Harbor

Friday 8.30.2013

So I arrived to NYC on Friday. My plane was supposed to land a bit before four and we had theater tickets for Harbor that night at 8pm. I though four hours would be plenty of time to get to the apartment we had rented and then making my way to the theater. Just shows once more that I’m from a small country where things go smoothly and distances aren’t that big. Of course there was also some unlucky incidents on my way, like the fact that while we landed on time, we had to wait over 30 minutes before we got to the gate because some other plane was late and then it took 20 minutes for the subway to arrive that took me to the apartment. Long story short, I got to the theater about 5 minutes before the show started. All my friends had already gone in and had left my ticket to the box-office. Took me about four minutes to get them to find the ticket for me. And then they first tried to send me to the wrong theater. Slipped in pretty much right when they were already closing the door. Still, I made it! *g*

I’m sure everyone has already read reports about the play and knows the basics of what happens in it, so won’t go much into it. I’ll just go with saying that I really enjoyed the play and I think the whole cast did a very good job. The audience was very much going with the play and there was a lot of laughter and clapping in the right places. I actually saw a comment from Randy saying that that that evening’s audience had been "the best audience ever". The other members of the cast also tweeted about that after the play.

Randy’s character was so very cute in some parts of the play. I think one of my favorite scenes was when Kevin demonstrates who easily he gets distracted from things. He’s supposed to be working on a pamphlet about Sag Harbor but suddenly starts asking his partner if they can have a dog. And when he’s told no, he just asks if they could get a small one. And when that gets a no as well, he asks for a picture of a dog. So very cute! There were some other cute moments as well. There was of course the moment when Kevin places a tiara with pink decorations on his head while announcing that he’s not the woman. And I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the scene where Randy is on stage wearing just boxers. *g* All in all, I did enjoy the play a lot, even if there were moments when parts of the dialogue went past me. And there was also a term used that I totally forgot to have someone explain to me but I guess it’s too late now. Anyway, if someone wants to explain to me, what’s a "parking lot item", it would be great.

During intermission got to say hello to everyone properly. There were even people I wasn’t aware that were going to be there. Still, it was great to see everyone again.

After the play we remained behind to wait for the cast to come out to get them to sign our playbills. There were quite a lot of people waiting there that night. I was happy to hang out with wren_kt7oz and finally getting to meet rockie2010 and toto_too514. Wren_kt7oz I had met in LA while I was there to see Gale in Orpheus Descending as well as in Cologne last year. The others I only knew through talking to them on LJ but it was great to get to meet them face to face finally.

After a small wait all of the cast came out and I got them all sign my playbill. I won’t deny that my highest priority was to get Randy to sign the playbill but I did want all the others to sign it as well. They came out one by one. I had heard already earlier that Randy had said that he was in a hurry that evening since he had an early wake up the next morning but that he would definitely come and say hi to us. When he did come out he first said hi to a few other people. When it was my turn I got my customary "Hi, Pia!" I said hi to him and we exchanged some polite chatter. He did ask me how I was and I admitted to him that I was slightly tired and feeling jetlagged. He asked me if I had just flown in that day and I said yes. There really wasn’t much time to talk much since it was obvious that he was in a hurry. He signed everyone’s playbills that were there and then said that he was going to see us all on Sunday before heading out of the door.

We hung out outside the theater a while longer so that the rest of the cast made it out as well. Erin Cummings stayed talking with us for a while and asked us some questions. She was surprised to hear that there were so many different nationalities (US, UK, France, Finland) in our small group. She told us that she had studied in the UK, gone to vacation in Paris and did a press tour in Finland, so she managed to find a connection to us all. She was very nice to talk to.

When we started to make our way away from the theater, some people started to talk about coming to see Harbor again the following day for the matinee showing. I found out that there was one person in our group who could get the tickets for $20 so I decided that it was definitely worth that sacrifice to get to see the play again. Sure, I knew that I already had tickets for the following week but it’s nice to go see plays in a group too. So plans for the following day were made.

Saturday 8.31.2013

So the next day we were there for the matinee. It was nice seeing the play again since it was then possible to pay attention to different things than on the first viewing. However, I do have to say that there wasn’t the same amount of energy in the performance than there had been the previous evening. The audience was more subdued as well. Still it was fun.

