We are lucky stinkin' ducks. We have been so dang spoiled in our marriage with traveling and babysitters and it just keeps getting better. Kyle has always wanted to attend the Broadway Teachers Workshop in NYC. After the success of Mary Poppins he really felt like he wanted to really start learning the ins and outs of musicals, and what better way to do that than going to NYC. The school was awesome and approved to pay for his ticket into the Workshop and for 3 nights of the hotel if we paid his meals and flight. Deal! There's no way I was going to let him go without me- again- so I called up my Mom and booked her for a week.
After the festivities of the 4th of July, we packed up the van and headed down to the valley. We met my parents at the airport and swapped the kids out and headed to our flight!
Since this happened 6 months ago (worst family blogger ever) I'm going to hit the highlights, I don't remember a lot of the little things (UGH!!).
We stayed in a pretty nice hotel with a huge bathroom, which is a hot commodity in Manhattan. Honestly, I don't even remember which day we did things so this might be a little sporadic.
We hit up a yummy pizza place- like really yummy, walked around a lot, checked out Time Square, found the location of the Workshop so we wouldn't be lost the next day, and then hit up our very first musical of the vacation. Hello Dolly. We got tickets through the discount Tckts booth and scored front row seats. They aren't the best seats in the house since you can see every single detail (and bead of sweat and spit) but it was a whole new experience for sure. The show was SO good and we LOVED it.
The next day was the first whole day at the Broadway Teachers Workshop. We spent the day in classes and then went and saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that night. Not our favorite. Definitely, my least favorite that we saw on Broadway, hands down. Some of the sets were cool, but I just didn't feel a connection with the characters at all. It was actually nice to finally be able to say "ya know, I didn't like that" after seeing a show on Broadway because now I know that I'm not just saying they are amazing because of the location :).
The next day was another day filled with classes. Oh, and we got to sit in on a discussion with Pasek and Paul. The writers of Dear Evan Hansen. Only the best musical ever, and really the whole reason why I went to eh NYC, to begin with :). They talked about creating Dear Evan Hansen and the process. It was so cool to see them! That night we went and saw Anatasia. I loved it! Kyle didn't love it but enjoyed it.
The third and final day of the workshop was a pretty low key one and my favorite day of the whole trip. We had a small session altogether and then we went to the Disney theater there on Broadway and got a tour of the set. There was such cool history surrounding the building and it was very neat to learn about it all. Part of the tour was being about to hold some of the props from different Disney productions. It was so neat!
Next was the best part and the best musical. Literally, it got voted Best Musical so I'm not alone in thinking that :) We got to see Dear Evan Hansen. Kyle wrote up a beautiful review of it, and if I can find it I'll share it. Let's just say, it was an emotional workout. After leaving, I just felt emotionally drained. It was beautiful and funny and sad and happy and all the emotions that you can possibly feel. It was. Amazing. In every sense of the word.
After that emotional roller coaster, we went and saw Come From Away- which is a musical in the time of 9/11. It is about the town Gander in Newfoundland where the flights coming into the US were sent to when the US's airspace was closed. It was so good!!
The next day was Sunday. We went to church around 10am at a chapel that was in the temple and then took a stroll around the central park. We went back to the hotel, took a nap, and then ventured off to see our 6th and final musical, Groundhog Day and get a pretty sweet tour of the NBC studios, including Jimmy Fallon's studio! So cool!. Groundhog Day was pretty close to the movie and although it was entertaining, I didn't like it. Kyle did though, so that was good :).
As we were getting ready the next morning to go home, we got a text that our flight had been canceled. Talk about a moment of stress. Kyle found us another flight and we got to the airport within 10 minutes of our plane boarding, it was a close one!
I loved our trip together to NYC. Since we usually travel with my mother in law, who I LOVE, it was nice to be on a vacation with just my best friend.
