Moving is Awful

I'm packing!  And no I'm not done.  But I'm making progress!

An Oregon Adventure

We take a small break in Big Apple Adventures to bring you an Oregon Adventure!

Yep, for the past week I've been in Oregon visiting my parents and my grandparents who are also visiting.

Basically it was a very relaxing week of shopping (no sales tax, woo hoo!), seeing friends from college, visiting with former coworkers, eating at the restaurants I can't go to in NY, and I'm probably forgetting something but that seems about the gist of it.  I'm actually writing this post from the airport as I wait to take my red-eye outta here.

I made potato chip cookies with my grandma which was fun.  I've always loved these cookies and now I finally know how to make them.

Salem is doing this art installation thing where they placed pianos all over the city that anyone could go and play should they so desire.  So my mom took a couple of pictures of me playing the piano that is on the pedestrian bridge.

I guess the only other major news is that I got my hair cut!  I love that it takes me literally 30 seconds to dry in the mornings again.

I also ended up going through a lot of boxes of my childhood possessions, especially books from elementary school and finally got rid of a ton.  I'm actually going to donate many of the children's books to the library of an elementary school in California named after my great-great-grandfather!  When I was looking through all of the boxes I found all the old vhs home videos my parents had taken through the years and man, they were hysterical to watch.  I ended up recording a few of them from the tv just to have so here's a glimpse.

This is Track Day at the my elementary school in 1994 so I would have been in 1st grade.  Clearly my athleticism knows no bounds.

Well, I think that's everything for now.  New York here I come!!

Stress

So I've kind of been a giant ball of stress and emotion recently, hence the lack of posting.

But I did have a fun weekend a couple of weekends ago when Tom came to visit me!

He was just here for the weekend and he's done most of the normal touristy stuff before so I decided to take him on "Allison's Awesome Adventure Tour".  Stops include Toys R Us, the Nintendo World store, the Lego store, and Dylan's Candy Bar.  Oh and we saw Phantom of the Opera.  Basically, we had a lot of fun :)

On the subway!

Monica came to visit too!  I also met another friend of Tom's!

Other than that I haven't done a whole lot.  I was briefly distracted from real life with the Colorado Wildfires.  Luckily everyone I know seems to be ok but it was a pretty scary couple of days.  And I'll definitely miss the Flying W :(

I've also been dealing with apartment drama but I won't get into that here.  So basically it's been a bundle of emotions, which helps illustrate my theory that I post less when I'm stressed out and you can tell exactly what months are more stressful than others by the amount of posts that they have :P

Oh! I almost forgot!  I have a new baby cousin tooo!  He's completely adorable :).

Ok, that's all for now.  I'll be in Oregon next week for a quick trip which is super exciting too!

A Sunday Adventure

On Sunday Kari and I decided to have a little adventure and we wandered down to Bloomingdales to check out an exhibit they were having of Broadway costumes.  It was smaller than I expected, but pretty neat!

Phantom of the Opera

The Producers

Sister Act

The Lion King

The Lion King

The wardrobe from Beauty and the Beast

The hats are from Aida

More Aida hats

Since Bloomingdales is right next to Dylan's Candy Bar...we of course had to pop in and check it out / buy candy.  :)

They had a big advertisement for these new Girl Scout candy bars!  I really wanted to buy some but they had already sold out.  I don't think GS had this much marketing in my day....

Don't Dress for Dinner

Saturday night I went to see Don't Dress for Dinner.  It was actually the show's closing weekend so I'm glad I had a chance to see it.

The show is a french farce and so it was very very funny.  I think I laughed practically the whole time.  It's hard to explain what the show is about, but the short version is that it's a married couple who each somehow end up having their lovers invited to the house all at the same time.  So it's a lot of miscommunication and slapstick humor.  Also the part I really enjoyed is that one of the actresses in it was in Urinetown when I saw it on Broadway when I was 14.  She was hysterical in the show and I find it so amusing that I saw her in a different show just over 10 years ago!




I also ended up going to Brooklyn during the day on Saturday and saw some awesome views of Manhattan!

