Staycation – Broadway

There are only a few places that evoke the feeling and image of Broadway. Yesterday I went to see the Broadway play Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. The morning started out early with the anticipation of going to New York City

My cousin got group discount rates for the play and there was twenty of us that he got tickets for include three cousins. In the morning I drove down to my cousin’s house in Stratford and we all then topk the Metro North train into Grand Central Station, they have improved the cars and the track since the last disastrous Metro North Trip to NYC. The cars were new and clean compared to 2009 trip to New York Pride.

Once we got to Grand Central Station we walked up to a restaurant on W 43^rd Street just down the street from the theater to have lunch. Tony's Di Napoli is a family style Italian restaurant; our reservation was at noon for sixteen people. For appetizers we had, Zucchini Fritti, Calamari Fritti, meatballs, and Prosciutto and Burrata, that was followed by a Cesar salad. For the pasta we had baked ziti Napolitano, that was followed by Chicken Parmigiana… just your basic Italian lunch.

We had to skip desert of strawberry shortcake because we ran out of time and had to get to the theater.

I never knew that Carole King was a song writer first; I never knew that she and her husband Gerry Goffin wrote songs for groups like The Shirelles (“Will You Love Me Tomorrow”), Bobby Vee (“Take Good Care Of My Baby”), The Drifters (“Some Kind of Wonderful” and “Up On the Roof”), The Chiffons, (“One Fine Day”), Dee Dee Warwick, and even The Monkees ("Pleasant Valley Sunday"). The Beatles even used one of their songs Chains

During the play when she divorced Gerry Goffin and was moving out to California she sang her song “You Got A Friend” to her friends and fellow song writers Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, it brought tears to my eyes. She was moving out to California to move away from her ex and to start over on her own.

There is something about a play that I like, it is a multidimensional experience and watching the live performance is so much more satisfying then watching a movie. Seeing the interaction of the audience and the players is like magic, the audience brings alive the actors. And seeing a play on Broadway isn't like any other play in either big or small theaters… it’s Broadway! (which was written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil)