October 6 – Day 30: Opening Night—Sort Of

I had plans that went awry in a good way for Saturday.

I was determined to take a shower at the theatre, even if that meant doing it only on opening night (to get the goo out of my hair). If I was going to do that, though, I needed two things: a towel and flip-flops (or shower shoes). I had asked our costume designer where I could buy flip-flops, and she told me Old Navy. I know of two Old Navys; one in Times Square and one on 23rd. I figured I could get a towel at the Target on 14^th and 1^st, and then walk to at least one of the Old Navys before heading to 59^th, so my afternoon was set. We weren’t called until 6:00, but had a plan to meet and do an Italien (that is, to run the lines as fast as we can without paying attention to blocking or acting values).

As I left the apartment, though, I remembered that, when I was here last year, there was a crazy little variety store up Avenue B that had all kinds of stuff crammed into a space the approximate size of a Volkswagen bus. I figured that, with all the weird stuff they had for sale, they just might have flip-flops. I walked up there and, sure enough, not only did they have flip-flops, they had towels—and on opposite sides of the same table! The shoes are “ladies” models (hence too small) and the towel seems like compressed dryer lint, but for $4.26 for both, what was I expecting?

 This is, like, the whole store.

Walking there and back, I passed the apartment we had stayed in last year. I was hoping to say hello to the couple who owned it, but when I wrote them to say I was coming, I was told they were planning on selling it and moving to Colombia. When I walked by, I noticed that there are new window shades in the place, so I assume they have indeed moved. As I walked back, I took Avenue B and walked by the Park, which was very pleasant. There were a lot of people using it; sitting and trying to cool off, playing basketball, using the dog runs, and it was just a very pleasant and friendly atmosphere.

I suddenly had a few hours to kill, and I decided they would be best spent catching up on this here diary, which I did. I was feeling much better, and considered walking up to the theatre, but it was pretty humid (again!) and I was planning on dressing nicely for the opening-night party, and I knew that wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a sports coat while walking about four miles would leave me ringing wet.

We were going to meet for the Italien at the southwest corner of Central Park at 4:30. When, on Friday night, I looked up the weather for Saturday, it was supposed to be partly cloudy and cool. When we got to the actual Saturday afternoon, though, it was warm and rainy, so we had to move to the theatre, and of course, when we got there, staffers were having lunch on the floor above us, creating too much noise to concentrate, so we ended up moving into the theatre. We got through the line-through with just enough time left over for some people to get supper. (I wasn’t among them, since I don’t like to eat before a show; I just end up feeling weighted down.) After that, it was the usual pre-show rituals, and then we got the call for places.

The show itself was good. I felt on target and (despite getting cut off on a couple of lines) things generally seemed to go well. The thing about this production is that we were so (frankly) under-rehearsed (enough, but just so), that each time we run through it—at least for the first couple of weeks—we’re going to be finding more and more things we would have discovered during the normal course of rehearsals. (This is one of the reasons I told Pidge to wait a while before coming back to see it; I wanted it to settle in. From conversations I’ve had, I’m not alone in this regard. A lot of the cast is waiting to have people come until we’ve had a chance to run it some.)

Overall, everything felt good and set a good template for what’s to come. As I alluded to, it’s only going to get better from here. The basic shape is in place, and the audience will still be getting a good show; it’s just that we’re going to be filling in more and more details as we go along.

Just as last night wasn’t really our only preview, tonight was our soft opening. The official press opening is Wednesday (which means that they’re invited that night. They can come earlier, but can’t publish their reviews until Wednesday), but since it was a Saturday and Brian was leaving Sunday, it was close enough to an “opening” for us. I guess, officially, we’re still in previews Sunday and Tuesday, but I think most of us consider the show to be “open.”

After the show, we were all scheduled to head over to The Bar Room (seriously; that’s its actual name; I went there a couple of times last year. It can be either really quiet and nice or loud and hard to hear) for the opening night party. I waited until everyone else had left to change, though, because I was determined to take my shower. It wasn’t that I was holding off because of modesty; it’s that I wanted to make sure everyone else was done with the bathroom before I took it over.

It’s not much of a shower, but boy, was it nice. Once I started, though, I realized it was the kind of thing where either I’d be in there for a very short time or a very, very long time, so I opted for the former. I’ve gotten used to the shower here, but there’s nothing like the real thing. I got out, dried off, and changed, ready for the party. I walked over (it was only a couple of blocks), went in, looked around, saw no one, and asked the hostess if we were upstairs. We were. I went up, saw the food layout (crudité, garlic fries, and tortilla chips), so I went over to the bar. It seemed like the restaurant had staffed the party with a trainee who was learning how to work an event because he was really slow and not familiar with much of the liquor in stock. Normally, I’d have had my usual (Bushmills Manhattan on the rocks), but they didn’t have Bushmills. They did have Jameson’s, and I was going to settle for that until I saw a bottle I’d never seen before: Jameson’s Blender’s Dog. I quickly looked it up and saw that it seems to be a premium version of Jameson’s. I ordered one on the rocks (after pointing it out to the bartender), and it was pretty good. I still prefer Bushmills, but it wasn’t a bad second.

I worked the room, talking to people (other than the cast, I really didn’t know much of anyone), including our wonderful producers, Bill and Ruth Isenberg, saw that there was new food (sliders, chicken tacos, and a big plate of nachos that I kept picking at the rest of the evening), and generally had a good time.

Since we had a Sunday matinee, things started to break up about midnight, and I was ready to go. I did a final circuit around the room, and Trish and I went in search of the restrooms. I remembered them as being in the back downstairs, so we headed that way, battling our way through a wedding reception, and went down and down and down and down until we finally found them. We left, headed for the subway (we were both taking the 6; she uptown, me downtown). We got down near the tracks, and I heard a train. My app had told me I still had about six minutes, so I figured it was hers. When we got there, it turned out to be mine. We rushed through the turnstiles, she shouted “Hold that train!,” and they did! I got on and headed home.

Imagine this room filled with people in 

tuxedos and party dresses with no room to spare.

As always, I planned on riding to Astor Place, but when we got to 14^th, we sat and sat and sat. The doors didn’t open. We just sat. Finally, the conductor made an announcement that the wooden extensions that reach from the platform to the train weren’t working (which explained why they couldn’t open the door). After maybe five minutes, the conductor appeared in the car and said in a loud voice, “Anyone who wants to get out of the car, come to this door!” He opened the door with his key and a number of us got out. I was tempted to stay, but didn’t know either how much longer it would take or if the train would stop where I wanted, so discretion was the better part of subway commuting.

It continued to be a warm and humid evening, but the walk home wasn’t bad. I stopped at the Westside Market and bought a bottled tea, most of which I drank before I got home, and continued on my way.

There must have been something about the weather that made people livelier than usual, since there was more talking, singing, and loud cars than a usual Saturday night, but it eventually quieted down. I didn’t want to stay up too late since I needed to be ready for that matinee.