Week 3 in NYC

Week 3: December 1, 2002

Production status:

Today is the last of the "ten out of 12" rehearsals I mentioned last week. The only major casualty is a seamstress, whose last conversation with the costumer (a kind and gentle woman bearing a slight resemblance to Phoebe on "Friends" ) included the costumer screaming "I can't believe you're f**king me like this!" at her over the phone. Perhaps we are ALL a little tense...
We are listed in New York magazine this week, and we're supposed to have an ad in Time Out New York magazine this coming Thursday. The NY Times listings start tomorrow. Advance sales for Off Broadway shows have been soft for the past year, so the focus is on getting a splash of publicity out the week of the show and "papering the house" as needed during previews to get word of mouth started. We'll see if it works!
How to handle the "Amazing Color Demonstration" ? That's been the big question of late. As most of you know, in Dallas we had the audience fill out slips during intermission to guess the identity of the murderer, then I (or Sandy or Jerry) would come out after the show (part of curtain call) wearing something bright red and carrying a bright red bowl with the correct answers. Kurt drew the winning slip, and the winner received two free tickets to the next show at Pegasus Theatre. Our show here will have no intermission (a trend in NY theatre these days), so we had to regroup. We have a partial solution involving our female understudy and a bright red elf costume. (Still working on what she'll actually DO on stage.) So I get a respite from being the Lady in Red this time!
Our first NY audience is this Tuesday for the first preview. Send good karma our way! (But save some of it for Opening Night, which is this Friday!)

NY observations this week:

The answer you've been waiting for: What's the secret ingredient in a Texas burger? Jalapeno? Nope. Chili? Guess again. In Manhattan, a Texas burger is a hamburger with a fried egg on it. We know not why.
It's hard to find plain old French's yellow mustard here, either in restaurants or grocery stores. There are roughly 1600 different varieties of stone ground mustard available, but not a lot of French's.
One of the things I love best about Manhattan is Central Park. No matter the season, it's a beautiful, relaxing place to walk, run, ride a bicycle, or just sit and watch people and their pets go by. And we live just two blocks away!
We're all still suffering from sticker shock in restaurants. One of the biggest adjustments is drink refills, which more often than not are NOT complimentary, a fact that often doesn't become apparent until you receive the bill. Just ask our friend Kevin, who once paid more for his iced tea than he did for his entree.
Sunsets seem to come earlier here. It's a combination of being surrounded by tall buildings that block the setting sun, and the fact that NY is at the far east end of its time zone. Very strange to feel the sun start to set around 2 pm.
A humorist once described the odor of the NY subway system by explaining that the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) hoses down the subways once a day with a special urine-scented disinfectant. ("And the long airless tunnels get a double dose!" ) Conditions have improved a little since then, in part because the city is revamping many of the older stations. Some of the new tile work is truly beautiful, and many stations have a "theme" (Egyptian, Alice in Wonderland, etc). Tim believes the theme at the 28th Street station is alien abduction (spacecraft doing mysterious things), so we avoid that stop whenever possible.
And the last thought for this week from the city of contrasts, with credit to Kurt and apologies to Mastercard:
- Bottle of Diet Coke at a pricey mid-town restaurant after a rehearsal: $3.25
- Cost of a subway ride home afterwards: $1.50
- Seeing a man vomit in a subway tunnel on your way to the train: Priceless.

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