Our trip to Texas to see "An American In Paris", 2008
On May 3 and 4th, 2008, Maribel and I journeyed to the Alley Theatre in Houston Texas to watch Harry take the lead in "The Gershwins' An American In Paris".
We each flew to Houston on Saturday. We had bought tickets for the Sunday show way back in February when they first announced it, but we planned to double dip and see the show that evening as well, in addition to the show on Sunday. At first we thought we could walk from the hotel to the theatre. Cab service in Houston is not what it is in NY. We searched for the theatre for six blocks before finding it, wearing ourselves out in the process. We agreed we would be calling a cab for that night's show-- no more walking. We viewed the very cool, evil-looking spiky Jones building across the way from the theatre, and on the steps of the theatre itself were two pigeons sitting there just staring at us. No fear at all! They almost looked fake! I snapped a picture.
After walking back to our hotel, we cleaned up for that evening's show. We phoned a cab to pick us up and get us there. It was delayed about 15 minutes by last-minute preparations. Finally it got under way. We had nosebleed seats up at the very top but we weren't worried, because we knew we'd be seeing it again the next night from the front row. It was good to see the whole show from far off, "widescreen" if you will, and then see it "up close and personal".
I am happy to report that the show is so much better than we were expecting! From the way they had him listed in the cast, we were afraid that Harry would be relegated to a minor role as a background character, walk on for half a scene, and be gone. He is in fact the proper star of the thing! It shares many similarities with "Crazy For You", as it would, being Gershwin music and being the same star and writer. I liked how when it begins, you assume the two young travellers thrown together by chance will end up together, as in most romantic comedies. But this play switches it up a little and casts an older, adult character as one of the serious love interests. Harry's dancing was just wonderful! He has really rebounded from the pain he was experiencing during "Spamalot". At the shows we saw he even joined the cast at the end for a tap number! After the show, we tried to find the stage door in case we would need it the following evening. We saw something that looked like it, but then we thought it was the parking garage.
Sunday morning we got up early. Maribel wanted to go horseback riding and we hired a fellow to drive us out to Cypress Farm. Alfredo happened to be from Peru, a singer and a musician, and incredibly friendly and nice. We rode out to the ranch and were saddled up on two of the calmer horses. Mine was Montego, a while dappled gelding. We spent an hour riding, much to my knees and thighs' dismay! But it was lots of fun.
We went to the mall and ate at Chili's, and phoned the theatre just to make sure Harry knew we were coming to that night's show. It would have been awful to go all that way and then not get to talk to him. It was so loud in the mall we went into the bathroom to call, and even there the sounds of Weezer's "Island in the Sun" were so loud I could barely hear Harry's machine. Not put off, we resolved to press on.
It occurred to us that it would be nice to get flowers to give Harry at the performance. We also wanted to buy ourselves cowboy hats, but surprisingly, cowboy hats and flowers are scarce to be found at the Houston mall. I did find a hat eventually, and our driver Alfredo kindly saved us some trouble by driving us to a florist on the way back, and we got a nice rose bouquet.
At the show that evening we hid the flowers, so no one in the cast would mistakenly think they were for someone they weren't. We originally wanted to hand them to Harry as he took his final bow on stage, but the theatre manager advised us that would be a bad idea. So we resolved to hurry and get to the stage door after the show.
The show was even better the second time around; little things had been changed and switched up, since they're still in the process of fine-tuning it. Certainly one of the best parts is Harry's top-hat-and-tails solo. He looked so beautiful, like a magician, his eyes sparkling in the spotlights. You can tell he really loves what he does, he really enjoys performing up there. There's also a scene where Harry's character is in bed reading, and ostensibly looks over at his sleeping bedmate. Maribel said it looked almost as if he was looking directly at *her*, given her position in the audience compared to where he was looking. Quite a thrill!!
All too soon the show ended. We rushed out to the street as quick as we could, lugging our bouquet. We located the door we thought led to the parking garage last evening and waited. Few things are as desperately exciting as waiting outside a stage door for someone, even when you're fairly certain that person wants to see you. At last we saw Harry exiting through the stage door. We presented him with the flowers, which he very much appreciated. He took us down the street to a restaurant, where we sat and talked by candlelight as he dug into a salad. (We were too excited to eat, we only had tea.)
I told Harry how much better he was dancing, how if he was in pain it didn't show, compared to when he was doing Spamalot. Harry confided that he'd been in awful pain throughout Spamalot's run; he had had to determine which of his feet could take a certain amount of stress on a given day. His hips and back were giving him trouble still, but he had undergone lots of rehabilitative care and was taking anti-arthritis medicine to help. I was particularly intrigued by this, since arthritis is a daily problem for me too.
I asked him what he thought he'd be doing if he hadn't become an actor. He mused that he'd probably have become an archaeologist, loving history as he does. He mentioned how years ago he'd taken a cab ride to the site of Gettysburg, and his cab driver had in fact been a descendant of one of the soldiers. The driver had even taken Harry to see the grave of his grandfather, out in the fields. I told him how not too recently, a Civil War ammunition buff here in Virginia had been killed by a cannonball 150 years after the Civil War had ended. The cannonball had been faulty and the explosion had been a one in a million occurance.
Maribel told him how if her lawyer hadn't stepped in on her behalf, she might have had to serve jury duty this weekend, and had to miss this trip we'd been planning for months. That led to Harry telling us how his wife Dawn had had to serve jury duty, and how the judge, about halfway through, had called Dawn aside for a conference. Since she was an actress, the judge had asked her to critique the performance of the lawyers in the trial; whether they sounded convincing, whether they could be heard clearly, etc!
At the end of the evening, Harry offered to drive us back to our hotel. So we even got to ride in his car (a grey Toyota Corolla, yes I did note it)! He dropped us off at the hotel, and we made our goodbyes. It needs to be noted how generous he was to hang with with us, even though it was late at night and he'd been dancing and working all day. Think how you feel at the end of a work day, and then you have to entertain giggly fangirls for two more hours. It's incredibly gracious of him, to keep humoring us like this. :) That was also the main reason we chose the Sunday show, since he was only doing one performance that night, and he had the next day off. We were trying to tax him as little as possible.
Final word; if you're anywhere near Houston this month, you need to get thee hie to the Alley Theatre and see this awesome show!! Let's get Harry back on Broadway dancing where he belongs, and let's clear off some of these awful Disney remakes they're cluttering up the place with! Harry is so much more talented (and handsome!) than that other Harry; there's plenty of room for two Gershwin shows! Go see it, you won't regret it!