Friday, January 04, 2008

wine and beer!


This is the lyric from RENT that is currently in my head, because a friend at work kept repeating it today.


Tomorrow I am going to NYC to see RENT for the 18th time. Mind you, I haven't seen it in New York that many times - in fact, this is only the fourth time at the Nederlander Theater - but then when you add the 14 times I've seen it on tour, well, here I am. A true and official nerdalicious RENT-head.


The first time I saw RENT was in September 1997, a year after it had opened on Broadway. I went with my friend Hilary a week before her wedding. We took the train down, blew all of our money on tickets, and wandered around the city all day, just waiting for the 8 p.m. curtain. I saw most of the original Broadway cast that night, and needless to say, it made quite an impression. I was giddy after that performance. Giddy. I didn't sleep the whole night and was a complete zombie the next day at work, but it was completely worth it. Since then, the show has remained at the top of my "favorite shows" list. And I've seen a lot of shows.


It's pretty amazing to think about how much my life has changed since the first time I saw the show, but the fact remains that I can't think of a better way to spend $75 (the cost of my ticket that day) in New York. I know Alan is going to blah blah blah all over my little RENT geek-tacular here, because he hates the show (although he's never SEEN it!), but I can't wait.


Greg got me tickets to go see the show with my friend Heather - he knew the first thing I would worry about is who is taking care of Jane, so he's doing Daddy-duty for the day so I don't stress (too much) - and we're traveling in style, by limo. This is, by far, the fanciest thing I've done in a long, long, LONG time.


I just spent the past half hour looking at RENT's official site, seeing who's in the show now, happy to see some familiar faces. (alas, not the two faces above - I missed Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp's return to RENT last summer because I was on 24-hour baby duty). It's like seeing old friends. Except friends that are a lot cooler and more attractive than me.


I'll give you my review of the show this weekend (and don't think I'll automatically gush. Quite the opposite. When you've seen a show this many times, you get very critical.)

4 comments:

Flann said...

Oooohh fancy! What are you going to wear?

Optimistic Diva said...

I heart this show, you know I do. And I could quote it endlessly, but instead I'll leave you with, "To being an us, for once, instead of a 'them'."

Alan said...

I was making no such comment whatsoever because I know for a fact that if anyone deserves a "blah blah blah" about a "geek-tacular" blog posting it's me! Hope you had fun. We changed our NYC day to Sunday instead of Saturday so I hope you didn't waste copious amounts of time looking around the city for us.

lgaumond said...

Great, now I've got THAT song stuck in my head, too! I hope you had a fantastic time. I'm incredibly jealous as I've only seen RENT once and it was at the Oakdale (when it was still called the Oakdale) so that probably doesn't even really count. Greg is really good at the fancy gifts! Does he give lessons?