The Week: New York

This week has been perhaps the most filled weeks I've ever had. So many things happened and so many situations occurred that I wouldn't even dream of. It was an odd week, but a great week. To start the week off, our school had an early out, but since we had a show choir competition Saturday we still had to practice from one o'clock to three. After two run throughs of our show I went home and slept till the next morning. It turned out our school had a two hour delay, but I wasn't planning on going to school anyways because my father and I were planning to go to New York City (for an audition for Brighton Beach Memoirs on Broadway).

So we began driving to the Moline airport in Illinois, which is about an hour and a half away from Cedar Rapids. We then flew to Atlanta where we dined at the Atlanta Bread Company (it's a cafe in the airport). All the while, my dad and I were bickering with each other about my life mainly, and how I need to communicate with him better. It soon ended once we came into trouble ourselves. As you know, a common enemy creates friendship. Our flight was delayed. We just wanted to get to Newark and see our cousins, Adam and Alicia. As we got on our plane, I immediately started listening to the XM radio they had, but about half way through the trip my system began failing and it was really frustrating.

We arrived at Newark at about 9:45. Our cousin Adam picked us up, along with his son, Benji who is two years old. I slept on the couch in their house, and I was so nervous about the audition the next day that all I did was toss and turn. Cleo and Nadia, their other two children who are four and six, respectively. They were darling children, and I wish I could always be with them because they are so beautiful, funny, and full of life. I hope that I will always remember their little voices that called out my name.

We got on the bus heading to the city at 7:25, so that we would be at the audition building at 8:30. The bus took us through the tunnel, and at one point there was a great landscape view of the city. We got off at Port Authority on 42nd. The audition was on 47th and 4th, I think. We got to walk through Times Square on our way to the building! The building ended up being the Equity Headquarters. When we first walked in there was a security man at the front desk and he had to take our picture while we said our name (all of this because we were non-union people). The audition was to be held on the second floor.

We first walked through a corridor that had one turn in it. It then led to a huge room. There were benches throughout the corridor with people sitting on them, waiting for the audition to start. These people were not equity members, for if you were, you'd probably be in the big room with all of the comfortable sofas and space. Since we were non-equity members, to audition we had to sign up on a sheet. The process was that when there was a time slot with not enough equity members, the monitor would come over and read off the non-equity name list. My dad and I thought that since we were early that we'd be in the top ten of the list. Boy were we wrong. I was number 32! I was greatly worried that I had flown all the way to New York for nearly nothing.

The audition started at 9:30, and it was then that they told the non-equity members that the producer would be accepting non-equity people to audition for Brighton Beach (for the auditioners could decide if they would accept non-equity members or not for the auditions at all). Around ten, the monitor told us that there wre few equity members planned to auditon for Brighton Beach Memoirs that day, so my day began to look much brighter. At 11:20 they called my name and I followed the monitor to the big room to sit down and wait for a few more minutes. While doing so, I recognized someone from my National Tour of The Music Man. It was Meghan Midkiff! She played Ethel Toffelmier, and she's a doll. She is so nice and we got to catch up a bit.

The audition itself went fairly well. I went into a small room, about the size of a smaller classroom. I had a single auditioner, and she didn't say much. I began by shaking her hand. Then I did my monologue and after it, all she said was, "Good. Good. Thank you." I could've been more satisfied with her response, but I guess that's what she said to everyone.

After the audition my dad had to meet with some guy about jewelry. During his meeting, I met up with Abby Rose and had lunch. She was also on The Music Man tour, and she is only a few years older than I. It was great to see her, but I wish we could've seen each other for a longer time. At 2:00 we caught the matinee of Mary Poppins, and it was actually a pretty good show. The set was wonderful, and there was lots of "magic" that occurred and spiced up the show.

We ate dinner back in the suburb with our cousins at a a Vietnamese restaurant called "Little Saigon." It was there that I had the best soup I've ever tasted. The children that night were a blast. I played cards with Nadia at the restaurant, and I also taught her some Chinese characters. I love Adam and Alicia and their children, and I'm glad I can be part of their family.

It snowed on Wednesday night, and my dad and I suspected some cancellations on Thursday for our plane ride home. We were right, and we ended up having to switch airports twice. First we switched from Newark to LaGuardia so we could get to Cedar Rapids earlier (I needed to get to Cedar Rapids ASAP because there was a show choir concert that night, and our choir needed a perfect attendance in order to participate in the competition. If I weren't there we wouldn't be able to go the competition). Then we switched back to Newark because LaGuardia's flights were nearly all cancelled because of the snow.

So we finally got in the air and flew to Atlanta. Before flying off to Atlanta, our XM radio notified us of a plane accident in the Hudson River, just beyond we were standing earlier that day. It was kind of freaky. In the end, we got to Moline (which was -22 degrees at the time) and drove to Cedar Rapids in time for the concert.