[...oh, Broadway, here i come...]

the title of this article comes from this song [x], it was written for the tv show "Smash". disclaimer : there is a theme to this article

french version available here !

So. As i told you, i went to Broadway on wednesday night.

i knew it would be the night before my last in New York, before i go leave in New Jersey, and i really wanted to make the most of those days on the City, and what better way to do that than to go watch of the shows on my "Musicals i have to see during my year in the States"-list ? especially 'cause the list ain't short.

anyone who is close to me know that i love musicals, whether they are traditional ones (starmania), tv ones (glee), or movie musicals (Les chansons d'amour). i love when drama can use musique to emphasize the expression of the characters' feelings ("Les yeux au ciel" in Les Chansons d'Amour), show the audience the unsaid sensations/thoughts/dreams of the characters in musical private conversations ("Torn" by Rachel in Glee S4), or intensify a scene in something more epic than mere narration ("Cell Block Tango" in Chicago, anyone ?)

i of course knew that i wanted to see Wicked and Chicago, and Phantom of the Opera, etc, etc
but in the end, my first musical ended up being one that wasn't even on my list...

As i told you, i spent quite a lot of time on Times Square. and it so happens that all the theatres are located in the little streets around Times Square. plus the place is covered in billboards promoting the various musicals....  

Wicked

Mamma Mia !

Chicago

Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys, Kinky Boots, and Once

The Lion King

...and while i was walking down the streets from one theatre to the other, i suddenly came across this poster :

"AAAAAh but that's the girl who plays Ana !!!" (Smash)

i am a huge fan of this actress. let it be said that her character in Smash is rather cool and that she sing pretty well as proven by these : "Reach for me"and "If i were a boy"

Ana Vagras, aka the Diva, in Smash

so i decided that i HAD to see it, and right away 'cause i couldn't take the chance for the cast to change, cause i'm not going for the storyline or the songs, but to see her

there is a place in NY where you can buy discount , but because of the training i couldn't get there on time and get in line for cheap tickets.
thankfully, because it's a small show, the ticket fares started at 35 dollars. just so you know, a ticket for the Lion King without the discount is more around the 200 dollars...

the stand "tkts" sells every afternoon the leftover tickets for the same night at a cheaper price

Ariel, an AuPair from China decided to come with me, while her russian roomate, Elena, went to see Chicago.
We bouht our tickets early, and i spent all wednesday stamping my feet in excitement, while we had to watch terrible videos, at least 20 years old, showing us how to do a Heimlich manoeuvre on plastic mannequins.
fortunately, i have had proper fisrt aid traning, 'cause if had only the knowledge from that tape to save a chocking kid, there would be a 99% chance of death. Who is the irresponsible moron who decided that staring at a screen during a whole afternoon without practicing anything could be called a "first aid training" ?.

anyway. by the time the clock pointed to 6pm, my skin was crawling. and after changing into the nicest outfit rolled up in my backpack, i rushed to theatre Longacre...

"First Date" at the Théâtre Longacre

once we were inside, we were escorted to our seats, the highest ones in the theatre. of course cheaper price means  bad seats. the scene was down below, but whatever ! we were here and that was all that mattered. i was complely over-excited, which the usher apparently found endearing. we talked a little bit and as someone passionate about Broadway, he shared my joy of finally be in the Mecca of musicals, and he even said he would turn his head not to see us when i asked if photos of the empty  stage were allowed.
 

the view on the scene, with the curtain down

with Ariel

at 8pm, the curtain was finally pulled upand the magic began. just as i was expecting, Krysta et Zachary were excellent and the show absolutely hilarious. the other cast members were playing several charachet and the costume/setting/athmosphere changes where just baffling.
it wasn't a big serious show but a light comedy, hugely funny, and it was great.

but after the standing ovation, the evening wasn't over since it was now time to go to the traditional stage door. after a small wait, the acteurs came one by one, signing playbills, answering questions and laughing with the fans. it's an aspect of broadway that i love : the actors are ot, like in Hollywood, higher beings, but "normal" people come out without make-up and in their own clothes to meet their audience.
Zachary Levi made sure that anyone wanting an autograph got one, asking the back rows "everyone had me sign their playbills ? did i forget anyone ?"
nothing desperate in that ; we are talking about an actor who is the main character in a big successful hollywood tv show and who also was the voice of Flynn Rider, Rapunzel's "prince" in Disney's Tangled [x], and who has a shit ton of groupies. he just wanted to make sure everybody got what they wanted.

