The Rich Life: New York 2024

I am typing this post on my phone as we fly home from our latest trip to New York City. I still have several different topics I wish to write about at some point, but for today, I thought it would be easiest to just tell about this trip.

I’ve previously described my and my family’s love of musical theater. Consequently, our vacation of choice is to go to New York City and see Broadway shows.

My first trip to NYC did not happen until after I had married Jeanell. I believe the year was 2004 and we went with the adults in the Jefferies family. We went to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, and Ground Zero. And I saw my first show on Broadway (The Lion King).

In 2009, Jeanell and I took our older boys (Lila was about six months old). On that occasion, we again saw the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, along with the Museum of Natural History. The NBA Store and a dinner cruise were other highlights. On this occasion we again saw one more show, this time Wicked (incidentally both The Lion King and Wicked are still running).

That was it for me for a while. I didn’t make it back until 2016 when Jeanell and I went and saw Hamilton (along with Waitress and Beautiful) for my 40th birthday. But that opened the flood gates as we have made several trips back since.

Jeanell and I went back in 2018 and saw six shows (Hamilton, Waitress, and Beautiful again, as well as Dear Evan Hansen, Book of Mormon, and Miss Saigon).

We took Lila for the first time in October of 2021, as Broadway was opening back up after COVID. On that trip we saw Chicago, Little Shop or Horrors, Waitress, Moulin Rouge, and Six.

Six months later we returned in the spring of 2022 and saw Company, Jersey Boys, Betelgeuse, and Book of Mormon. We then came back with Devin, Kareena, Dave, Carol, Collin, Connilyn, and Uncle Scott and saw The Music Man, Dear Evan Hansen, Book of Mormon, Six, Moulin Rouge, and MJ. This was the trip where I first met my friend Elias.

Last spring we came back with Uncle Scott and Lila and saw Sweeney Todd, Bad Cinderella, Funny Girl, A Beautiful Noise, and Phantom.

In the fall, we came back with Tyler and Brayden and saw Sweeney Todd, Hadestown, and MJ.

We hadn’t been in over six months so clearly it was time to go back. Jeanell, Lila, and I all wanted to see the revival of Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, which was set to close soon so that moved our trip up somewhat.

Our typical pattern was to fly in either early Thursday or late Wednesday so we could see shows Thursday, Friday, and then two on Saturday, two on Sunday, and fly home on Monday. But shows have moved their matinee from Sunday to Wednesday so this time we moved everything up a day to be able to hit the Wednesday matinee.

We hoped for six shows, but there was some disagreement on the sixth show. Jeanell wanted to see The Notebook and Lila wanted to see Back to the Future. Fortunately Jeanell found that one of the shows we wanted to see had a Thursday matinee rather than a Wednesday matinee, meaning that we were ultimately able to see both shows with a new record, for us, of seven shows in four days.

We took a red-eye, leaving Salt Lake just before midnight MDT and landing in Newark a little after 6 AM EDT. We took a taxi to our hotel (due to what seems to me a counter-productive law, taxi drivers in New York cannot pick people up in New Jersey and vice-versa. This meant my friend Elias could not pick us up from Newark. It also means that cabs that pick up in New Jersey and drive to New York, or vice-versa, return empty, which doesn’t help the traffic).

We arrived at our hotel about 8 AM EDT and fortunately they had a room ready for us so we were able to go and sleep for a few hours before getting ready for our first show at 2 PM EDT. On this trip, we stayed at the Renaissance, which wasn’t bad, but our favorite place to stay is still the Marriott Marquis. (We’ve also stayed at the Westin and Townplace Suites, the Renaissance was somewhere in between).

Our first show was Back to the Future (7, this is my ranking of the shows we saw this trip), which turned out to be my least favorite of the trip. While I love the movie and have watched it several times, it seemed to be what I’ve heard referred to as a “Why?” musical, where the musical doesn’t really add anything or say something new about the source material on which it is based. The best songs were the songs that were in the original movie. Some of the special effects were pretty cool, but for me, that was really the only good thing about it.

