It all started with Carleigh being cast in Annie and having
the time of her life! We found out shortly after her show closed that Annie was
being revived on Broadway in the fall of
2012….and plans were set in motion.
Tickets for Annie on Broadway were purchased in June, and we had been following the release of
Disney’s Newsies on Broadway for about a year now – it won the Tony Award
(Broadway version of Academy Awards) for Best Musical, so we looked into that
and in July, purchased tickets for Newsies and made the hotel reservations.
My mom and I were taking the girls to NYC over Columbus Day
weekend to see Annie and Newsies!!
You know me – planning things out and budgeting and doing it
way in advance…..so the school year started and we were looking forward to the
big weekend. We had been following the
announcements for Annie – after all…we had the show memorized and the girls
were still singing all of the songs.
They announced the orphans and Carleigh was thrilled to see that Duffy
(the orphan that she played at BRMS) was from Richmond, Virginia.
Columbus Day weekend was approaching – train tickets were
purchased, and the weather forecast was not looking good. We’ve done NYC in the
rain with the two girls before and it was NOT fun….so…rather than sit inside a
hotel room for many hours in the evening, we looked into Wicked tickets. Katie
had just learned about Wicked and was
VERY interested in seeing the show, so…Thanks MOM – tickets were purchased for
Wicked and we were on our was at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning.
We arrived in NYC around 2:30 Saturday afternoon and taxi’d
to the hotel. We chose to stay in Times Square due to all of the shows we were
seeing. We stayed at the Hilton Times Square – it was fantastic, though I felt
like I was playing Where’s Waldo as we walked up 42nd St looking for
the entrance. The 41st St entrance was a lot easier to use.
At the hotel – you take an elevator from street level up to
the 15th floor lobby – it was perfect – the elevator’s opened and
you didn’t even feel like you were in the middle of Times Square. Our room was
on the 30th floor and had a “great” view of true NYC. The girls
stood and stared and couldn’t believe that people “lived” here.
Our first show was
Annie at 8:00 pm on Saturday night. We had time to head out for a few
hours. We decided to stay close and just explore the Times Square area. Many adventures were had in those 2 hours…..
We encountered the “Naked Cowboy” right away. A very interesting character…the girls were
not impressed, but mom was.
I had promised the girls that we would go to Aeropostale –
it’s the flagship store and in the middle of Times Square. We had a good coupon and did some serious
fall shopping.
We did the Disney Store, and just played around a bit. The “fake”
dressed up characters weren’t fun and our accidental pic with fake Cookie
Monster almost turned ugly as he followed us and asked for a tip….we didn’t
even want the picture taken.
The girls were ready to head back after that adventure. We turned up 44th St and headed
towards John’s Pizzeria. We’d been there before and knew it was good food and
reliable for an early dinner before the show.
After dinner, back to the hotel and we got cleaned up for
the show. We headed out to the Palace Theater and snapped a few nighttime pics
on the way.
We arrived at the Palace Theater for Annie with time to
spare.
Our seats were front row Mezzanine – so we were right at the
balcony level and could basically look right down on the stage. Perfect!!
The show was great! It was still in previews and the show we saw was only the 5th true
performance. Official opening night isn’t until November 8th. Carleigh had performed in Annie at her middle
school last year and had worked with a director that had/has many Broadway
connections. We sat there amazed at how the middle school production paralleled
the Broadway production…down to dance moves and exact staging and blocking…even
some of the prop choices. Carleigh was in heaven and doing her best not to sing
out loud with the performers. No pics allowed, but I got a quick (no flash)
shot of the orphans.
After the show, we scoped out the Stage door and were told
that everyone would be out – after all, it was only the 5th
performance for these girls and they were still probably soaking up the
limelight.
Saturday was complete – and successful. We fought our way
through “Saturday night in Times Square
on a holiday weekend” and it was pretty scary – made it back to the hotel to sleep and gear up for a VERY busy Sunday!!
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