brak666

I sure picked the right weekend. Extra hour of sleep, yay! Also, have I mentioned that my favorite thing about my hotel room is that the radio has a jack to plug into my mp3 player? Because that's awesome.

This morning I went to NBC and took the tour. It was much better than the CNN tour. At CNN we looked into the studios from windows a floor above. At NBC they actually took us into them. Not far enough that we could touch anything, but we did actually get to go into the Nightly News studio and we sat in the audience section in Conan O'Briens studio. We didn't actually get to go into 8H because they were striking the sets from SNL, but we did get a good view inside. After the tour I went up to the Gershwin to check out this block party thing they were doing for Wicked (money to charity). It was mostly kiddie stuff, but Derrick Williams was posing for pictures. I thought about getting one, but it was cold and windy, and there were all these people bustling around and I was feeling a little claustrophobic. I get that way with people. So I dropped off the stuff I got at the NBC store (Heroes T-shirt for me and a Meet the Press coffee mug for my dad) and took the subway uptown.

Way uptown. There is a possibility I got on the wrong train. Twice. Anyway, I went to The Cloisters. And boy is it weird getting in the subway at midtown and getting out at the entrance to a park. I could hardly believe I was in the same city. Even the builiding that houses the elevator to the subway terminal is all made of old stone and fits perfectly well with the park. And there were all these trees and places to stop and sit and look out at the river. And it was windy and there were leaves blowing everywhere and my trench coat was billowing dramatically behind me. I could've just walked in that park all day. Except it was cold and my feet hurt. So, I finally got to see The Cloisters which is something I've been wanting to do since the late 90's when it was featured in an episode of Gargoyles. It was all so beautiful. The Unicorn tapestries alone are worth the price of admission, but everything was just lovely.

I got Chinese take out for lunch and ate in the hotel and by the time I finished it was about time to head out for Avenue Q. What a great show! The set is so clever. The puppet sex was hysterical. And a funny thing about the puppets. Even though the performers are onstage with them and no attempts are made to hide them (there are literally people walking around the stage with puppets on their arms), you really feel like the puppets are the characters. Your eye is always drawn to them rather than to the performer. A lot of times the actors would upstage themselves with the puppets, but even when they didn't your focus was always on the puppet. And that was no mean feat when you consider that the guy currently playing Princeton/Rod is one of the cutest boys in the whole wide world. Also Rick Lyon who designed all the puppets and orignated the roles of Nicky and Trekkie Monster gave his last show today. I'm glad I got to see it. He gave a very heartfelt speech at the end of the show. I waited by the stage door and had a wonderful conversation about theater with a guy named Jeff (Geoff?). I got to meet Howie Michael Smith (afore mentioned cute boy) and Rick Lyon as well as Evan Harrington who played Brian and Mary Faber who played Kate Monster/Lucy the Slut.

After the show I had a late dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner (cute singing waiters) and headed back to the hotel. Did some preliminary packing :( There's so many more shows I want to see. The new Les Miz with Daphne Rubin-Vega, A Chorus Line, Company. So many shows, so little money time money time.