Greetings from New York I

The line is short at the temporary TKTS half-price ticket booth (although just about everyting is available), every third non-tourist woman seems to want to be Tina Fey, and Central Park looks great. Wish you were all here.

I’m blogging from an Internet cafe on 8th Avenue on my trek up toward Lincoln Center where I will be catching the matinee of “South Pacific.” From there it’s a stop for some jazz at Birdland and then the evening performance of the new musical “Cry-Baby,” which opened on Broadway last week. Some random thoughts:

* It seems odd that this is the first Broadway revival of that classic show. What took so long?

* Seems kind of magical, too, that the same show being staged with a 30-piece orchestra and top-notch cast here is also being performed in Indy at Footlite Musicals and in dozens of places around the country. There are only a handful of shows as oft-staged as this one. The question: What makes a classic? (I know there’s no answer to this or else there would be more of them.)

* The fact that Birdland charges a cover in the middle of Wednesday says something about this city.

* I’ve tried to avoid reading reviews of “Cry-Baby.” But I know that the New York Times was tepid and the Wall Street Journal raved. A friend who I asked to join me, an actor, said that he wouldn’t be caught dead at it. Still, I’m going in very hopeful. I try not to see anything that I can’t go into with not just an open mind, but with enthusiasm. I want this show to be very funny. I want it, like all shows here and at home, to be a show I can rave about in my IBJ review. We’ll see what happens.

More as the trip continues…

Meanwhile, feel free to chime in with great New York arts memories…