Mother takes me to Broadway.

So my plan is to do at least two NYC cultural events a month.  I will fall in love with this place because I will be reminded of all it has to offer.  Whether I like it, or not.  That's the plan and I'm stickin' to it ; )

My first event was decided for me.  An easy start to the master plan.  My mom summoned mom-of-childhood-past and got Broadway tickets for her and I and her bff, Diana.  I haven't been to see a Broadway play with her in a decade maybe?!  Wow.  Broadway is what cultured Long Islanders do, so this was a favorite past time of the fam ; )  Christmas isn't Christmas without a trip to Rockefeller and a Broadway play.  Ohhh, the memories.  Which reminds me of my favorite Broadway memory.  I was in 6th grade, my brother, Cooper, about 3 years old and we were finally going to see Cats at the Winter Garden Theater.  The soundtrack resounded in our house for years.  Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer were household names for us.  If you know, then you know.  Anyway...Grizabella (is that right?) is in the midst of singing Andrew Lloyd Webber's big hit, "Memory"..."touch me, it's so easy to leave me, all alone with my (and Cooper belts out on the top of his lungs simultaneously...ahhhhhhh!!!!) meeeeeeeemmmmmmmmoooooorrrrry".  Created for quite the dramatic effect.  That may have been Coop's last sugar high...ever.

Back to this Broadway show.  We had the pleasure of seeing Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music"  with legendary Angela Lansbury (last I saw Ms. Lansbury's work was as Mrs. Potts, the teapot of course, in "Beauty and the Beast"...adorable) and the stunning Catherine Zeta-Jones (my mom's girl-crush) at the Walter Kerr Theater (Note: if you are large, you will not fit in these seats.  definitely not.).  I'll leave the critiquing to the pros, and just say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Mrs. CZJ's voice is just breathtaking.  Even her speaking voice.  So beautifully breathy.  We laughed.  We cried.  And that's what Sondheim wanted, so bravo!  Oh, and we were also reminded, via an extremely catchy tune, that "Men are stupid, men are vain, love's disgusting, love's insane." ; )  But, I don't mean to scare the men away from checking this out...love is what makes the world go 'round and that is the real message here.  Mrs. CZJ is perfectly sensual and equally witty.  Ms. Lansbury's character is brutally honest in an hysterically funny way, all the way through, literally, to her...*spoiler alert*...death.   And the two male leads are equally crushable, as my teenage-girl mother eagerly pointed out ; )

I'd be remiss not to mention that during intermission, a woman sitting directly behind us, tapped my mom on the shoulder to say hello!  They know each other from my mom's shop in Northport.  What a small world!!!  New York, you're not so big and scary ; )

Love, km.

Looking for something to do close-by before hitting up the theatre?
Go for a drink at "Blue Fin" in the W Hotel located on Broadway between 46th & 47th.  Make your way up to the front of the restaurant and find a seat at the mega-large windows in the bar area.  You will feel like you're in a fish bowl, but hey, so will all of the tourists of Times Square as you begin an amusing session of people-watching over a martini and perhaps a sushi roll (or french fries and wine).  People-watching is never a bore.