Tony's Week--Day Six

Sunday was our last full day in NYC. We headed over to Radio City Music Hall around 11:00 to watch a little of the comings and goings at the Tony Award rehearsal. We were too hungry to last long, so we went in pursuit of a bagel and some coffee. In true CultureBuddies style, before long we found ourselves sitting on the outside patio of a nice French restaurant, Brasserie Ruhlmann, looking out at Rockefeller Plaza and drinking Cape Codders. While we were waiting for our food, the heavens opened up and it started pouring. Luckily, the patio had a cover that just barely protected us. Other customers that weren't so lucky crowded in to keep dry, and it became quite cozy and fun as we all watched the rain. The food was delicious (albeit a little pricey, but hey, you're dead a long time!) and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. So much for the bagel and coffee! By the time we were ready to leave, the sun was back out so we never even got wet.

Sunday afternoon we saw A Catered Affair, the new Harvey Fierstein musical starring Faith Prince and Tom Wolcott. It's about the conflict within a working class family when the mother decides that her daughter's plan for a simple town-hall wedding is not enough and starts planning "a catered affair." The plot was quite heart-wrenching and a little sad at times, but it was a touching family story. We were thrilled to see the legendary Faith Prince, who is back on stage after a eight year hiatus. The sets were great, and the acting and singing was spot-on, but overall the show was a little too understated. Or maybe we were hitting the wall, as it was our eighth play of the week! It's tough for a show like this to compete with the larger, more up-beat musicals currently playing, and without any significant Tony nominations to boost sales, I imagine it won't be playing too much longer.

Then it was time for the third annual Tony party in our hotel room with the boys, Casey and Ben. (They call us "The Mamas" and think we are totally insane, but they love us!) We have developed a fierce competition to predict the most winners in all the Tony categories, and (annoyingly) Casey always seems to win and loves to gloat about it. This year, Ben had really done his homework and was determined to win. Ann and I were very proud of ourselves that we had seen every play that had any nominations except for Grease and The Little Mermaid (which are a little too mainstream for us) and Thurgood (which we couldn't squeeze into our schedule). Not bad for two ladies from New Hampshire!

We enjoyed munchies, beer, pizza, and yummy cupcakes Ben brought as we watched the show and groaned and/or cheered over our predictions. We were so happy to see In The Heights win so many awards--we've felt invested in this show since we saw it Off Broadway last year and then again when it opened on Broadway. We agreed with most of the winners, although I loved Kelli O'Hara's performance so much that I voted for her even though I knew Patti LuPone would win. I got the boys laughing doing imitations of Patti singing/yelling songs from other musicals, and it was an overall silly, but fun night. It's so nice to be able to watch the show with other theatre fanatics. Unfortunately, that damn Casey won the pool again and gets to wear the huge I'm A Winner medal for another year. Poor Ben missed by two points, and Ann and I tied for third place (sounds better than losers).

Monday was going home day which is always sad, but we were pretty pooped out. Our next short trip is at the end of July to see an Encore production of Damn Yankees with Sean Hayes (Will and Grace), Jane Krakowski (30 Rock), and the hunky Broadway star, Cheyenne Jackson. We're also going to see our pal, Jonathan Groff (formerly of Spring Awakening) star in Shakespeare in the Park's production of Hair. I'm sure we'll manage to squeeze in another show before long . .

It was a really wonderful week--one for the record books!