Harry Potter and the Time He Performed on Broadway

On Friday night, I went to this really cool diner called the Stardust Diner on Broadway and 51st.  At the diner, the waiters and waitresses sang to the restaurant patrons whether they were Broadway show tunes or top 40 hits.  It was very cool, but it was expensive as it was well known and on Broadway.  But, I figured I could splurge a little.

Jen and Mary

The diner.

Alexa and me.  As you might be able to notice, I have fantastic tan lines that I’m really proud of *grumbles: stupid tank tops.* They’re even better than the ones I had from last summer with my awesome lifeguard suit!

One of the waiters singing.  I was actually serenaded three times by two different waiters.  It was great.

Another waitress singing.

My $16.75 plate of pasta that I could have easily gotten the same thing at an Applebee’s for $10.  Oh, well.  It was worth it.  I recommend going there at least once just to say you’ve been.

Alexa and Jen had already ate before we left after the Guggenheim so they just ordered Red Velvet Cake a la mode.  I had some, and it was sooo good.  And $9 bucks.  Mary ate a Caesar Salad for $12.

Afterwards we basically had our whole night open.

Oh, wait. Yes. I almost forgot.

After dinner, we headed to the Al Hirschfeld Theater to see How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying starring Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette.

As I’m sure you can imagine, it was fantastic.  We found our seats with about ten minutes before curtain and the excitement inside the theater was palpable.  I felt like a twelve-year-old girl, I was so giddy with excitement.  I mean, the kid played one of the most famous characters in children’s literary history.  The world basically watched him grow up on the screen, and here he was in New York on Broadway in a completely different role singing and dancing in front of audiences eight times a week.  He certainly pulled it off, in my opinion.  It was great watching the lights dim, the crowd hush, the announcer asking all audience members to shut off their cell phones, please no photography, and wait as the conductor began the overture.  Then this long harness was dropped down onto the stage and it was only a few more minutes of anticipation until he appeared, strapped to the harness, and jimmying himself up so he was about fifteen feet above the stage.  The crowd erupted and you could see the bright grin on his face even from my seat.  The theater, I might add, wasn’t nearly as big as some Broadway musicals; when I saw Wicked in Chicago at the Oriental Theater, it had to be at least twice as big as the Hirschfeld and we were nearly all the way in the back.  Our seats were located in rows P and Q in the mezzanine (the upper balcony, basically) and the view was still superb.  I don’t think you could have a bad seat in the house.

For one of our projects in our class WRA 491: Write NYC, we have to write two reviews of some activity we’ve done whether it be a play, museum exhibit, or restaurant we go to.  I chose to write one of mine on How to Succeed.  It’s kind of rough right now, but I’ll just post it instead of typing basically the same thing on here:

Last night in New York City at the Al Hirschfield Theater on W 45^th St, I saw Daniel Radcliffe star in the Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  He played the title role of J. Pierrepont Finch (“That’s F-I-N-C-H!”), a window cleaner living in New York City who starts taking advice from a book about how to succeed in business and begins climbing his way to the top of a large corporation.  The show also starred John Larroquette who, on Sunday, won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his role as J.B. Biggley, the president of the company.  There was no doubt this musical would be entertaining.  It was fast-paced, lively, and unlike some musicals that drag on too long in Act II with you wishing the song would just end already, this one was perfect, to the point, and I almost wished it had gone on a little longer.

            Although Daniel Radcliffe was surely the face of the show – his smiling, blue-eyed visage plastered on billboards and buses all over Manhattan – John Larroquette was the star.  He produced many one-liners that were so quick you had to make sure you listened close enough to catch them; his singing voice was strong and he had a great stage presence that was truly mesmerizing.  Together, he and Radcliffe managed to share the stage equally, even during their duet together in “Grand Old Ivy.”

            That isn’t to say Daniel Radcliffe wasn’t good as well.  He was superb, showing he will not be typecast forever as “the-boy-who-lived,” adapting well to the stage.  His American accent, though, in my opinon, coming across as whiny and nasally, was spot on and not even a little of his British accent showed through.  His singing was pleasing, but it was the dancing that I think surprised me the most.  In that aspect, he was fantastic, running around stage with perfectly choreographed dance moves that made me forget for a moment I was watching him on a stage and not in a movie.  “Brotherhood of Man” was by far the best number of the whole production, and even the witty quips they threw his way to poke fun of who was, (Businessman: “Why don’t you just use Queen Elizabeth?” Finch: “This is an American program.” *Cue Laughter*) were admired and appreciated.

            The underside of this production was the typical 1950’s housewife aura some musical numbers (“Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm,” “A Secretary is Not a Toy”) revealed.  The original How to Succeed was produced in the 1960’s when it was perfectly acceptable for a woman to want to find a husband and stay at home instead of continuing in the work force, but it annoyed me a little in the fact that many women still strive to find this as their main goal even today.  The women in the cast had excellent voices, especially Ellen Harvey, who played Miss Jones and showed off her wide range of vocal chords during “Brotherhood of Man.”  Unfortunately, the two leading men – as well as the other minor characters such as Christopher Hanke’s Bud Frump, Biggley’s brazen, do-gooder nephew (hilarious in the number “Coffee Break”) – stole the show and more or less shoved the women in the background, making them quite forgettable.  

To add to that a little, I’m not saying that the actresses playing the women weren’t played well, it’s just the characters on the stage were typecast as your typical flighty women, and the musical seemed more about the men than the women.

Like I said, though, it was fabulous and I wish I could see it again.  I recommend going to youtube and trying to find as many production videos of the musical numbers as you can.  I’ve linked the ones I can find here, but there are several more, as well as on the main website, to which the link for that can be found on the left side of this blog.

They were super strict about no pictures, even before the show started the ushers were yelling at people to stop taking photographs, even if they were taking them of themselves with friends and family and not necessarily of the stage.  After the show was done, I took this one as people were leaving.  It looks like we were a lot farther away than we were; I promise my camera just makes things look farther away than they appear.  Like rear-view windows.

How adorable.

Afterward, there was an area outside where some of the cast could come out and sign autographs.  I would assume Daniel Radcliffe would come out later, but by the time we got there, we were so far back there was no point in staying.  John Larroquette came out, but I was only able to see the top two inches of his head and his hair from where I was standing…and he’s 6’5” or something.  Daniel Radcliffe is only 5’6”, poor guy, so there was no chance of even catching a glimpse of him.  Alexa and I want to go back sometime later this week since we know when the show lets out, and camp out for an hour or so where the crowd will meet so maybe we can get an autograph.

I think I would die. 🙂

So, my last bit of advice is get your butt to NYC and go see How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It’s been going since the end of March, and I’m not sure how long certain Broadway shows go for – besides the really famous, popular ones like Phantom the Opera, Wicked, The Lion King, and Avenue Q (which is technically off-Broadway, but same thing). Just see it. It’s great.

And, you know, completely unrelated, but this one is fun too, for kicks and giggles.