New Adventures |

Hi Everyone,

Our New York season has come to a close and now, if I have the inclination to jump out of my window, the most I would do is bruise a toe (and that’s only if there was a deceptively frosty sheet of ice beneath the ledge), as opposed to the 200 meter fall that would have accompanied a jump out of my New York apartment. There are many things I will miss about New York, Chai Latte’s, fizzy (yes fizzy!) skittles, Jamba Juice, the people dressed as the Cookie Monster and Elmo outside of the M&M store (what Sesame Street had to do with M&M’s I never found out), and the feeling that there’s always more than you know going on around you. One thing I won’t miss about New York however is the small, viscious static shock I’d get EVERY time I touched the “call elevator” button in my building. I’d find myself approaching it in the morning the way a small child approaches a dentist’s chair, grimacing at the inevitable a I reached out to touch the button. There were a lot of mixed feelings within the company, as there usually is at the end of a run abroad. We didn’t want to leave New York but wanted to go home, were a little sad that it was done and yet relieved that we were going to be getting a week off. Basically, we wanted everything, in every possible permutation of possibilities, especially the ones that contradicted eachother.

We have also done our last ever performance with Richard Windsor as the Swan/Stranger as he won’t be coming to Italy with us on the final leg of the tour. Simon Williams will be taking over as well as continuing to play the Prince (good luck with that Simon!). It always feels strange when members of the company leave or join before the tour is finished, but having Simon perform the Swan on stage with us will freshen and change our show, which is definately welcome as we near the end of the tour.

We will probably miss the stage as well, even though it was smaller than most of our normal venues, the theatre had just spent a fortune laying down a new floor especially for dance. It’s the kind of thing you don’t miss untill you don’t have it anymore, but a good floor makes all the difference in a show. We’ll also miss having a studio to do class in! The studios at the theatre were great, and were a welome relief from doing class on stage everyday (even though they were often stiflingly hot making our classes a bit like a version of Bikrham Ballet).

I wrote something last week about a fan hosting a party for us. I have since then actually spoken to this fan and he infact never represented starbucks and neither indeed is he wealthy (that’s what you get from listening to anything beginning with the word “apparently", I should have known better!). So basically almost everything I wrote was wrong.... apart from the fact that there was a party, at least that was true.

This monday I once again awoke to find people either already gone somewhere or still asleep, so headed off to hop onto the Staten Island Ferry and get some good views of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan as we floated away. The views were great, though after about fifteen minutes I couldn’t actually see them anymore as my eyes, having streamed tears from the wind whiping in my face, had frozen over into distorted marbles. The weather had suddenly gone from being so humid you could walk around in a t-shirt and be sweating, to being so cold that your hands hurt if you stayed out too long. I also went to the FAO Schwarz toy shop (the famous one from the film “Big” with the giant piano on the floor). I’d been there the week before where Tom Davies and I had a go on the piano. After working out Memory from Cats I played it (somewhat badly) for the woman who was there to help. She asked me what it was and I told her the name of the son to which she replied, “Memory of what??” I suppose she wasn’t that into musical theatre. She taught us a duet of Twinkle tinkle little star instead for which we got a small round of applause from the gathered audience (I also got a cheer when I attempted a slide from one end of the piano to the other in my socks). I also came across a small but very interesting museum about the Native Americans which I really enjoyed. It had loads of art and clothing that they had made, though to be honest their clothing were almost like works of art in of themselves.

For four days the week before we had done some fundraising for a charity that worked with dancers living with HIV and Aids. A film crew came backstage and interviewed some of the dancers to help raise awareness (I think there’s a video on youtube of the final product), and of dancers collecting money front of house after the show dressed as swans. The final amount that was raised, close to 10,000 dollars, was posted on our notice board along with a thank you note. It was quite staggering considering it was only over four days.

Our last day performing was met with a large collection of fruit and chocolate from the New York City Centre, thanking us for our performances there. I managed to find a few chocolate covered strawberries hidden at the bottom which nobody seemed to have noticed. The last show itself went really well. I think I even remember somebody in the audience shouting out a “bravo” after the duet between the Swan an Prince. In the end though it wasn’t all too different to any other show, as after all we always try to give the best show we can for that day. We had been very lucky with our audiences there, it wasn’t uncommon to receive a standing ovation at the end of the performance, and the last show was no exception. After some hugs and congratulations everybody went off to make the most of the last evening we had in New York.

I didn’t get to see The Adams Family musical as they didn’t have shows on Sunday evenings. Instead I got a wonderful photograph of the outside of the theatre..... yea, not dissapointed at all. I suppose it gives me something to do if I ever go back there again which I think we all hope to do. So now all we have is four weeks in Italy before the contract is over! It’s going to be another bittersweet moment when that time comes, as all those moments are, but until then we still have lots of shows to do! It’s strange now to think back to the premiere at Sadlers Wells and how nervous we all were, compared to how relaxed and confident we are with the show now. If you could compare the swan change room (where we change into swan makeup) before the second act in those first shows, and how it is now, I think we’d all laugh at our marine like silence and composure. It’s all part of the evolution of the show though which is grea to go through. So until the next time (hint hint Matt) I’m travelling with New Adventures, I hope you all enjoy the company’s reworking of Cinderella coming this christmas!

Goodbye