The Rest of the Week - AMAZING!!

I just got back from a wonderful concert by The New York Philharmonic Orchestra, a part of my 3 subscription series. It was sunny but brisk out for most of the day and right now it is in the high 40s. Tomorrow, Wednesday, is also supposed to be bright and brisk.

The remainder of my week has been finalized and, frankly, I think I would be remiss if I didn’t use the word “amazing” (I have deliberately been avoiding the use of this word) to describe what the next 5 days will be entertainment-wise for Billi Pod, in The Greatest City in The World. It will be 7 shows in 5 days (gasp), as follows:

Wednesday - 11/18 - 2:00 - “The 39 Steps” - Broadway. This long running comedy will close on January 10, 2010, after 771 performances. I saw it early in its run and enjoyed it a lot. When it showed up on one of my ticket services I just couldn’t pass the opportunity to see it one last time, especially with a free ticket. This is the press blurb: “This Olivier Award winning comedy is adapted from the Alfred Hitchcock film. This 'unstageable' thriller is staged, with four cast members playing a minimum of 150 roles. The story revolves around an innocent man who learns too much about a dangerous spy ring and is then pursued across Scotland, before returning to London to foil the villain's dastardly plans. The 39 Steps contains every single legendary scene from the award-winning movie - including the chase on the Flying Scotsman, the escape on the Forth Bridge, the first theatrical bi-plane crash ever staged and the sensational death-defying finale in the London Palladium.” (complimentary ticket).

8:00 - “Race” - Broadway. This new play by David Mamet is: “an incendiary story about the perceptions and realities that color our world... and the subtle shades between being a victim and being victimized.” (discounted TDF ticket)

Thursday - 8:00 - “Dreamgirls at the Apollo Theater” - Off Broadway. “Dreamgirls is the story of a young female singing trio from Chicago, and their rocky road to superstardom. The original Broadway production opened December 20, 1981 and won six 1982 Tony Awards. (discounted TDF ticket).

The Apollo Theater is located in Harlem at 125th Street. No problem getting there. I walk the block and a half to The Port Authority Terminal, catch the uptown A Train and I am there in 2 stops.

Friday - 8:00 - “Girl Crazy” - Broadway. This is part of the Encore Series performed at City Center. It is classified as a “staged reading” but they are usually totally, 100 percent, a finished product. This is the press blurb: “Girl Crazy, a Depression-era musical comedy with music and lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin. The tale of a sophisticated New Yorker marooned in a dusty Western cow-town with no one who understands him but the Yiddish-speaking cabbie who brought him there and no one to love but the only woman within 50 miles, the show gave birth to one of the all-time flashiest Broadway scores, featuring I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, But Not For Me and Boy! What Love Has Done To Me among others.” (discounted TDF ticket)

Saturday - The Gator vs. Florida International game is not being carried locally.

7:00 - “The Arrangement” - Off Broadway. “An unfairly dismissed Public Relations executive is caught between two agonizing choices: an insider trading scheme that can give him the compensation he feels cheated of, versus walking away and starting a new but meager life. And then the plot thickens!” (complimentary ticket).

Sunday - 3:15 - “Wolves at the Window” - Off Broadway. “Enter the offbeat world of Saki - one of the twentieth century's greatest satirists.Wolves at the Window encompasses a world full of macabre, acid and very funny characters, a world that drives a knife into upper class Edwardian life.” (complimentary ticket).

7:00 - “Idiot Savant” - Off Broadway. This show is playing at The Public Theater, stars Willem Dafoe, and has received very good reviews. The press blurb: “Marie asks the Idiot Savant (Willem Dafoe): “But what makes certain words magic?” What follows is a wild theatrical odyssey that could only have sprung from the fantastical mind of Richard Foreman (THE THREEPENNY OPERA), New York's legendary avant-garde genius. This new work is a philosophical comedy, in the great tradition of Ionesco and Preston Sturges. From precise existential and metaphysical acrobatics, to a ridiculous game of inter-species golf with Giant Duck, IDIOT SAVANT is a fresh, bracing and hilarious exploration of the boundaries of the legitimate.” (discounted TDF ticket).

Without a doubt, this will fall in the love it or hate it category.

So, my loyal and faithful readers, there you have it. I leave it up to you to decide if Billi Pod's schedule for the upcoming 5 days is indeed “amazing.”

I report - you decide.

Go Gators!!

Billi Pod

“Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.”