My dear friends, with much happiness I can say I am back in the city and have conquered my first weekend of northern winter.
You guys, it is deceptively cold. It's the kind of cold that at first makes you think, "Nope, I can do this," and then two minutes later, "Huh, my fingers are kinda numb, I'll put on my gloves," and then in the next thirty seconds, "Interesting, my ears are burning. I guess it's time for a hat now."
These are the thoughts that were flurrying through my mind as I trekked through the cold to the midtown Hilton for the first ever Broadway Convention.
Last month, I submitted an application to volunteer at BroadwayCon. I was accepted the next week, and stayed excited until the moment I walked through the door on Friday morning. They had an hour-long orientation session, and then we were loose for the day until our respective shifts started. Mine wasn't until nine that night, so I grabbed my day pass and my volunteer shirt and set off to explore for the day.
The Spring Awakening cast was in the first room I walked into. I watched part of their panel before wandering into others and really just taking it all in.
I don't know if you've ever been in a room where you can make any obscure reference within your main frame of knowledge and someone within earshot is bound to catch it and understand, but it's such a euphoric feeling. Halfway through the day I felt silly for even thinking of theater references, as if I was subconsciously just trying to do it to fit in. That's how much I was in the right place.
Later, during the first day, a friend of mine and I were walking around the conference, exploring until we were ready to get in line to watch the opening ceremony and then the Hamilton panel (when we weren't working it was encouraged that we watch and enjoy), when the volunteer coordinator approached us.
"Hey you guys. What are you doing right now?"
I answered, "Just figuring out how to get in to see these next two events."
"Ok... would you guys like to watch the opening--if so that's totally cool--or would you like to watch it, or shoot off confetti cannons at the end?" She wagged her eyebrows.
"Shoot off confetti cannons, probably," my friend and I answered in unison.
"Great," She grinned. "You can come with me and watch it from the front, too."
This is the story of how I came to be crouched in the dark on the ground of a Hilton ballroom with a confetti cannon aimed at Laura Osnes and Alice Ripley and so many others. This is also the story of how I got to watch the Hamilton panel a few feet away from the stage.
One of the jobs as a volunteer was making sure that the first five rows were only being used by people with VIP passes, so once the events started we got to sit on the ends of the front rows to keep people from sneaking in.
That said, not everything about this was a positive experience. People with strong intentions can be horridly mean. For instance, the vicious woman with the general pass and the sneering smile who intended to stay in her front row seat, or the photographer who snidely requested upon reading my tshirt, "Could you volunteer to move? I'm going to put my stuff there," as I stood at my station in front of a curtain partition.
Why, I wondered, was this biting negativity so jarring? I, as a seasoned older sister am totally accustomed to pushback from those around, so what about this was different? For one, these are grown adults who should know better, sure. But the bigger and more important reason is this: there were hundreds of people at this convention, and every single one of them was so enchanted with the fact that they get to be a part of this, stars included. This convention is so clearly by the people and for the people, and EVERYONE knows it. It's bigger than a theater convention, it's a large gaggle of oddballs who are being embraced for their habits of breaking into song and their inability to be "normal".
I have never been to an event this big with such a lack of stereotypes. There are people of every age here. Every. Single. One. Every income range, every race, every gender. There was no norm. And it was beautiful.
Everybody was in for a frozen surprise when the blizzard hit, snowing everyone into the city with no way to get out. This wasn't a problem for me of course, because most of the underground train lines were completely untouched, but it sure did affect a lot of the special guests who were trying to come in from out of town.
As of today, everything is back up and running. Everyone was able to come in for their respective events, including some of the cast of Something Rotten, some of the cast of the new show Disaster!, and Sara Bareilles, who even did an impromptu performance from her new musical, Waitress.
The entire weekend was a dream. At the very end they had a closing ceremony, and brought all of the volunteers and staff on stage to do a singalong of "Seasons of Love". From the stage you could look into the audience and see people in the first few rows literally sobbing because it was over.
All in all, I do think that this was a pretty ok to start my first week back. Classes start tomorrow and I haven't even wiped out in the snow yet. Success? I think yes.
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