HAIRSPRAY!!!!

Wednesday’s highlights included a fun and fruity dance class called “NIA” at Equinox where I learned how to shake my bones. I loved the teacher….he was straight out of a movie about a fruity, NY dance teacher who begs you to love your body and yourself. Tee hee. I met up with Tawnya (my violist friend from Rice and my favourite Canadian) for a very fun adventure. First, I took a train to Grand Central where I got lost, lost, lost. I get so confused about the order of Fifth and Park and Madison…I got quite the tour of the area but eventually found Times Square and even the Mary Poppins theatre…we were hoping to get discount tickets to the matinee of that one. Tawnya was late so I went and scoped out the TKTS booth on 46th…the problem with TKTS is they only give you 50% off the highest-priced tickets available, often $110-120. Tawnya and I wanted to spend $40 or less. We discovered that each show has different rush and lottery procedures. Mary Poppins has no rush tickets and Drowsy Chaperone, our second choice, has a lottery system but it closes 90 minutes before show-time. On a whim we stopped by Hairspray to see if they had any rush tickets and they did for $25…that’s just about 2 NY movies! It was such a cute and bubbly show…I really loved it more than I expected…great dancing and costumes and funny script…two of the characters even broke character and couldn’t stop laughing in a really funny part…it was a magical moment for all of us…seeing both sides of the comedy! We saw the understudy for Tracy and also for Penny, the character that Diana DeGarmo plays…but they both were excellent. I realized that the only other Broadway show I’ve seen was with Tawnya…about 5 years ago…seeing Jasmine Guy in Chicago, ah…another amazing and memorable experience. Tawnya and I toured around some of the sheet music stores before parting ways. I was greeted by an AMAZING dinner of whole-wheat pasta with homemade sauce and turkey meatballs. (Thanks, MOM!)