This is basically the financial district

If you look really carefully you can see the Statue of Liberty

The Brooklyn Bridge

The Manhattan Bridge

Another view of the Manhattan Bridge

More Tonys and Harvey

First of all, there is finally a good video out there for Harvey, so take a look!





And then here are my favorite Tony Award moments as promised last post :)

Of course we have the opening number:



And Neil Patrick Harris' opening number:



And an awesome Newsies performance:



The Year in Plays was pretty good. I especially liked the live performance from Peter and the Starcatcher and One Man 2 Guvners:



I think finally just the closing number! I'll wait to post any other cast performances that I liked until I see that show, if I get a chance to see any of the shows haha.



And there you go!

Tony Predictions - And winners!

If you care about not knowing who won the Tony awards last night...well then you'd better come back and read this post later.  That's your warning.

Kari and I made Tony predictions right before they started last night but as I wasn't around my computer at that time, I'll post them now along with who actually won!  We got a lot wrong (mostly when it had to do with Nice Work If You Can Get It, but I think we made some pretty good guesses!  Our guesses are highlighted in blue with winners notated in bold.

We had a total of 13 correct guesses (Kari had 15 because I really just wanted Newsies to sweep the board and she was smarter and realized that Once would win a lot of awards).

I think Once pretty much swept the board with 11 nominations and 8 Tonys as far as musicals go and then as far as plays go Peter and the Starcatcher had 9 nominations and 5 Tonys.

I'll do another post later with some of my favorite moments :)

Best Play
Clybourne Park - Winner
Other Desert Cities
Peter and the Starcatcher 
Venus in Fur  

Best Musical
Leap of Faith
Newsies - Allison's prediction
Nice Work If You Can Get It
Once - Kari's prediction - Winner

Best Revival of a Play
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman - Winner
Gore Vidal’s The Best Man
Master Class
Wit

Best Revival of a Musical
Evita
Follies
The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess - Winner
Jesus Christ Superstar

Best Book of a Musical
Lysistrata Jones
Newsies
Nice Work If You Can Get It
Once - Winner

Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre
Bonnie & Clyde
Newsies - Winner
One Man, Two Guvnors
Peter and the Starcatcher

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play
James Corden, One Man, Two Guvnors - Winner
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
James Earl Jones, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man
Frank Langella, Man and Boy
John Lithgow, The Columnist



Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play
Nina Arianda, Venus in Fur - Winner
Tracie Bennett, End of the Rainbow
Stockard Channing, Other Desert Cities
Linda Lavin, The Lyons
Cynthia Nixon, Wit



Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical
Danny Burstein, Follies
Jeremy Jordan, Newsies
Steve Kazee, Once - Winner
Norm Lewis, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Ron Raines, Follies



Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical
Jan Maxwell, Follies
Audra McDonald, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess - Winner
Cristin Milioti, Once
Kelli O’Hara, Nice Work If You Can Get It
Laura Osnes, Bonnie & Clyde



Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play
Christian Borle, Peter and the Starcatcher - Winner
Michael Cumpsty, End of the Rainbow
Tom Edden, One Man, Two Guvnors
Andrew Garfield, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Jeremy Shamos, Clybourne Park



Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play
Linda Emond, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Spencer Kayden, Don’t Dress for Dinner
Celia Keenan-Bolger, Peter and the Starcatcher
Judith Light, Other Desert Cities - Winner
Condola Rashad, Stick Fly



Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
Phillip Boykin, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Michael Cerveris, Evita
David Alan Grier, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Michael McGrath, Nice Work If You Can Get It - Winner
Josh Young, Jesus Christ Superstar



Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical
Elizabeth A. Davis, Once
Jayne Houdyshell, Follies
Judy Kaye, Nice Work If You Can Get It - Winner
Jessie Mueller, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Ghost the Musical



Best Scenic Design of a Play
John Lee Beatty, Other Desert Cities
Daniel Ostling, Clybourne Park
Mark Thompson, One Man, Two Guvnors
Donyale Werle, Peter and the Starcatcher - Winner



