I left off in Part 5 at The Book of Mormon lottery.
If I were a cast member in the show, I would love to walk down the street super nonchalantly through the throngs of fans as they wait for the lottery. “Oh yeah, no big deal. I just sing my face off in this show every night. Don’t sweat it. Oh, you love me in this show? Well, that’s mighty sweet of you. Thank you, thank you, adoring crowd. Thank you so much.”
The Book of Mormon lottery is one of the few places where people are celebrated for being single. When the lottery announcer guy says that someone is only taking one ticket, the crowd goes wild.
We all kept hoping that at least one of us would win the lottery tickets. Let me tell you, no one in my line family won. That’s the karma we got for trying to shoo people away. At least we were guaranteed standing room tickets.
The waiting time between the lottery announcement and buying standing room tickets was one of the longest hours of my life. We are all so tired! Please, I beg of you, sell us our tickets!
When the side window opened to sell the standing room tickets, my heart happily skipped a beat. The whole line got super stoked, and one by one we joyously bought our tickets.
I ended up grabbing a quick dinner with these two wonderful people I met in line – Lauren and Jake. They are doctors (who live in New York), so pretty much some of the coolest people ever. They were super lovely and funny and interesting. And as much as I loved hanging out with them, I still jetted off after 20 or so minutes, ‘cause I needed to down a venti caramel macchiato. I knew The Book of Mormon would keep me awake and attentive, but I also knew I wanted some sugar and caffeine coursing through my veins to make me a more agreeable, pleasant person.
I met up with Noah at that theater. There are a few things that are really cool about the standing room only seats. For one, you know everyone who’s standing around you since you spent the whole day in line with them. For another, you get to expel more energy while standing, which is good ’cause energy is flying at you from the cast members. (In the words of Danny Zuko, “it’s electrifying!”)
Right before the show, Noah told me that he doesn’t really do Broadway musicals. He said he’d seen a few, but not liked any of them. The pressure is on! Luckily, I knew that this was the perfect musical for that kind of person. If you don’t generally like musical theater, and you don’t like this super pop culture-y, hilarious, contemporary musical either, chances are you are not going to like musicals. Sorry.
At intermission, he was still having fun. Here’s the crazy part about intermission. I started talking again with Lauren and Jake (and Noah). I mentioned doing 52 half marathons in 52 weeks. Lauren then asked if I had done Rock ‘n’ Roll New Orleans. “Yeah. I did.” Then she told me, “We sat in front of you on the plane!” What?! I kid. you. not.
They were in front of me on the plane ride to New York from New Orleans. They had overheard me talking to the stranger I’d met on the plane. I was partly scared by this thinking, “I’m pretty loud, huh? And they actually still remember what I was talking about? Geez, I hope I’m not running around the country always making a fool of myself.”
We couldn’t even get over it. The odds of these two medical residents, in this super populated city, who almost never have any time for themselves, not only being by me on the plane ride from their first half marathon, but also sitting (standing) by me at a Broadway show a month later is insanity!
The lights went down for the second act immediately after our humongous realization.
This is where I’ll pick up later with part 7 – the conclusion of this series.