Flynn Rider,Tangled

  So i manage to talk to Krysta !

 

 at first, when she took my playbill to sign it, i was way too starstruck to make up a sentence and i merely thanked her, but i got a grip and went back to talk to her. she too was super available to her fans, she was joking with a woman about the height of the heels they have her wear on stage (i really want to find lokalike shoes and learn to walk with'em), and i manage to say
"can i just tell you ? i'm french, this is my first time at a Broadway show, finally ! and i choose this show to be my first one because you were staring in it, i am so happy to be able to meet you, i think you are incredible, i loved you in Smash, i listen to the music all the time !"

i had prepared the sentence beforehand in my head because i knew otherwise it going to go bad, and while i was kind of giving her a big love speech, she took and hold both my hands and told me she was honored to be my first Broadway show and that she was the one who was glad to meet me.

so Ariel took a picture of the both of us, and that's it.

 

 

the picture with Zachary (yeah, we're on first-name basis now) was way less dramatic and very funny

the smiles on our faces are not us posing, the guy is a real clown. first he arrived at the Stage Door with his ipod and an amp and declared we were going to have a dance party. when he is not laughing, that's because he is busy telling a joke or being silly somewhere. and he doesn't take himself too seriously.
as i said, he made sure that anybody who wanted a signature or/and a photo would get it

and even if he had to hurry up and go quite fast with the pictures, he still took the time to say a few words to everyone. we told him we were from france and china ad he started joking about how we had crossed oceans to come see him.
 i am probably going to start watching Chuck, just so i can have 5 seasons of him.

anyway...a bunch of actors could get a leaf out of the Broadway actors' boo, who are grateful for their fans support and love (what a contrast with the red carpet of Hobbit in Wellington where some actors didn't wave at us or even acknowledged our presence)

for everybody who have or will have the chance, go see First Date, this show is really great.

sadly no recordings of the shows is available but you can watch here [x] the "trailer", shot for the promotion du show, and here [x] the full version of their duet and the main song of the show, recorded for the  New York Times website.

in a nutshell, it has been a great experience, which has deepened my love for Broadway.
and for Krysta Rodriguez.  and made me fall in love with Zachary Lévi. and also my love for New York. i am even more happy than before to be living so close to NYC, i am going to be able to go back and see loads of shows, and spend my sundays in Broadway....

in the meantime, i have been in New Jersey for 4 days now, and i am sure that you are dying to know more about my famille, my house, my new life. well, darlings, what a coincidence ! that's exactly what my next article will be talking about !

[...bercés par le ronron de l'air conditionné, dormir dans un hotel délaté...]

lisez moi en français !!

Hello !!

as i was telling you yesterday, on my first night in the City, i went to Times Square....



i spent some time exploring the different stores : the giant M&Ms store where you can make up your own box of M&Ms by helping yourself to a huge range of colours and flavours (did you know that americans had peanut butter M&Ms?), the huge Toys R Us where you can find any kind of toy you want (and more) ; the store is so big that they have a ferris wheel. inside.
there is also the retail store Forever 21, with its 5 floors, or the massive Hersheys store which sells my favourite kind of sweets, Reese's, and which from the outside looks like a crazy chocolate factory....

A few days later i was back in the shop, trying dark chocolate Reese's, and that was one of the best things i have ever eaten. even better that regular Reese's, and that's saying something

there are also about a million tourist shops, filled with "i love New York" stuff and Yankees caps. but since i'm not yet at the stage when i have to start thinking to the presents i'll bring back, i only bought a dozen of postcards (still un-written and stacked at the bottom of my backpack i'm afraid).
in the end, just for stereotypes' sake, i ended up pushing the door of a 

Ah, Starbucks. it's more than a chain of coffee shops, it's basically a religion. you can't stay in the US and not end up at some point drinking coffee out of one of those white cups, your fingers safe from the heat thanks to one of those iconic sleeves with their green logo.
i thus walked back up Times Square, blowing on my Tall Non-fat Mochaccino.

after wandering around in the neighbourin streets, i went back to the YMCA
and celebrated my arrival to the states with a pint of a flavour inavailable in France of my favourite brand of ice cream : Red Velvet Cake, by Ben & Jerry's.

 yummy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the next morning, i seized the opportunity of living right in the center of New York for a few days to go run in Central Park....