After the play we again stayed behind to say hi to Randy. A few of our group hadn’t gotten him to sign their playbills the previous night so that was taken care of. It was again a pretty short meet-up. He was aware that some of us were going to see Michael Urie (his castmate from Such Good People) that evening and he told us to say hi to him from him. Finally he again told us that he was going to see us the next day.

So that night we did indeed go see Michael Urie do his one man play. It was just hilarious. If anyone is in town and hasn’t seen it yet, they should definitely go see it. It was pretty much 90 minutes of pure laughter. He was just amazing.

After the play, we stayed to wait for him to come out. At first we were a bit unsure where we should wait so that we didn’t miss him. We first stood in the foyer but then moved to stand outside. Time went on and it was obvious they were starting to close to place down but there still had been no sign of Michael. There were some other people who looked like they were waiting as well. Finally I went inside to ask if Michael had possibly left already since we had hoped to see him. I was told that he hadn’t left and the guy told me that he was going to go down and tell him that there were people waiting for him. He did do that and came back saying that it was going to be just a few more minutes. So we waited. And waited. And waited. 

In the end it took him about 30 minutes from the moment the play ended before he came out. Some of our group were already prepared to give up and head out. Still I’m so glad that we waited since it was so worth it. He was incredibly nice and seemed pleased that we had waited. We got him to sign our playbills and also took photos with him. We complimented him about the play. He was also surprised to hear that we had traveled so far. He did ask if "Ugly Betty" had been a big hit in our countries and we did tell him that it had. We also talked about SGP a bit.

Then it was time for the amusing part of the evening. One of us told him that we had been to see Randy earlier that day and that he had told us to say hi. Michael was all "Randy who?" Obviously when we told him who Randy was in question he was again with us and he asked our opinions about Harbor. He had also liked the play quite a lot. Then we asked him if he was possibly coming to see QWAN the next day and again he was all "Huh?" We once more had to clarify to him what we were talking about before he got a clue. Very funny. He did tell us that he would have loved to attend as well but unfortunately he had his own show to do in the evening so he couldn’t make it. He did seem to be sorry about that fact. It did seem that he would have very much liked to see it as well.

Friday 9.6.2013

I had bought a ticket to see Harbor on this day as well since I had suspected that I might be too tired to enjoy the show on the day when I arrived. Didn’t know then that I was going to see it twice with my friends so this time made it three times together. This time I had a seat on the other side of the theater from the other times which made an interesting change. Once more enjoyed the play a lot and after having a friend tell me what the one line I kept missing was, managed to catch that one this time as well. I did notice an interesting thing that pretty much all through the play Randy’s character Kevin wears these “grown-up” clothes but in the last scene he has much more relaxed clothes on and to me it felt that also amplified the message that he had been living his life the way Ted wanted but now he was striking out on his own and also having his own style. Another thing I noticed now that I was sitting on the other side of the theater and closer to the stage, was that the tattoo Randy has on his shoulder, had been covered with some make up but not too effectively. If you looked closely you could see it shine through. It was also interesting to notice that in the scene where he’s only in his boxers and aplies moisturizer on his skin, he carefully avoids the shoulder that has the tattoo on it.

Stayed behind after the show in hopes of getting to talk to all the cast members once more. It seemed Paul and Alexis had a lot of friends waiting for them at the theater so they just quickly signed my playbill before moving on. Randy came out and said hi to me. It might have been just my imagination but it’s possible he gave me this a bit weird glance and was possibly wondering what I was doing there since he was aware that all the others had gone home the previous day. He did ask me when I was going home and I told him that I was flying home on Sunday. I handed him a playbill to sign and he asked me if he had already signed but then saw that he hadn’t. That’s maybe because it was a different playbill from the first one I got him to sign the week before. He did seem to be in a hurry again so he said his byes and hurried out of the door. Still waited around to see Erin since I wanted to compliment her performance. She did come out finally and got a chance to talk with her for a while. She remembered seeing me there the previous week as well. Then it was time for my Harbor experience to end.

In short, I really did enjoy the play and I'm glad I got the chance to finally see Randy on stage. The other cast were really great too.