This past week, I spent a few days down in NYC on vacation with my good friend Dani Pancoast. Originally we had just planned on seeing “Waiting for Godot” but once we were in the city, we added two more shows to our docket, and that was the best decision we could have ever made. It was a wonderfully inspiring trip that taught me much about theatre, the city, and myself. Let’s recap the week, shall we?

Monday: After the robotics meeting got out at 5, I started on my venture to Dani’s residence in New Jersey. It was about a four and half hour drive from southern New Hampshire, just over 250 miles. To date, this is the furthest I have ever driven in a car alone, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was making very good time until I hit the CT/NY boarder and traffic came to a standstill due to road construction. Fun times. Other than that, my only other hiccup was not being able to make a five lane change at the George Washington bridge. Didn’t set me back too much tho, and I made it to NJ by 9:30. It was great to see Dani, who I believe I hadn’t seen in person since graduation back in May. She’s been very busy and working all over. Even though I was exhausted from the drive, we still stayed up for another three hours and caught each other up on our lives, as well as fun gossip about all our mutual acquaintances. We set our time of departure for the morning and headed to bed. I had a very comfortable couch to sleep on and actually was able to get a very good night’s slumber.

Tuesday: We set out around 10:00a to catch the bus to the city. I would never want to drive in a major city. I don’t even like going into Boston, I always try to stay on the outskirts of the city and ride the T to wherever I need to be. It just seems too dangerous and not worth the hassle.  After walking around for a bit, we decided to see if we could get some discounted tickets to any other shows. We popped into a few box offices, and came to the conclusion that the best course of action would be to see “The Glass Menagerie” that evening and then attempt to get rush tickets for either “Once” or “Pippin” the next morning. I was a little upset that the box office worker at “Glass” was rather snippy and rude, but we didn’t let it ruin our mood. We set out to explore a little, hitting some shops, Dani’s favorite $1 pizza place, and then going to Madame Tussauds wax museum, which was a delightful distraction. After wrapping up at the museum, we found some cheap eats, and then head over to the Booth Theater for “The Glass Menagerie.” Every aspect of the play was mind blowing.  Dani and I spent most of the pre-show examining the set from our nosebleed seats. It was a stunning design, and we were both very impressed with the ambition and imagination in the entire layout. The set had a few fun magically aspects to it, including a very special couch that Celia Keenan-Bolger, who played Laura, entered and exited through at the top and finish of the play, respectively. All four members of the cast brought life to these well-known characters, and the director made many bold choices with every aspect of the show, most of which were extremely effective, and those that weren’t did not detract from the show in any way. Even though I have read this play many times, I found myself praying for a happy ending that I knew wasn’t coming, which is always a sign that a production is top notch. After the show, we did wait by the stage door for a chance to meet all of these brilliant performers, but only Keenan-Bolger and Brian J. Smith, who played Jim, came out. We were a little sad that we did not get to meet Zachary Quinto or Cherry Jones, but we didn’t let it ruin our night. The one unexpected awesome moment of the week was seeing Katie Holmes going in the stage door, who apparently also saw the show that night, so I did get to have my moment of  “Oh my God, I saw a celebrity in public” that everyone likes to brag about while they are in NYC. We caught the late bus back to NJ, and figured we had to get up super early the next day in order to try to get the rush tickets when the doors opened at 10.

Wednesday: We somehow dragged ourselves out of bed and caught the early bus. We got to the street that the two theaters were on, and the line for “Once” was shorter than the line for “Pippin” so we decided “Once” was the show to see, which turned out to be a great decision, but I’ll get to that later. After getting our tickets, Dani took me to visit the theater that she works out, The Pearl Theatre Company theater, which is a nice little theater just outside of the main theater district. She gave me a backstage tour and it was fun to see that the theaters in New York do look and run just like the theaters in the rest of the world. We followed up our tour with a stroll down by the river, then headed over to Jamba Juice for lunch. With our smoothies in hand, we headed up to the Cort Theater to see Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen in “Waiting for Godot.” While sipping our drinks and waiting for the doors to open, Sir Ian did walk by us, and we had a both had to stop ourselves from geeking out and making a scene. The show was brilliantly hilarious. As someone who doesn’t usually find absurd, unrealistic theatre all that appealing, I loved this show. As I have come to learn recently, I don’t always have to one hundred percent understand what a show is about in order to enjoy it and get something out of it. To me, this piece was about how we expect life to have rhyme, reason and logic to it, but it never has and never will. Sir Ian and Sir Patrick had wonderful chemistry with each other and I laughed harder at this play than I have at any performance in quite sometime. After the show, all five members of the cast did come to the stage door, and were wonderful people.My favorite moment of the trip took place at this stage door.

For those of you who don’t know the show, the play consists of two men waiting for a third man named Godot, who never shows up. When Sir Ian made his way to our side of the crowd, a man behind us called out that his name was Godot, and held up his driver’s license to prove it. Sir Ian found this to be the most awesome thing and called over to Sir Patrick to show him that they had finally found Godot. Godot asked if he could have a picture with the two of them, and Sir Patrick said he could only if they could get a picture as well. Patrick then reached into his pocket and asked the crowd if anyone knew how to use an iPhone. My hand immediately shot up and he handed me his phone. I snapped a few pictures (the first one was blurry from my hands shaking a bit) and then took one with my own phone. This is a story I will be able to tell forever, and I am glad that these two knights were such delightful people.

This is a picture of Godot, Sir Ian, and Sir Patrick.

Dani and I left the theater and went to grab food at the Oliver Garden in Times Square. We sat at the bar rather than waiting to be seated and made friends with the man sitting next to us. After discussing all our backgrounds, we some how got on the subject of “Avenue Q” and the man asked to hear my Trekkie Monster voice, which made me feel like I was a real New York actor, even if most people usually get asked to sing something, rather than just say a line in a crazy character voice. For some reason, I blanked out on actual lines from the play and ended up just growling and then saying “TREKKIE ANGRY” which is what I do in real life when I get frustrated. We had some more time to kill, so we went into a few more stores, where I ended up buying my one souvenir.

We finished up our shop exploration in Toys-R-Us, where I momentarily lost my scarf, which would have ruined the entire trip for me, as this scarf has a lot of personal meaning to me, but I luckily found it stuck to a box of Lord of the Ring Legos on the third floor. We ran over to “Once” and made it just in time to see the start of the pre-show. This had to be the coolest pre-show I have ever seen. The set for the show consisted of a large bar, which served as the actual concession stand before the show and during intermission. Fifteen minutes before the show started, the cast came out on stage and played a bunch of music, as the actors also served as the pit for this performance. It was really fun watching the actors play around with audience members on stage. “Once” was one of the most beautiful and moving pieces of theatre I have ever witnessed. I have to admit, I knew nothing of this show before going to see it, and I fell in love before the first act finished. The music went “straight to the feels” and all the characters were unique and quirky. That night I immediately bought the soundtrack on itunes and listened to it on the drive home on Thursday.

Thursday: After sleeping in and then eating some pancakes, I hugged Dani good-bye and headed back to New Hampshire. I once again missed an exit, but this time it seemingly worked in my favor. Five hours later, I was home and added my tickets from the week to my collage wall.

The trip was very inspiring, as I saw three of the best shows on Broadway, all very different types of theatre, and each show makes me want to experience more theatre, as well as work so much harder at being an artist. I now know that I do need to travel more to grow as an artist. As much as I do love the New Hampshire theatre scene, the more of the world I can experience, the more I can bring back to my work. This was the best way possible for me to start 2014, and I once again would like to thank Dani for inviting me.

Thanks for reading!