When you're an Addams...

It’s Tuesday night and three sleepy travellers are staying in and watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on Justin’s computer.  So, while Charlie searches for his golden ticket, let me take you back to Sunday…

Josh and I made our (seemingly) daily journey into Times Square and bought our tickets to The Addams Family.  With a few hours to spare we went to find food and on our way stumbled across La Duca Shoes, now this might not mean much, but these are seriously famous dance shoes.  And they are beautiful.  Soft leather, suede soles… My favourite were the lace-up boots.  Incredible.  If you’ve seen Every Little Step the documentary on auditioning for the most recent Broadway revival of A Chorus Line, it features in that.  This was an exciting and unexpected tourist stop for me! Ok, I’ll stop fawning over the shoes now.

We found a burger place and stopped for lunch.  You may notice I’m eating a lot of burgers…  In Josh’s words, they’re real food here.  And they’re cheap.  So we sat for a while having lunch and discussing our own creative pursuits before some general ambling.  With some time to spare, we sat on the red TKTS stairs in Times Square and soaked up the atmosphere.

A bit before 3pm we took our seats in the mezzanine of the (freezing cold) theatre.  As the overture played, I experienced one of the strangest audience moments of my life so far… The classic Addams Family theme played and almost everyone in the theatre clicked or clapped at the appropriate moment. I can’t say I was one of them.  Organic.  Anyway, curtain up on The Addams Family.  From time to time, musical theatre gives me spontaneous tears.  They take me by surprise, they’re not exactly emotional, and they’re not even brought on by my favourite moments in theatre.  The opening beats of Good Morning Baltimore in Hairspray, the entrance of the chorus girls in I Want To Be A Producer in The Producers… And when Nathan Lane walked downstage at the beginning of The Addams Family.

With the exception of the curtain (I’m not even kidding, it was very impressive) and a couple of decent one liners (“that stuff can turn Mary Poppins into Medea”), that was the peak of my enjoyment.  The music was reminiscent of Lippa’s earlier work, The Wild Party, in parts, but the songs seemed to come from nowhere.  There was too much music and not enough all at once.  Wednesday Addams (Krysta Rodriguez) was good, Bebe Neuwirth’s speaking voice makes me want to weep with joy, and… No, that’s it.  That’s all the good bits.  It’s a spectacle, but it’s not a good show.  Amazing cast, though.  I enjoyed the excerpt in Fame’s senior musical better than the Broadway show.  I’m serious.

At least my Broadway experience can only improve.

After the show, we stalked the stage door hoping to see Bebe Neuwirth.  We didn’t, but we had a brief conversation with Carollee Carmello and that was kind of awesome.  She’s so nice, I almost feel bad doing terrible imitations of her singing the role of Lucille in Parade

.

We walked up to Lindy’s for famous New York baked cheesecake.  The slices were enormous and had a flavour unlike any other cheesecake I’ve ever eaten.  It was… cheesier, less sweet, and with a light aftertaste of lemon.  Light and creamy and so filling.  It nearly beat me, but with Josh’s encouragement I managed to finish my enormous slice of famous, overpriced cheesecake.

We went into the Times Square visitor’s centre to make a wish.  You write your wish on a small square of coloured tissue paper (mine was purple), then you put it in a box and they pin it on the wall for you.  The wishes will then be included in the confetti released over Times Square at midnight on new year’s eve.

By this time it was raining quite heavily and getting a bit cold so we went into the subway and headed home.  Joshie ended up staying out, so I had Nasi Goreng from our local Thai restaurant and had a quiet night in with Justin.

Well, that took a while. Willy Wonka is giving the factory to Charlie, gotta love a happy ending.

Missing everyone. Heaps.

Love and millions of rainbow wishes… Jules xx