a night out on broadway

Updated: With photographic proof after the jump!

I may not have mentioned that I have a love-hate relationship with New York. I think I can safely say that the majority of New Yorkers have this relationship, so I'm not alone. So a part of my life project is taking advantage of the elements of New York that you can't get anywhere else. Or most places, that is.

We take advantage of going out for dinner at 10 at night (as we did after we Flor'd) plenty often. We take advantage of not having to own a car every day of our lives (and sometimes, when lugging around bags full of 23" throw pillows, 9 yards of fabric, and a hammered aluminum bowl, we wish we had a car).

We don't often go to Broadway shows.

I grew up watching musicals and listening to the soundtracks on vinyl. My mom had an awesome collection that included the staples of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Camelot, and who knows what else. I also listened to a bunch of Simon & Garfunkel. I have extremely good taste. I grew up thinking that Gordon MacRae was the hottest thing on feet. (I later discovered Hello, Dolly and the joy of Tommy Tune, along with Singin' in the Rain and the inimitable Gene Kelly.)

I saw touring companies of Miss Saigon, Fame, Rent, and Chicago growing up in Rochester. I saw Sebastian Bach in Jekyll & Hyde (twice!) during college, and even dragged my mother along for the ride. I saw Cabaret at Studio 54 and went back to see Rent when Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp re-joined the cast. (Adam Pascal dared to be sick that day.) I've seen Spring Awakening sans Lea Michele and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark for no particular reason other than my undying love for U2. (So undying that I love them even after paying good money to watch that train wreck.)

This sounds like a lot.

I have lived in or around New York for 11 years. That's not nearly enough.

Until now.

Inspired, perhaps, by missing my dear friend, The So-Called Wife, who really took advantage of her time in New York and saw a truly impressive number of shows, Husband and I will be seeing not one but two amazing shows within the span of a month.

I was also inspired by the big, big, BIG names headlining these shows.

First, there is a Broadway event we simply cannot miss. If you don't know the piece of pure entertainment joy that is Hugh Jackman, well, you really need to get out more. I had just graduated college and had zero dollars to my name when Hugh starred in The Boy From Oz, so I wasn't able to see that. I also think you couldn't get a ticket if you had lots of dollars, it was that popular. (The same is probably true for A Steady Rain.) So when I heard Hugh was doing a one-man show for ten weeks only, I couldn't pass it up. I repeat: A one-man show. That is Hugh Jackman (the second greatest person to portray Curly in Oklahoma! since my dear Gordon MacRae), singing and dancing practically by his darn self on stage. And interacting with the audience. And generally being the amazing song-and-dance man that he is. 


Who wouldn't want to stand out in the rain for him?

Never mind my weird face. I was super-excited!

I started writing this post days before the show, which was last night. I am still unable to put into words exactly how mind-blowingly amazing it was . Here are some choice details:

We blew a few dollar bills on our tickets, and we sat in Row A, way on the right side of the theatre. Row A is oddly not the first row. Row A was close enough. There were no seats in front of us. We touched the stage. I may have put my butt on the stage.

We made eye contact more than once. And during one interlude, he came down into the audience, plucked the dude right in front of us out of his seat, and brought him on the stage to dance. While random dude was dancing, Hugh Jackman plopped down in the seat in front of us and hung out for a while.

Yes, I wish I was the woman he put his arm around and nuzzled for three minutes. More than that, I wish Husband was the man forced to entertain the audience for three minutes. I think the amazing dancer living inside of him would have busted out at that moment.

Oh, Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall were in that audience, too. We have excellent taste in showtimes. We had better seats than both of them.

I could spend many, many paragraphs talking about how amazing the show was. I think what Husband and I said to each other after it was over pretty much sums it up:

"I both want to see that every single day and never want to see it again."

Weird? Maybe. You see, because it's a one-man show, it's never going to be the same exact show again. And I want to believe that our show was the best it ever could have been. So as much as I want to continue watching Hugh Jackman sing, dance, tell jokes, shake his booty, grab people out of the crowd, and auction off his tank top every day for the rest of forever, I also want to savor my one perfect night. And pretend it is the best night of the shows 10-week run.

And in three weeks we're seeing Alan Rickman. I dare say this city is all right.

I want to take a moment out to say that we don't see big Hollywood names exclusively on Broadway. But since we don't go very often, it does take a big name to get us to drop the money to go. This may have caused us to catch the bug. There's a lot of good shows on Broadway now. Maybe we'll try to catch Billy Elliot before it closes!

Yes, we went out to dinner at 10:00 afterward. Yeah, New York is just fine.