Best Scenic Design of a Musical
Bob Crowley, Once - Winner
Rob Howell and Jon Driscoll, Ghost the Musical
Tobin Ost and Sven Ortel, Newsies
George Tsypin, Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark

Best Costume Design of a Play
William Ivey Long, Don’t Dress for Dinner
Paul Tazewell, A Streetcar Named Desire
Mark Thompson, One Man, Two Guvnors
Paloma Young, Peter and the Starcatcher - Winner



Best Costume Design of a Musical
Gregg Barnes, Follies - Winner
ESosa, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Eiko Ishioka, Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark
Martin Pakledinaz, Nice Work If You Can Get It

Best Lighting Design of a Play
Jeff Croiter, Peter and the Starcatcher - Winner
Peter Kaczorowski, The Road to Mecca
Brian MacDevitt, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Kenneth Posner, Other Desert Cities

Best Lighting Design of a Musical
Christopher Akerlind, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Natasha Katz, Follies
Natasha Katz, Once - Winner
Hugh Vanstone, Ghost the Musical

Best Sound Design of a Play
Paul Arditti, One Man, Two Guvnors
Scott Lehrer, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Gareth Owen, End of the Rainbow
Darron L West, Peter and the Starcatcher - Winner

Best Sound Design of a Musical
Acme Sound Partners, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Clive Goodwin, Once - Winner
Kai Harada, Follies
Brian Ronan, Nice Work If You Can Get It

Best Choreography
Rob Ashford, Evita
Christopher Gattelli, Newsies - Winner
Steven Hoggett, Once
Kathleen Marshall, Nice Work If You Can Get It

Best Direction of a Play
Nicholas Hytner, One Man, Two Guvnors
Pam MacKinnon, Clybourne Park
Mike Nichols, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman - Winner
Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, Peter and the Starcatcher


Best Direction of a Musical
Jeff Calhoun, Newsies - Allison's prediction
Kathleen Marshall, Nice Work If You Can Get It
Diane Paulus, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
John Tiffany, Once - Kari's prediction - Winner



Best Orchestrations
William David Brohn and Christopher Jahnke, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
Bill Elliott, Nice Work If You Can Get It
Martin Lowe, Once - Winner
Danny Troob, Newsies

June

I just realized that it's June 8th and I don't have a single posting for the month of June yet!

So random exciting bits of news.

I have a new baby cousin!  I got to see some pictures and he's adorable!

I'm on the apartment hunt again!

I should really get ready for work instead of writing this!

One Can Always Use a Little Harry Potter in One's Life

This update is a little belated, but I've been busy being the quarter of a century adult that I'm supposed to be!  Memorial day weekend was really great and relaxing, something that I definitely needed.  So working (somewhat) backwards, on Monday all I did was lounge around and clean my room, which was fabulous!  And now my bookshelf doesn't look like it exploded anymore.  Then Monday after work I dropped off my laundry and went to the grocery store.  See...adult.

Anyway, before that I mostly hung out a lot with Kari and her sister Katy who was visiting and I we had a blast!  Since I got off work before Kari, I hung out with Katy on Friday while we waited for her to get off work.  She wanted to see Mood fabrics so I took her there.  Then we thought we'd try our hands at the Book of Mormon lottery and, turns out, Katy got her name pulled!  So that was exciting for them since neither of them have seen the show.  I've seen it twice at this point and while it's an amazing show, I wasn't all that broken up about not seeing it again.  So after a quick bite, I left them at the theatre and headed back to my place.

On Saturday I walked over to Kari's with some overnight stuff in preparation for a sleepover!  Ok, actually before that happened I was supposed to wake up super early and go stand in line with them for rush tickets to Once.  Katy had been trying every day since she got to the city, getting there at 7:30 in the morning and was still too far back in line to get tickets.  So on Saturday the plan was for them to go look at the line and then I would join them later (and bring coffee as my payment for being late hehe).  Even though they got there at 7ish, it still seemed like the line was too long so they decided to forgo that idea for the moment.  Instead, I ended up seeing something in my email about getting $5 student tickets to see Potted Potter so when I suggested that, they were game.

