The ones who stay can find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks...

New York may be a city of strangers, but you run into people you know everywhere you look. The day after I moved here I ran into a guy I lived in Columbae and Hammarskjold with in the Times Square subway station. Last weekend I ran into a girl from high school theatre outside of Columbia Teacher's College. Such a very small world.

I'm reinvigorating this blog for the purpose of documenting the theatre I encounter all the time. Because otherwise my thoughts disappear into notebooks in illegible handwriting along with dozens to-do lists, and I'm seeing too much theatre now that I want to talk about.

Here are brief comments about a few of the shows... I will write entries about the Lark and EWG reading series after they end.

Billy Elliot, The Musical (on Broadway)
I really believe that this musical divides the musical theatre snobs from the musical theatre lovers. It is a heart-warming, beautiful show that is satisfying for two and a half hours. There's tap dancing, ballet, modern, economic strife and KIDS! There is something about kids on Broadway that is so inspiring.

Exit the King (on Broadway)
The talent in this piece, with the exception of Susan Sarandon, was phenomenal. I have never really enjoyed Ionesco but seeing it done well is really great. Translated by Goeffrey Rush and director Neil Armfield, the text was accessible and funny. The deterioration of the set was absolutely beautiful, and it was pretty thrilling to be in the front row as Geoffrey Rush sidles by us to get out into the aisle. But when Sarandon says "12 minutes" and she is the only speaking part left on stage, I cringed.

Superhero Celebrity Rehab: The Musical
William Segal, who wrote the rap musical Outflow which I directed a reading of the first scene of at Stanford, goes commercial, and he does it well. A very tuneful piece filled with stunning talent, although the book leaves something to be desired. But I had fun, which was obviously the point. The space, at the Access Theatre in TriBeCa/Chinatown, was a fun little blackbox theatre that would be great to work in. I am excited about the possibility of Will working on a shorter rap piece.

This Side of Paradise at Epic Theatre Ensemble's Sunshine Series
by Nancy Harrow and Will Pomerantz (reading)
A musical about F Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda. This piece was basically Behind the Limelight (produced at New York Stage and Film in the summer of 2005), only about the Fitzgeralds instead of Charlie Chaplin. The music was beautiful and Jenny Powers is ridiculously phenomenal, but it was hard to connect into the piece because you already knew how sad the end was at the very beginning. At the same time, the side by side developments of the past and present were some of the best that I've seen. This reading had a talkback, at which I discovered that New York audiences are much less helpful than San Francisco audiences. "I wanted to see him sing more". "The music wasn't really Jazz... I studied Jazz". Ugh. That audience needed some strict rules. They did not respond well to "We'd like to start off by taking some questions from you". Also, a very awesome space at 13th Street Rep.

So many other shows I need to see, but at the moment I'm trying to pick and choose carefully. Broadway's taking a backseat for the time being, as much as I want to see Hair and Next to Normal. Yay theatre!