Finally, we come to the reason of this trip. At least, we come to the thing that determined the timing of this visit to New York - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child!
The play keeps selling out as soon as the tickets go on sale, but we are veterans of getting difficult tickets (Tony Awards and a Big Band Theory taping to name a couple). So we bought tickets for this back at the beginning of February. That's actually not bad compared to the timeline of when I got tickets for the same show in London in August 2016 for September 2017. Our seats (for NY) ended up being farther back, too far back under the overhang of the mezzanine, than I would have liked, but we were still able to see the show relatively well.
I was really interested to see the show on Broadway after having already seen it in London last Fall, because the leads from the original London cast came with the show when it opened here. By the time I saw it there, the original cast members had long since moved on. I really wanted to see whether their replacements were making acting choices of their own or whether they were just mimicking the performances of the original actors for consistency. I decided that the leads in NY overall were undoubtedly better here than the ones I saw in London. However, I liked all of the minor characters much better in London.
The show was the first thing we did today. It's in two parts. Notice in this image that there is a different program for each part. They're only different in saying either "one" or "two". You can also see a couple of details that have been added to the theater for this show, including patronus paintings and Hogwarts carpet all throughout the lobby.
After the first part of Cursed Child, we went to the SpongeBob stage door and waited for their show to get over. Since no actors came out to sign when we saw it ourselves, this was a way to get signatures anyway. We still only ended up with a couple, though. Oh well.
The highlight of that stage door was that our amazing friend Beth met us there! She just happens to be in NY for work (so fancy) and came to spend most of the rest of the day with us. Also, while at the stage door, I saw the little girl who plays Sheldon's twin sister, Missy, on the TV show Young Sheldon! I really wanted to ask for a picture - she's great on the show - but since she's like 8-years-old, I settled for just being happy for a quick celebrity signing from a distance.
Our between-show food plan was to check out a food festival for which several blocks of 9th Ave had been blocked off. As we arrived, we decided that they must have closed at 6pm, because almost all of the vendors were packing up and no longer selling food. However, Katrina's favorite Greek bakery, Poseidon had a booth and they were still selling off the last of their food. So Beth and I tried some of their tiropita (a savory, cheese-filled Greek pastry).
It was amazing! Such a good pre-show snack (that ended up being dinner). Then! Back to Schmackary’s! And...now I'm realizing that I still didn't take a picture of my cookie before devouring it.
Beth walked us back to the theater after that for Cursed Child Part 2. They sell wands there for a couple of characters in the show and I buy one wand for each trip to a Harry Potter place that sells wands, so...I bought one. However, I found out that the play is not officially associated with Warner Bros, who owns the rights to all of the visual Harry Potter stuff from the movies. That includes the wand design. So they have a couple of wands for characters who do appear in the movies that are different from the ones sold at Harry Potter World etc. I do not approve. Judgy face. That is all.
After the show, Beth surprised us by showing up at the stage door again. She had gone to dinner during the show and then rejoined us. That worked out well, because she could hold my place at the stage door while...I went and found someone to track down my phone that I left inside the theater. I don’t why this is happening! I mean, I do, but really. Get yo life right. Not many people came out to sign, but I did take a picture with one of the actors I liked, Sam Clemmett.
After we were done at the stage door, we walked Beth across town to her apartment and then went back to ours. Then, I stayed up really late procrastinating writing the next blog post. Then, I went to sleep. Finally.