We grabbed some lunch/dinner at Juniors after the show. We typically don’t get too much into the dining scene and on many trips we eat at Juniors multiple times, but this was the only time we ate at Juniors on this trip.

Later that night, we saw & Juliet (3), a jukebox musical based on the music of Max Martin (who wrote songs sung by Brittney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and Katy Perry, among others). I hadn’t been particularly excited to see this one, but ended up really enjoying it. The story is that Shakespeare’s wife (Anne Hathaway, one of the jokes is Shakespeare saying “There will never be another Anne Hathaway”) creates an alternate version of Romeo & Juliet where Juliet lives. I enjoyed both the Shakespeare humor and the way the modern music would fit into the story.

We returned to our hotel quite tired. I went and picked us up some Krispy Kremes and a couple slices of pizza from Ray’s Pizza (an errand I would repeat nightly). When I got back to the hotel one of the nights, I shared the elevator with a big black guy and his wife/girlfriend. He leaned over to me and said “you got some good snacks.” I laughed and replied “yeah, nothing like some late night donuts and pizza.” I saw the same couple again the next day as we were headed down and they asked how my snacks were.

That’s one of the things I love about New York. You run into people from all over the country and world, all different ethnicities and religions, and everyone just gets along. In my experience, people don’t just ignore each other, but they go out of their way to engage and be friendly.

The next day, our first show (again a 2 PM matinee) was The Great Gatsby (5) based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel. I am quite certain I read the book in high school but found I remembered almost nothing of the plot (Jeanell and Lila both read the book in the week or two leading up to our trip). The music was pretty good but I hadn’t heard it prior and I’ve learned you often have to hear the music a time or two before you really appreciate it. Other than that, it was a pretty faithful retelling of the novel, with some events added.

That night (after dinner at Glass House Tavern), we saw The Notebook (6), which again had some decent music (by Ingrid Michaelson), but just retold the Nicholas Sparks novel and was similar to the movie starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams (incidentally Rachel McAdams is currently appearing in the play Mary Jane on Broadway, for which she was nominated for a Tony).

Friday, we didn’t have an afternoon show so we walked to Lincoln Center and Julliard, ate lunch at Tavern on the Green, and then rode bikes around Central Park, which ended up being a bit more exercise than we were planning on.

That night we went and saw Cabaret (4) at the August Wilson Theatre, which has been remodeled to resemble the Kit Kit Club that is the primary setting of the show. The production quality was superb but it was setup for theatre in the round, which isn’t always my favorite (sorry HCT). I’m sure it’s just psychological and they face each direction equally but it always feels like they are facing away from you at key moments. The two leads (Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin as the Emcee and Sally Bowles, respectively) were fantastic. Bebe Neuwirth (Lilith from Cheers) was also in it as Fraulein Schneider. Everything was well done, the show is just a little depressing.

Saturday, our matinee was Merrily We Roll Along (1) by Stephen Sondheim, starring Daniel Ratcliffe, Jonathan Groff (both of whom won Tonys for their performances) and Lindsay Mendez. The story is about three friends (a composer, a lyricist, and a writer/critic) and is told in reverse chronologically (the play begins in 1976 and ends in 1957). The effect is sometimes heartbreaking as you have already seen the events that will take place in the future before you see the events that will lead to those future events. I loved it, from the music, to the story, to the acting, everything was sublime.

That led to our finale for this trip last night (after dinner at Joe Allen) and we saw Suffs (2), which covers the story of the efforts of courageous women to bring about the 19th amendment. I found the music and story to be uplifting and inspiring. The show stars Shaina Taub, who also wrote the book, music and lyrics. I was moved to tears multiple times and thoroughly enjoyed it.

This morning, my friend Elias came and picked us up, and took us to JFK to fly home. It was good to see him again. He told me about the deaths of his brother, his brother-in-law, and his mother-in-law in the past several months. He told me about his grandson’s football career and about having a bag with tens of thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry left in his cab, and how he returned it. Always great to see him.

Until next time, New York.