So that turned out to be fantastic, land, get off place in 5 minutes, get luggage in 5 minutes, walk 60 seconds to car
(see "What are you doing today ...").
The departure from this end on Friday was VERY delayed, so much that we wound up getting tickets for our Friday night show for Saturday afternoon/matinee, same 1/2 price, special select seats through AMEX, and we're HOPING that they at the very least give us credit on the other tickets (bummer, LMM was at the Friday premier
) Wife scored great seats (1st and then 4-5th row end seats), they were all in really stellar theaters too.
We hit up some of our favorite walking spots, Bryant, Central, Turnstyle Underground, the hotel was excellent, boutique, and very modern, lots of fitness options if you're into that (like literally yoga gear in the room
).
Saw three amazing shows, that were radically different (selected for that exact reason):
A Strange Loop (Lyceum Theatre)
A powerful show, great music, very intimate, joyful, sad, had something to say, and said it, sometimes it was very racially intense, sometimes very sexually explicit. We suspect this show is going to be huge.
From an articles on Forbes:
Apart from its strong critical reception, A Strange Loop is historic in more ways than one. It is the first musical by a Black writer to win the Pulitzer, and the first that had not yet played a Broadway stage. It is also, in no uncertain terms, brilliant.
However, it doesn’t necessarily fall into the bounds of “traditional” Broadway fare, as a self-referential, unflinching examination of race, gender, sexuality, beauty standards, and religion. Described by its own lead character, it is: “a black, queer man writing a musical about a black, queer man who’s writing a musical about a black queer man who’s writing a musical about a black queer man, etc.”
The Music Man it is not.
Company (Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre)
A classic by Stephen Sondheim, fun music, more surreal / introspective than some other "older school" shows, amazing / updated set designs, this is a revival that started in 2018 in the West End, and Patti LuPone continues her role as Joanne, if you don't know, she's a notable broadway star, has done TV, voicework, film. Neat update from the original, where the lead was Robert (Bobby) who was male, to now a female lead (Bobbie), and really illustrates something that Sondheim said just before his death:
Five days before he died, Sondheim discussed the revival's change of the lead character's gender from male (Bobby) to female (Bobbie). He expressed how theater is distinguished from film and video because "you can do it in different ways from generation to generation… What keeps theater alive is the chance always to do it differently, with not only fresh casts, but fresh viewpoints. It's not just a matter of changing pronouns, but attitudes."
The Play That Goes Wrong (New World Stages)
Amazing, at the always fun new New World Stages (we've seen several shows there, including Evil Dead: The Musical ), we laughed so hard, I mean we literally lost it a few times, we had front row seats, got called out for laughing (in a good way ...
) I was just astounded at the physicality involved, and so many surprises, twists, turns - without revealing too much:
The fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society (Cornley University in the American version), fresh from such hits as The Lion and The Wardrobe, Cat, and James and the Peach (or James, Where's your Peach?), has received a substantial bequest and is putting on a performance of The Murder at Haversham Manor – a 1920s murder mystery play, similar to The Mousetrap, which has the right number of parts for the members. The script was written by the fictitious Susie H. K. Brideswell. During the performance, a play within a play, a plethora of disasters befall the cast ...
We scored this for the last show, it's a contribution to Broadway Cares plus a pretty cool bit of swag:
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As always, we eat and drink ... and drink and eat ... and ...
Grabbed a bite here and there and everywhere, a drink anytime it presented itself, but we did a few pre-planned meals, Wife had them reserved in advance, either before we left or just early in the day so we'd know we had a seat, the first night we moved the reservation 3 times, but it was pretty stellar once we finally got there (after the aforementioned flight delay).
For our more major eats (we did some other stop and eats and sits downs, a few of our usual places in the theater district), first up, Lilly's, ate outside, between the street and sidewalk, in this island they created with tables, so fun, a little chilly. Spectacular mixed drinks, decent beer, very good food, kind of stepped up American, we had roasted sprouts, split burgers, fried pickles, an incredible lobster truffle mac and cheese.
One of our favorite places to stop for a beverage, while we hit up the park and a couple of adjacent shops (including a huge bookstore with the most incredible anime area, which is a whole floor ...), is The Porch, inside of Bryant Park, and we always order, A Huge Order of Fries, which is the actual name on the menu
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(Image that stacked twice as high)
We had brunch on Sunday at The Terrace, inside The Edition, it was excellent, it was a little slow coming out (had an order/POS issue), we weren't in a rush, manager comp'ed all our drinks
They had one of my White Whale beers:
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97 on BA, it's as good as it gets / as I imagined,
seriously world class.
On, and the entrance to the hotel/restaurant is pretty fun:
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Pizza? Of course, maybe more than once, but when we sat down, it was this insane pie:
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Also, amazing timing, the New York Auto Show was this past weekend! We went 6 years ago by design, this time, just happen to be there
And it was super close, 3 avenues away, so off we went, and it was some unexpected fun!
Snapped a few pics, won't post too many here (maybe in a car thread), but some neat stuff, I mostly was interested in the EV presence (notably missing was both Lucid and Rivian).
Upcoming VW Bus/Van, aka the ID.Buzz electric.
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Some mind blowing displays, the background and most of the floor was LCD panels, so everything was in motion! This was the huge Subaru exhibit (the vehicle is their new EV), they had rope bridges ... and "snow" falling from the ceiling
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And I love all the EV trucks on the way, that's the next major market to get into ZEV technology, and I have to say from a design standpoint, liked the Chevy better than the Ford, the latter is clean, and very nice, the Chevy has a little more EV character.
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We ate more, saw more, did more, but I think this post is a pretty decent sample - now we have this killer air option that's ~10 minutes away, and all the flight logistics: parking, gate, luggage handling is almost like having a private aircraft - we'll be going back more often.
You can still get the nice red rock views, but the trade-off being it about 10 degrees warmer. My wife has Sedona as a location in her weather app and the temps are very similar to where we live now in the spring through fall, but the RealFeel is very close to the temp vs here where it can be 85, but feel like 98. I am tired of being able to chew the air. Winter there is awesome. We spent a week here in January 2020 (last trip before everything shut down) and it might be 25 when you wake up, but soon warms to 50-60 and sunny. It was that trip that basically cemented the idea we wanted to live there.
