NYC Trip--March

I've been in New York since Sunday with my husband and have already seen lots of great plays!Ann is joining me on Thursday, and we'll stay until Sunday. On Sunday night we saw Claybourne Park at the Playwrights Horizon . . . it builds off of Lorraine Hansberry's classic play, Raisin in the Sun, and focuses on the middle-aged couple preparing to move out of the house in the all white neighborhood that the Younger family from RITS has just bought. When Mr. Linder (the only character to carry over from RITS) arrives and lets them know that, unbeknowst to them, they have sold their house to a black family, all hell breaks loose. The second act takes place in the same house, but it is now 2009 and a young yuppie white couple has moved in. The neighborhood has become a black neighborhood, and the second act centers around a meeting between a black couple and their lawyer from the Claybourne Park community group that is fighting an extensive renovation the couple plans . . . The writing is terrific, and the cast was, across the board, great.

On Monday, I scored a ticket to a 80th birthday gala performance of Sondheim on Sondheim, a retrospective review of Sondheim's amazing career in theatre. I discretly parked myself next to the photographers set up in the entrance and saw all the celebs coming in--Alex Baldwin, Lauren Bacall, Barbara Walters, Jane Krakowski, Angela Lansberry, and a score of Broadway stars. The show starring Barbara Cook, Vaness Williams, and Tom Wopat, was really well done--ofcourse you can't go wrong with Sondheim music . . . At the end, Sondheim came up on stageandthe audience sang Happy Brithday to him. The Roundabout Theatre producer announced that the newly renovated Henry Miller Theatre was being renamed the Stephen Sondheim theatre, and he was visably moved and surprised. It was a very cool evening for this Culture Buddy!!! Check out the pictures.