I Wonder as I Wander…

We have always been fortunate that Bob has his Business Education National Convention the week before Easter. Generally the kids would have a few days off from school, so we would pull them out for a few more days and have a wonderful family vacation in a great city. The only down side is that we are never home for Easter, but we have spent Easter morning in some really neat places.


This year his convention was scheduled for New York City. Even though the kids are all grown up, they felt they could revert back to the Easter trip with the parents (especially since it was in New York). So they all came along, and because we knew about the trip for a while—the kids gave everyone tickets to Broadway plays for Christmas.

Bob and I arrived in New York on Tuesday—he had meetings and work and I worked during the day, but we wandered around in the evening and for lunch. We found a couple really neat delis to eat at. On Wed, we bought tickets (from a man on the street) for Jersey Boys, which is the story of Frankie Vali and the Four Seasons. I was nervous that when we got there, our tickets might not be any good—but they were great. We were in the second row back from the stage—although two seats away from the wall. So I was looking up through the staircase, but no one sat in the two seats on the aisle, so at intermission, the man next to us and we moved down two seats—then we could see great. We were so close to the stage that the actors could spit on us when they sang (and they probably did). We also made eye contact with them—although they were more interested in Stephen Spielberg, who was sitting two rows behind us.

Jersey Boys was great—it had wonderful music—that Bob and I grew up with. And the actors all did their own music—when there were instruments on stage, the actors were playing and they did all the songs. We read that this was the first major role for the guy who played Frankie Vali, but he had that distinctive singing voice and really fit the part—he even looked a lot like Frankie Vali. One of the neat things they did was when they were showing them performing for a group, they would stand at the edge of the stage as if we were the audience. Once scene talked about them being on the Ed Sullivan TV Show and so they had cameras on one side of the stage and they started singing for the camera, then then moved to the back of the stage and it looked like they were singing to an audience and we were behind the stage. Then they moved to our side of the stage and sang to us..

Ross and Richard came on Thursday and then Kara and Paul came on Friday. We actually did the trip fairly cheaply because all of us flew on free tickets. Then Bob got some staff development funds to help pay for our room in the hotel and he used Marriott points for Kara and Paul’s room. Although the cost for food and theatre was outrageous.

Friday night after everyone was there, we went to see Wicked. This is the story of the wicked witch of the west from the Wizard of Oz. It was a great performance—we had really good seats in the first balcony and the music was so powerful. Since we knew we were going by Christmas time, most of us had read the book. Although it made us wonder how they were going to do a musical from the story—the book is really dark.

The next morning, Bob had meetings, but the kids and I had tickets for a back stage tour of Wicked—it was really interesting. One of the actors who led it was a ‘Swing Actor’ and a ‘Stand-in’ for one role. As a Swing he never knows what part he will be playinig until he gets to the theatre—he said one time it was even as they were taking their places on stage that they realized someone wasn’t there and he moved into that position. As a stand-in he will take one of the principal actors role if something happens to that person and they can’t continue with the performance. There are also under-studies for all the principals who will take their place if the principal knows they will be gone beforehand. This guy said one time Ben Vereen, who played the role of the wizard, got sick and after one of his numbers—so he left the stage and his stand-in went on stage and took over from there. It was probably a little confusing because the wizard was black and then came back on and was white.

We got to see a lot of the costumes and they were really beautiful—and big--and heavy. The costume designed likes to use upholstery fabric and many layers—so a lot of the costumes weight 30 lbs or more—and then they were suppose to dance. The actor said he has over ¼ million dollars worth of costumes just for his roles. Another thing that I found very interesting was the way they put the microphones on the actors—we noticed during Jersey Boys, one of the women had something in her eyebrow and a guy had a seam looking thing across the back of his hair. Most of the mics are in the hairlines or above the eyebrows, or in a mask or hat. The sound manager keeps track of all the mics so that only the actors who need them are live and if they put on a hat, the one in the hat will be live and the one in the hair won’t be. I would really like to do more back stage tours—it was really interesting.

The next day, we went to see Avenue Q—which was very (gulp) interesting. Kara had said it was like an R-rated Sesame Street. It was puppets with their puppeteers. We weren’t sure what to watch—the puppet or the person who was the running the puppet. And there’s something about a bedroom scene with puppets that just seems wrong—but it did have its funny parts.

Saturday night we all went our different directions. Kara and Paul went to Phantom of the Opera, Ross and Richard went to a club and Bob and I went to Rockefeller Center where we watched the skaters and ate at a rink-side seafood place. It was really good, but also really expensive—Bob had a bowl of butternut squash soup that was $15. We also had an appetizer of French fried portabella mushrooms—they were delicious!

Easter Sunday—we went to church. Ross has a friend who’s a minister at a Lutheran church right near Central Park. He and his wife invited us for brunch before church—we met some of their friends and then went to church. The church was beautiful with lots of beautiful stained glass windows—one was even by Tiffany—worth several million dollars! The pastor mentioned that the Church was used in a CSI New York episode—so we had to watch for that. We saw it, but they changed it in to a Catholic Church—I guess interviewing someone as ‘Father’ is more impressive than ‘Pastor’.

The service was very impressive with a wonderful choir and musicians. And, of course, Easter services are always so moving. We enjoyed fellowship following the service and then we hopped on the Subway and went to 5th Ave to experience our first Easter Parade.

‘Parade’ is a little bit of a stretch—mostly it’s people milling around—a lot of them have hats of some sort on—one was even a roller coaster. There are lots of little stands selling junk and snacks and there are some street performers. We watched a really neat group of dancers who combined gymnastics, rhythm, and dance. The crowd was a little sparse, but I think that’s because it was really cold and even snowing!

Sunday night we went to the restaurant at the top of the Marriott—it had a revolving platform that took about an hour to go around once—we went around two times. Our meals were off the set price menu--you got an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert (for only $69.99)—but it was delicious and we had a great time.

Bob and I had to get up really early to catch our flight (to Nashville). The kids had until 4 pm before their flight, so we took off and they caught a few more sites of the city. What a wonderful time in a great city with our kids!