Ok, Potted Potter is a show I've been desperately wanting to see because, of course, it's about Harry Potter.  It's a parody that these guys from the UK put together and it's advertised as all 7 books in 70 minutes plus a game of quidditch thrown in.  I would have been able to get $30 discounted tickets through TDF, but even that seemed a little steep for what it seemed like this show was.  $5, however, was the perfect price!

It was extremely funny.  Definitely not $30 funny, but I'd say anywhere up to $15 funny.  I think I laughed the entire time.  It's similar to The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged.

This is their preview for the show:




Saturday night I spent the night at Kari's place and then Sunday night she and Katy spent the night at my place and we ended up ordering food and making colorful chocolate chip cookies (I still had food coloring left over from my birthday cake).  All in all, a great weekend!

Birthday Adventures

After graduation I had another fun event to look forward to:  My birthday!  I always get excited about my birthday, and this year was no exception.  The fun part was I think I had more friends around for my birthday than I have in several years.  In Oregon most of my buds went home for the summer, so not everyone was around.  Last year I had a small group of my TC friends, which was nice.  But this year, I not only had pretty much all of my TC friends, but I also had a pretty good selection of Willamette folks as well!  It was more than I ever could have asked for :)

I ended up working on my birthday, but it was a Friday so you know what that means! BAGELS!!!!  Only in this case it was not only Bagel Friday, it was Birthday Bagel Friday!  Woo hoo!  One of my co-workers took me out for lunch too, which was super nice.

Immediately after work I made my way to Columbia where we had a reservation at Amsterdam Cafe.  Amsterdam Cafe is a (kind of) tapas restaurant near TC that I like to go to.  I like their tapas menu and they have pretty good drinks so and it's pretty convenient to most of my friends, so I decided that would be a nice place to go and meet my friends.  The plan was to have dinner and drinks and then go back to my place for cake (which was amazing, but I'll get to that in a second).  We ended up talking and laughing so much that we didn't end up leaving the restaurant until about 11pm, so only Monica and Kari came back with me to my place, which was fine but kind of sad since they had both already seen the cake.  So no one new got to see the cake in person, but we ate it and it was delicious.

What follows is a lot of pictures of my awesome birthday cake....I had a really hard time picking them.  I took waaaayyyy more photos than one person ever needs of a single cake, but I was so excited by the theme of my cake that I got a little carried away.

The cake without the toppers

We stored it in the microwave overnight so the frosting wouldn't get messed up

That's right...I had a Harry Potter cake!!!!!!!!!!!

Harry is on a broom :)

With candles

Artsy candle shot

It was funfetti flavored cake

The next day, Saturday, Kari, Monica, and I decided to check out this dance parade that was happening near Union Square Park.  Turns out, it was a lot of fun.  I guess any dance group could sign up to dance down the parade route so you really had a variety.  It started off with these different cultural dance groups, like flamenco for example.  It then went into some ballroom and hip hop.  There were also some cheerleading groups and even a Zumba class.  Towards the end of the parade, however, the dancers did become a little more strange.  I saw several dancers dressed as zombies and at the tail end of the parade were a lot of dancers in strange costumes waving their hands in the air and "feeling the music, man"

After the parade we met up with Jessie and Alyssa at Rockefeller Center and just toured around.

Can't pass up an opportunity to have my picture taken with Harry Potter

Then, the highlight of Saturday came.  We were going to see Harvey starring Jim Parsons!  Jim Parsons is one of the stars of The Big Bang Theory, one of my favorite shows.  I knew the play itself would be very funny so I was really looking forward to it.

The show did not disappoint.  It was very funny and extremely well cast.  It's a very new show, previews just started on the 18th, meaning it hasn't even officially opened yet.  Hence the lack of a good video to post.  But I think it will do well.  

 After the show we decided to check out the stage door, and I was even able to get Jim Parsons' autograph!