Today, Saturday March 8th marked our last full day in New York City this spring break… I felt really sad about this all day. This trip has been almost overwhelmingly amazing. But in a way, I am ready to go back and get back to everything I have going on in Fredericksburg. Mainly, I will be back at my apartment and will finally have a little bit of time and space to truly come to terms in full realization of how this trip effected me and I will be able to take in everything that happened. I will make a post in the next couple days about my overall experience, but it may take a little bit of time to gather all of my thoughts.

Today we saw Sunday in the Park With George for our matinee at Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54 on 54th St. between Broadway and 8th Avenue. I was excited to see this production for two primary reasons. I had read an article in the New York Times about the intense animation skills incorporated in this production because the director is a very skilled animator as well. Also, in regards to the director the article discussed how young he is, at a mere 32 if I remember correctly. So first off I wanted to see it because of this director’s very young and intriguing take on this classic piece. Secondly, I wanted to see a production of this play because I have never heard any of the music and was not overly familiar with the script and storyline. I was very impressed with the skills in animation, but very disappointed in the storyline and music so I guess it was an even mediocre experience for me. The animation aspects were so amazing and I was literally sitting there with my mouth dropped open. The way they had the set (which was all white walls) colored in moving animation in correspondence to the story was absolutely astonishing. (They had a blank canvas of a dog that could move and wag its tail, I mean seriously impressive for my standards at least. As far as the story, I felt it was very slow and did not grab my attention at all. The music all seemed incredibly slow-moving and monotonous. There was not enough variety in the tempo and tune for my taste. I wanted at least a few songs to be a bit livelier. My favorite song, the only one that truly grabbed my full attention was “We Don’t Belong Together,” sang by Dot. Oh also, I loved the lead female actress as well.

Our evening show was Paradise Park at Signature Theatre Company on 42nd St. between 10th and 11th Avenues. This show was very absurd and I was just not into it at all. It was way too over the top for me. It was set in a quirky amusement park with very bizarre characters and story-lines such as a man in a mouse costume falling in love with a untalented ventriloquist’s dummy. They went to the extent of putting fruit cake in a sling shot and flinging it across the stage and smashing it against the wall of mirrors (of which pieces flew into the audience on Latera, Jenn, and I- ewww), blowing up a moon bounce on stage, and you may not even want to know what else. I went into it with the impression that it was a musical, which it was not a typical one at least…I just didn’t care about the characters at all and didn’t invest any of myself in them so I didn’t care what happened to them in the end. Any conflict they had was just too extreme that I just wanted it to end quickly so I didn’t have to deal with it. The artistic direction was just not to my liking and I couldn’t get past certain things that seemed insane to me. I can appreciate absurdist pieces, don’t get me wrong- but I just did not enjoy this piece.

I have very mixed emotions about leaving tomorrow, but I know I got a lot out of this trip and am satisfied with my progress here in the Big Apple. Well, we have a group brunch tomorrow, one more show, and a trip back to Fred and then it’s back to school bright and early Monday morning… did I mention: eeeeek. I’ll write more on the WiFi bus- which better have it’s WiFi working this time around.