibes or something? Lady next to me heard me telling lady behind me that I'd seen the show "uh, twenty-something, I forget" times, and said at intermission, "So you've seen the revival seventeen times?" Lady, that is creepy, how did you know that?! Even I've lost count, but it turned out to be exactly right. And then when we were all filing out after the show these people behind me were arguing over whether it was Celia's last show and one of them grabbed me and said, "Ask her, she looks like she'd know!"

Oh, stage door. Adam came out smirking and said absolutely nothing to us besides "That was a fun show." Shenanigans, I tell you. Gary sneaked out fairly early to go to the Producers stage door, which was absolutely mobbed--I think half the people waiting at the Les Mis stage door were runoff from the Producers. I'd meant to grab Jenny, but she is a sneaky woman and was just leaving as we got Aaron to pose for the picture--only reason I saw her was because she walked between him and the camera. I barely managed to say "Nice show!" to her and she was gone. Got a picture with Celia, who is very nice at the stage door but a little distant--she's always been sweet about thanking me when I fangirl at her, but not really up for conversation. Also Norm, who is even sneakier than Jenny and came out after everyone but the stragglers had already left. He sticks around and talks to people though. ;) And he is ridiculously huggable. I have heard bad things about Broadway Little Mermaid, but I might have to go see it just for him.

Aaron Aaron Aaron. Going to miss that man so much. Jenn gave him the flowers and asked for a picture with just him and the flowers; he grabbed them like they were his gun and, well, I'm sure you've all seen what he did with them. There's really not much else to say. I had no flowers for Aaron, but I did give him a pack of these that I found ages and ages ago in a little used book shop in Annapolis with equals_32. He was amused. (Actually I think what he said was "Holy shit, where did you find these?") And then we got our last hugs and he went on his way.

After that it was all denouement; dinner at the same diner where Adam hopefully did not hear our fangirling, lots of cackling over Aaron striking his One Day More pose with the flowers, some flailing over the cast change, getting lost on the way from Hoboken to the hotel where my car was still parked, and the quickest trip from NYC to DC I've ever done. Three and a half hours that would have been three if there hadn't been a huge traffic jam at the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

And thus endeth the NYC trip of doom. I'm sure you're all utterly fascinated. ;)