Eric and I met up with Eric’s friend, Mark O’Donnell for brunch in Hell’s Kitchen. Mark wrote the Book for the Tony-winning BEST MUSICAL hit, Hairspray. It was a nice, low-key brunch that was peppered with a lot of theater talk.
Afterwards we lost the WICKED lottery for the third and final time. We kept our chins up and just stepped onto a random bus to see where we’d end up.
We rode up Broadway and got off at 73rd Street and walked across to Central Park. We passed by the famous residence, the Dakota, where John Lennon was murdered and then crossed into the park where I saw, for the first time, the mosaic memorial dedicated to John Lennon.
Eric and I strolled through the park with no real rhyme or reason to our day. It was perfect. We discovered three of the only trees beginning to turn. Finally! There’s color in upstage New York, but so far I haven’t seen much here in Manhattan. I don’t know why but they say the leaves take longer to turn here in the city.
The sunlight and trees were beautiful. Everywhere we turned was a new gorgeous piece of Central Park to try and capture.
We kept walking…visiting my favorite spot, the Bethesda fountain and moving along through the Mall and back down into Time Square. Then we took in The Great American Trailer Park Musical. We were front row, center. I don’t know how it happened, but there we were.
Eric LOVED the show, as did I (it was my 4th time seeing it!). We were hooting and hollering and laughing all through the show. The cast was interacting with us quite a bit and at the end one of the actresses leaned down and wanted to shake my hand. Afterwards I introduced myself to her and she was absolutely delightful.
Eric and I collapsed into a cab and headed home. It had been a LONG day. More so really for him than me – he was out until 3am with Nathan and Elizabeth.
We got home and as we unwound, I introduced him to the First Lady of theater, Elaine Stritch. I had told him about her yesterday and since we were having a low-key evening, I popped in the DVD of her one-woman Broadway show, At Liberty.
He fell in love with Ms. Stritch. This weekend has been Theatre 101 for him.
