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Day 300, 30 April 2013, Manhattan, New York. Up. At 'em. Egg roll and coffee at the local deli and off to the Times Square Visitor Centre to join a "Walkin' Broadway" Tour. Found out heaps of insider info - like all the theatres on Broadway are owned by just three families (definitely want to meet them and make friends... imagine the perks). Also, have often wondered what makes a show a Broadway show? Off-Broadway show? Off-off-Broadway show. Well - as it turns out, nothing whatsoever to do with location - in fact it's to do with seat numbers. So any theatre with more than 499 seats can host a "Broadway" show here in the Theatre district. Smaller theatres host Off-Broadway shows. If you're theatre has only 99 seats, you're officially off-off-Broadway (and according to our guide - somewhere in Chinatown!) We passed loads of productions that we've seen over the last 20 years together - many in the last few months. Wicked - Book of Mormon - Jersey Boys for instance. Also old favourites - Chicago, Rent and Mama Mia. After singing and dancing our way down Broadway (it was compulsory with this tour), we visited Madam Tussauds and felt famous for quite a while - all those darling celebrities just waiting, conveniently in one place, to have their photos taken with us! Then off to the Empire State Building's 86th floor observatory and the New York City Skyride. The 7 day New York Pass having almost paid for itself, we headed down 8th Avenue to check out the shoe shops. We've decided that our hiking boots are probably going to be a bit toasty in Miami, so shoe shopping needs to be fitted in and we really thought that was it for the day.... but we just couldn't resist checking out the TKTS booth for bargain tickets for a show. Just us and every other bargain hunter in NY. And that's a lot of bargain hunters. The low down on Kinky Boots was that it was sold out... and they weren't getting many discount tickets anyway. But with more front than Macy's we headed down to the theatre on 45th and landed two bargain seats with a great view. Still haven't figured out how - charm and good looks must have done it. In any event it was a full house - the Tony Nominations were announced this morning and Kinky Boots has picked up buckets of them. Lucky we got in today. For those who've not heard of the show (or the book or the movie) - it's set in England. It's brilliantly funny and ye shall get thee forth and rent/download/steal the movie for watching forthwith. As far as the musical goes, in a full house I don't think anyone could put their hand on their hearts and say "I didn't like it." They'd have to be dead - in which case the heart thing just wouldn't work now would it. Officially my first Drag Show and a hilarious musical. What a day. What a city. In the word's of Billy Joel - It's a New York state of mind.
(Photo from internet due to very, very strict policy of NO PHOTOS in the theatre!)
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