it's just a dress rehearsal, so you won't have to wear a gown or anything

In light of the facts that one of the most common questions I've been asked is "what are some of the highlights of your past two months" and that today was (besides a rehearsal with my scene partner, a trek into Times Square with a super fun buddy to attempt the Spring Awakening lottery, and a fleeting encounter with Ben Platt) blessedly quiet, I'll do my best to reflect on some of the coolest and strangest moments since I got here.

Please know undoubtedly that each of these stories comes completely from a place of "I cannot believe that this is happening to me." (In the best of ways.)
It would also be helpful for you all to note that I am a huge dork and get excited about the strangest things, sometimes.



NYU had a huge dance party the first week we were here. Three stories of music. The ceiling was literally creaking, which apparently was relatively tame, as last year paintings actually fell off the walls. I stayed and partied for a while (Boom. Real Teen Status, check) until coming to the realization that my suitemate had never seen Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, upon which about five us hightailed it back to the dorm and made popcorn. I am pleased to report she has now seen every episode.  

The first weekend that I was here, I got a text from a wonderful friend at home, telling me to go to Birdland, a club in Times Square, the following Monday at 9:30. I showed up with some sheet music and absolutely nothing else. Austin McKenzie, you know, the lead of the Spring Awakening revival that's on Broadway right now, sang. Then me. Then his costar Sean Grandillo. Then the next Roxie Hart in Chicago. Christina Bianco performed a song and pretended to be four different women. If you've never seen this happen, Youtube it. It's pretty phenomenal. So the night was pretty much super fantastic. It only got better when I met Sean Grandillo after Spring Awakening when I was lucky enough to see it and he remembered me. I don't even remember actually taking the subway back to my dorm that night. I think I just floated.

I ran into Jessica Lange on 5th Avenue walking home one day. She is a goddess.

So on his first day in the city, a friend of mine was offered two free tickets to the final dress of the Opera at the MET as a sort of "welcome to the city" present by a woman he met on the bus. The star of the opera just happened to be a woman that he had performed with while living in Germany and performing in a boys' choir (because these are the astonishing stories with which I am serenaded every day). If we're being honest, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I accepted his invitation to go with him. Sure, I'd heard of the Opera at the MET, but how much does any seventeen-year-old girl really know about it? I sat down next to him in class one day and he turned to me, shooting off some details about the night. "I mean," he shrugged, "It's just a dress rehearsal, so you won't have to wear a gown or anything." I hope that I didn't show him how floored I was. I don't know that I've ever owned a gown.

Claybourne Elder was getting on the same subway as me. We talked. It was a good day.

Apparently I have a cousin with an apartment uptown. They have an elevator that opens directly into their hallway and their refrigerator is literally just electrically chilled drawers that look like a part of the wall. There was a menu involved for an in-house dinner and I was completely out of my element. Also there were paintings that rolled up to reveal television sets. It was a good night.

I got to go to the cupcake ATM. True happiness.

I went to the Top of the Rock, which is the top of the Rockefeller Building, where you can see almost the entire city from a bird's eye view. There are no words, and pictures don't do it justice, so I'm just going to go ahead and say that it was beautiful and I had a wonderful time. I also went ice skating down below at Rockefeller Plaza, which was picturesque to say the least.

I am so lucky in the way of visitors. People are here almost every week. I've seen childhood friends, family, family friends that I've never met... all sorts. It's magnificent.

There is literally a store called 'Puppies'. Honest and to the point. I spent some time there. Fell in love once or twice.

I have so much to say about going to see Hamilton, but it was also too good to really use words to describe, so I won't deal with the show itself. My cousin and I got hungry before the show, so we went across the street to have pizza. The shoebox of a joint was predictably packed (the smaller the place the better the food, it seems), but as I peeked in, one person stood out to me.
"I... I know that man bun. That's... That's Lin Manuel-Miranda," I breathed.
"Who?" My cousin asked.
"Lin Manuel-Miranda. He wrote this show--he wrote Hamilton."
"Are you sure?"
I almost laughed. "Oh yeah."
We stopped him for a second (not too long, obviously, the brilliant beautiful genius had a show going up in an hour) and got to tell him we were going to see the show and get a quick photo. He was unbelievably lovely and brilliant and beautiful and genius. After the show we waited at the stage door and met the entire cast. Jasmine Cephas Jones told me she liked my hair (and repeated herself when I stagedoored the show for a second time), which is flattering and also a little silly, considering that we pretty much have the same hair. Both Daveed Diggs and Jonathan Groff said they liked my hat, which is a win. James Corden was at the show and we met him? Random. I very literally thanked Lin 'for his brain', to which he gave a strangled "You're welcome?" so maybe I could have had a little more grace there.

A British man flirted with me one time, so I feel like that has to count for something.

I got to to go to the World Citizen Festival, which was a free never-ending concert with performances by (but goodness knows not limited to) Ariana Grande, Coldplay, Tori Kelly, Ed Sheeran, Sting, Pearl Jam, and Beyonce. There were also a million fancy famous people, like Leo DiCaprio, Laverne Cox, Hugh Jackman Usher, and more importantly people like Malala and the 1st Lady. It was sort of unbelievable.

Oh. Oh you guys. I went to Sara Bareilles' book launch. She wrote a book. And a musical. She wrote both a book and a musical at the same time. Because she's just that phenomenal. She and Ben Folds had a conversation for about an hour which was darling and fun. Then she stood up, took a sip of whiskey, sat down at the piano, and tore the thing to shreds. I'm pretty sure there's nothing the woman can't do. She is a role model and an idol and a goddess. I shook her hand. She asked if I was a singer. I said yes because I couldn't think of other words or my name or where I was. I am in one of her photos on Instagram because we waited on line for three hours to meet her.

My teacher said that the first essay I turned in was "one of the first reckoning essays she's seen so far". I am patiently waiting for some eloquent and poetic version of a "Gotcha!" email.

There's this guy I kind of like, but he lives all the way back down south. I got lucky and he came to visit for a week. That was sort of fun I guess. Eh.

I got to visit my mom's old apartment. In my house back home, we have a black and white sketch of a building, surrounded by a couple of tiny trees. It's not a very assuming picture, so I never really thought much of it, until I stood in front of its real life inspiration. Unexpectedly serene, the light colored building sits lightly on seventy-seventh, somewhere around fifth avenue. With black iron curling around the front door and the bottoms of the windows, it looked like the quintessential NYC dream home. I'm furious that my mother ever left.





So now you're technically up to date. It's unfortunate though, because, without accidentally writing a full length book, I can only put down the bigger events. The smaller magic gets left out, and that's what makes this place so special. The flashy lights are nice, sure, but it's the way the world looks as the sun goes down, or the inelegant ballet of too many people all trying to get somewhere at once that turns a messy city into a disorganized piece of elastic art. It's a good thing, really, that it's so hard to capture that with words, because if we could all do it there wouldn't really be a reason to be here in person anymore, would there?