Throughout the summer, a local radio station puts on a thing called "Broadway in Bryant Park," where the stars of various shows perform a couple of songs for free, and it always draws a huge crowd. I had gathered up a small group of theater fans from the office to take a lunch break and check it out this week, mostly because of the slated performance by the cast of an upcoming show - called "13" - by my favorite composer, Jason Robert Brown. We were kind of late, so we got stuck standing to the side of the stage, which was actually fine with me, as long as I could hear them sing. After the performance, I turned to make a comment to my friends, and guess who was standing right behind me? Yeah, this dude:
That's JRB, himself, by the way. This man is a genius. Seriously, if you like theater (or just great music, especially piano, he's a beast on the piano arrangements), and you haven't heard The Last Five Years or Songs for a New World, go download them now.
So I turn around, see him there, and freak out. I'm so lame. I finally (okay, maybe 20 seconds later) got my act together, and walked over to where he'd gone to congratulate the performers/talk to his friends and meet him. Sadly, I had forgotten my camera at home that day, which was incredibly unfortunate. But I did get an autograph. From my idol. Sweet.
In meeting JRB, I had inadvertently positioned myself right by the holding area where the actors from each show were coming and going between performances. Which equals more celebrity sightings. I met the adorable miss Bailey Hanks, aka the new Elle from Legally Blonde: The Musical. She's just as precious and sweet as you'd expect her to be. And I met the current (and final) cast of Rent.
All in all, a celebrity filled lunchbreak. It was also a great lunch for another reason - for the first time, really, I felt like I actually live in NY rather than feeling like a tourist on a prolonged visit. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but it kind of felt like this whole New York life is reality. Weird.
Now, I feel like I should also mention another sighting I had this week. In case you didn't know, Wendy Kopp is the founder of Teach for America, and she was also named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People this year. She works in the same office I do, but on a different floor. It's kind of an unofficial game around the office - Spot Wendy. Especially for the new employees like me. So, I was very excited when she walked past me on my way to work on Friday. Of course, she has no idea who I am or that I have anything to do with TFA; in fact, I bet she wondered why the heck this random girl in front of Starbucks was grinning at her. So that counts as a pseudo-celebrity sighting.
Finally, a couple of sightings that weren't of celebrities, but were interesting to me. I got to see my mom and stepdad this weekend! I took a little day trip down to DC, where they were staying for a conference. It was really, really great to get to visit with them. Plus, I'd never been to DC, so we did a little sightseeing too. The last sighting happened during our outing to the White House. We were walking down the street from the front lawn, when who should walk past me but my friend Rod from OU. Isn't it just a crazy small world?
Alright, that's my update on my celeb-reality. Now reality for the rest of the weekend is going to involve vegging out on the couch and getting a lot of work down before the next crazy week starts. And I'm perfectly okay with only seeing tiny versions of celebrities on my TV screen.
No comments:
Post a Comment