Have you ever heard someone saying that Central Park is huge ? well, that's no understatement, this park is just massive

one of the great things about Central Park is that there is a road that runs around the whole park, and that road has a bike track and a runners track. which is easily explained by the fact that there are a lot of runners. clearly i wasn't the only one to be ready to get up at 6am to go for a run.
i would do the whole loop in an hour, which means it was around 10 km.


at 8 the training started and, if our instructors were really good, the classes in themselves were not only super duper boring , but also entirely useless. such as "how to change a diaper" when my kids are 5 and 13, or "don't leave kids in the car inattended".

 you  know how we were all from various countries, right ? well actully, half the AuPair were german, and they were inbearable , constantly giggling, going out to buy food in the middle of a class, constantly playing with their phones, and hell be damned with whatever the teacher was saying....we kind of wanted to punch some of them

so here we go, in the end my 4 days stay were all basically the same everyday : from 6 à 7 : footing in central park, from 8 to 6pm, classes, all night long : wandering around in  New York.

except for the evening when i went to see my fisrt broadway show. but that is a whole another story....

PS : the title comes from  "New York avec toi", fromTéléphone. and it's kind of a good descriiton of New York [...lulled to sleep by the buzzing of the air conditionning, speeping in a crappy motel..]. indeed, our motel could be called "crappy", but especially the air conditioning bit is true. it's everywhere, all the time. americans are obsesed by air conditioning, and you have to wear a jumper inside, it's so cold, while it's actually quite hot outside. crazy americans !

[...concrete jungle were dreams are made...]

lire en version française

let's set the mood : [x]

Welcome back !!

here we go !! 3 months later, here i am, telling you all again about my latest adventures on the other side of the planet...after "Audrey in New Zealand", you can now enjoy "Audrey in the United States" 

i landed in New York City on monday evening after an uneventful journey, except for the fact that right when we were about to take off in London Heathrow, the captain announced us that one of the engine wasn't working and that we'd have to cross the Atlantic used the emergency engine -how reassuring !- after having it double-checked by a mechanic. which means we had to wait in our seats for two hours, without even the use of our entertainment screens. boring.


not that it went much better afterwards.
i'm not complaining, i mean i didn't even pay for the plane ticket, so whatever, but i have to say that i was really desappointed by American Airline. 12 hours went so fast with Singaour Airline and Air New Zealand, whereas here with the very small choice of films and my screen constantly switching from colours to black and white, the seven-hours flight seemed like it would never end.






which explains that i was super happy to finally land in New York. i had met in Paris 8 other french girls from the agency and i had kind of become the leader of our little group, since most of them had never traveled alone, barely spoke english and were kind of lost/nervous.
The AuPair agency had given us vouchers for a shuttle to i went to the transportation desk and organized a shuttle to the city for the 9 of us. the driver stacked all of our suitcases in his trunk, and off we go, towards the Big Apple.

on our way, many roads, cars dashing about, roadsigns, some names sounding familier, others completely new, and all of a sudden, the view on the CBD, the lights of Manhattan shining bright into the night...

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

the driver dropped us then to our hostel.
i swear it's not a joke, we stayed at the WMCA...
which means of course that i had the song playing on repeat in my head during the 4 days that took the training
how about giving it a listen, just for fun ?!

"I said, young man, when you're short on your dough.
You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time.

It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A."

well, the "when you're short on your dough" part is true.
most of the showers (communal) were broken which means we had to wait in line for like half an hour in the mornings to get to a shower. the furniture was old and battered. the wifi didn't work. our classroom (10 hours of class per day) was in the basement, which means no window and artificial lights all day long.
everybody was complaining, but i could not care less
i was in New York

and as you can see, the location was ideal...







i threw my bag on my bed, yelled a "see you later" to the girl who shared y room and had apparently decided that 9pm was an ok time to go to bed when you are 20-something and have just arrived in the greatest city in the world, grabbed a map in the lobby on my way out, and went for a walk



and of course i naturally found myself in....Times Square !
now, i had come before during a schooltrip when i was fifteen, but i still was impressed at how crazy it is. the streets were full of people talking in a dozen different languages, billboards were flashing, so much that it was as bright as day-light, and shops were packed...


life was gushing out of every centimeter square of this city...

...and there i was, standing here with tears in my eyes....