NYC, NY- Spring Awakenings

It's been a busy few weeks-- I'll actually post two updates tonight if I find the energy!

The weekend before my birthday I received a call from a Baltimore friend (Lisa) inviting me to NYC to go see Spring Awakenings with her and Emily. The only catch? They were going the following weekend. No problem.

We booked a hotel at Days Inn Manhattan, which was over priced by clean and in a great location. Well within walking distance of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Times Square, Broadway, and all sorts of good places! Two blocks off the diamond district, which I had never explored before. Oohhhhh, pretty diamonds.

Saturday I arrived and explored while Lisa and Emily went to the Yankees game (baseball is okay, but I'd rather be exploring...)

Only having a little time, I wandered up 5th Ave, through the diamond district, to the Apple store. I do love my mac.



I also stopped in to Trump tower, climbed to the top (ha- took escalators to the top!), and enjoyed the pretty shiny place.



We met up, had dinner, then called my old graduate school friend Cheria. After meeting up with her and adopting a bar for a night, we proceeded to bump-bump to the loud music and drink lots of Redbull and vodkas. 5:30 am came very fast, and it was a drag to have to give up on the night and head to bed. 9 am came even faster, and we hit the next day on less than 4 hours of sleep. It was worth it, and none of us landed up as bad as this poor soul--



-but we did things we weren't supposed to do and generally caused good clean fun/trouble. No standing, girls!!!



Now to the review:

Spring Awakenings was amazing. The basic storyline is a coming of age with complications sprouting from the inability of parents to be open and honest with their children. So it's a coming of age in ignorance. The staging was fabulous- lighting set each scene by illuminating a specific target on the wall that defined the room- a picture frame of a grandfather for one scene, a butterfly for another. The singers were amazing-- the main male lead sprayed while he sang, but since I wasn't in the front row, I didn't care! The female lead had a sweet voice, but one of the supporting girls blew her away. The climax of the show is a sex scene- a very realistic sex scene- so I wouldn't recommend this for smaller children (under the age of 15). The choreography was crazy good. I haven't seen such an edgy musical since Rent, and I remember loving Rent, but I think this may be my new favorite.




New York City. Gotta love the big Apple.