Happy Anniversary to me. Today is the date that marks the first birthday of The A Train!
In honor of this occasion, I feel I must return to the roots of this blog. When I first started out, I wasn't sure what this writing space would turn into and I've definitely been feeling it out week to week. But one of my original intentions was to share my New York experiences (the best things to see and do) with all of you. As you know, I keep my schedule tight here in the Big Apple.
This past week, I managed to squeeze in some new finds!
In celebration of last week's short 2.5 work days, I felt it only appropriate to treat every night like I didn't have to show up at the office the next day. Monday night I trained down to Christopher Street to see my friend Liam Forde's show We're Having a Dinner Party at The Duplex. A bar that looks more like a giant Dollar Store with light-up letters spelling D-U-P-L-E-X in its six arched windows, I ventured inside this Village haunt after walking by it approximately 63 times. (I made that number up.)
The Duplex has a cozy little cabaret theater on the upper floor, just around the corner from the televisions blasting Ru Paul's Drag Race All Stars. It's one large in-your-face dose of theatrical love.
The theater seats about 70. The audience scrunched around those tiny wheel-like dinner theater tables, rubbing knees with strangers, just like in all of those episodes of Seinfeld and Sex and the City. Anywho, Liam and I grew up in West Hartford doing shows together and he has always been an incredible talent. I hadn't yet been able to make it to one of his shows. "No time like the present," I thought and marched in by myself to a front row nook.
Liam and his co-host of Dinner Party, Babs Rubenstein, brought down the house. Seriously, there is a reason this girl is headed off on the first national tour of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Diva. (In a good way.) Not only did Liam sing, he accompanied Babs...and played while he sang...and arranged all the music in the show...and composed three of the original songs. I feel so unproductive.
As much as I love theater on the Great White Way, I beg of you to go to a small little 'nothing' show of no-name emerging artists, in the tight cabaret space of a dingy cheesy bar. That ten dollar cover will buy you a night of sheer enjoyment and quality entertainment.
On the flip side, you can do what I did last night and listen to slightly established groups play their music for free as part of a festival. I went to Winter's Eve at Lincoln Square—a night of free jazz, food tastings and holiday glee. My friend Adam and I listened to the Hot Sardines play some New Orleans jazz, until it got too cold to stand still outside in November.
Luckily, Adam had heard about the event in advance so we actually planned to go (unlike many of the neighborhood passersby who just stopped in for a few minutes).
But these sorts of events happen all the time in neighborhoods like yours! The easiest way to find out about them is to go to your hood's BID website (Business Improvement District). BIDs are the organizations that actively work to bring people traffic to specific city communities in order to boost the economy of local businesses. One of the most famous is the Times Square Alliance.
Check out the BID website where you live. You never know what might be going on. Or, if you live in the most uncool place and nothing is going on there, pick some of your favorite areas and visit their BID's site for a calendar of events. There is so much going on, there's no need to miss out—even if you do have to work 5 days this week.
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