RREEEENNTT!! On BROAD-WAY!!

Had a chance last night to do something really fun in New York: I went to my first Broadway show.
A friend of mine called me up in the middle of the day to tell me that she’d been given orchestra section tickets to Rent for that night by one of her housemates, who’d won them in a raffle but couldn’t attend, and would I like to come with her as her guest? I had to think it over for all of half a second.
We went out to dinner beforehand and had a good time chatting before the show. The line to see the show was insane, it was wrapped around the block, which is really saying something because city blocks here in NYC are huge. Both of us were quite surprised, especially since the theater doesn’t look that big from the outside. But we got in fine once the line got moving, and our seats really were pretty good, floor level, right hand side, fourth or fifth row back, and on the aisle which is always a huge plus for me since I have long legs.
The show was a bit late getting started, and to be honest took me a little bit to get into. I often find that with musicals, it’s like Shakespeare, for the first little while the language bugs me until I get into the groove of it. This was the same, but by the first half hour I was enjoying it, and by the end I was really quite into it. I actually kept wishing time would move faster during the intermission so we could get back to the show.
The performers were all great, good voices, some of them very good dancers and physical performers, all of them looking as though they were having a lot of fun. The story was predictable in some places, but I can say I wasn’t sure exactly how it would end and was pleasantly surprised.
I did some reading afterwards about the whole bohemian subculture as it existed down in the East Village and Alphabet City before the gentrification, and was able to appreciate the play more that way in retrospect. At the time I didn’t understand many of the references and the social situations the play was alluding to. I told Amanda that I’d decided to go into it blind, not having read anything about the play beforehand, and I’m glad I did. It was fun and interesting to experience with no preconceptions. But I was able to reflect and enjoy it more once I understood some of the background and surrounding context to the show. It was a great introduction to Broadway though, one thing I didn’t know beforehand or expect is that the music is all played live too, by a small group of musicians up onstage, tucked away from the main sets but still visible.
It was extremely generous of Amanda to think of me when she got the tickets, and I really did have a good time seeing it with her and chatting about it afterwards. I’ll certainly have to take in one or two other shows while I’m here in the city.