Aurora's Blog

In part 4, I left off deciding I’d see The Book of Mormon again.

I tried to work it out to see it with Danielle (my new friend from Rock ‘n’ Roll New Orleans). She wanted to see the show, but was out of town while I was there. Bummer, I know.

I asked around, but everyone I knew had seen it or was busy. Yet again, I braved the standing room line by myself. And yet again, I did it on my last night in town.

I figured this would be the perfect way to end my awesome trip to New York. It was, but considering I left myself no wiggle room, I started having irrational fears. I daydreamed that an entire college rugby team would be in New York and show up at 8 in the morning, thwarting me from getting my tickets.

I decided to show up in the 6 o’clock hour (leaving Far Rockaway in the 4 o’clock hour). I didn’t have anything to do that day. I couldn’t sleep with an imaginary rugby team keeping me up. I might as well hang out in line.

I was the only one there for hours. I know we’ve already answered the age old question – “What time should you get in the standing room line for Book of Mormon tickets?” I think you can show up as late as 3pm (possibly even 4) on weekdays and most likely be okay. (On weekends, I’ve heard people get there as early as 6 or 7am, with the line halfway complete by 8.) But I just couldn’t take the chance!

As I walked to the Eugene O’Neil, I passed the Marquis Theatre where music from Evita is on loop 24 hours a day. I had a fleeting thought that it would be nice if they did that at The Book of Mormon. (Although, a lot of the fun for new audiences comes from surprises in the lyrics, so not really.)

After I’d waited an hour or two alone in line, the street needed to be hosed down. I stepped out of the way, toward the stage door, and had a nice conversation with Amir, the doorman. He was a sweetheart, giving me a folding chair to borrow for the rest of the day!

I saw some interesting characters on the street that morning. There was this weird man who stared at me, got pretty darn close to me, stared in my eyes, and spit by my feet. (Weird, right?) There was a woman who came over and said, “This show is worth every single second you’re sitting here.” I appreciated that (even though I already knew that to be a true statement).

Yet again (just like last time), I met an awesome random friend on the street who talked to me for part of the morning. His name was Noah, and I convinced him that he should come to the show with me that night.

Slowly but surely, the line started filling up. Peter (from the first time I did this) always referred to all of us as a “line family.” He was right. You become this fun little family for a day, learning a lot about people, looking out for them, sharing snacks and chairs and such. It’s a lot of fun.

As we all waited in the line, we found out (I think through Twitter) that Andrew Rannells’ standby was going to be in as well. I won’t say bummer because of the stance I took for understudies/standbys just two short posts ago in this series. I didn’t know what to expect from Nic Rouleau. Andrew sings the house down every night, but I had seen him twice. I was ready to see what somebody else brought.

As the crowd for the lottery grew, we in the standing room line, started deviously plotting to scare some people away. (We acknowledged that we were being awful people.) We started weaving it into conversations that understudies for both leading men were in.

We figured people would start trickling away (considering how beside themselves people seemed when they found out Josh Gad wasn’t in last time). If a group of people had walked away when Josh was gone, with Josh and Andrew both gone, we must be able to thin out this lottery a little, right?

Wrong. Not one single person cared. Of course I wanted everyone to lovingly be on the side of standbys/understudies. But, come on! The one time people’s stubbornness and preconceived notions could’ve worked in our favor…

Oh well.

What happens in the lottery? I’ll continue in Part 6.