Saturday, December 14, 2013

The 12...er...11 days of Christmas: Jimmy Fallon Flashback!

Life has been crazy lately...as soon as we finished the marathon we had to turn around and start our final rehearsals for the Christmas show Nathan and I are dancing in at church. We actually just finished our first show of the day and I'm sitting in a Starbucks writing this and waiting for our next call time.

I'm going to try ("try" being the operative word) to write a post every day leading up to Christmas. Even though writing is not a particularly creative endeavor for me, the act of sitting down and doing it gets my creative mind really flowing in other directions, something I really enjoy the effects of as you'll see in a post later this week!

For this installment, as requested, a flashback to New York and our trip to see Jimmy Fallon taped live! Enjoy:



We spent Thursday morning laying low, Nathan took some of our clothes to the laundromat and I wasn’t feeling great so he let me lay around on the couch all morning. But we couldn’t do that all day, oh no sir, Thursday was Jimmy Fallon day! 

I was pretty anxious about getting down to 30 rock in time, I had heard it could be pretty hectic getting in and even though I had gotten the initial ticket (a feat in and of itself) they overbook all their shows so we weren’t guaranteed to get in. We found the place we were supposed to meet early and I was a stressed out wreck until we got our wristbands. *deep breath*. Now that I knew we were “in” we got to walk around and explore Rockefeller Plaza, which was super fun! They already had the big Christmas tree up but there was scaffolding around it and they were trimming off branches so it was hard to see. We watched the ice skaters and found all the places they took for the opening shots of the show 30 rock. Before we knew it, it was time to come back for the taping!



They totally seat you based on how you look. When you get your wristband they give you a letter, it has nothing to do with what time you get there. It’s not exactly a great practice but I had been reading a yelp review about the show and  knew they were going to do it so I tried to look like my usual “desirable demographic” self. Well it worked! We got to sit in the fourth row on the aisle. It was kind of weird though because they fill in the “pretty people” first (please know what we’re being sarcastic…but that’s how Nathan and I referred to each other as the rest of the night) and then everybody else sort of has to climb in over you, they aren’t too subtle about it.



One of the head writers came out to give us a rundown of how the taping was going to work and she was super funny (of course) so she did a really good job of getting us pumped up. After her the Roots came out and played some music and they had Wanz as a guest musician, which was SO great, and by then we were all bouncing off the walls.

The taping itself just flew by, Jimmy only stopped and started over after one little introduction. He was so high energy and just seemed like he was having a great time. It made me think that it would be weird to have to be so intense about the same thing every day, but he put on a great show. Damian (Lewis?) from Homeland was on, along with Steve Coogan who did some pretty great impressions.
It was super interesting to see all of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes to make the show happen and to see how Jimmy could be funny and spontaneous while still keeping track of so many other things and timing stuff perfectly.

I was excited when I heard they were going to play a game with the guests, those are always my favorite episodes, they played charades and I was so into it I almost yelled out the answer on accident! Sheryl Crow was the musical guest, I’ve never really liked her music at all, but she did actually sound really good live. Usually the musician sticks around afterward while Jimmy is saying goodbye but I think she had to catch a flight so she just left right after the song so he had to do a kind of awkward closing. But then came the best part…he ran through the aisles of the audience and Nathan and I both got high-fives. I’m typically more star struck by that type of thing than Nathan is but I still played it cool.

And WOOSH! Just like that it was over, what an experience to have!

 While we had been waiting to get our tickets for Jimmy, Nathan had called and gotten us some last-minute tickets to First Date, a new Broadway show starring Zachary Levi from Chuck (a show we love). It worked out perfectly; we grabbed a quick dinner and just walked over to the theater. I wasn’t expecting too much from the show, it hadn’t gotten a great review in the NY Times, but the tickets weren’t very expensive so we thought we’d give it a try. We ended up LOVING it! It was definitely a little bit edgier than Newsies (but Newsies is Disney, so that’s not saying much). The story wasn’t incredibly original but they told it in a really cool way. There were only seven people in the cast so they all played a bunch of characters and handled the sets and the costumes in a really creative way. 

Zachary Levi was so much better than I was expecting! I really liked him in Chuck, but you know how sometimes on t.v. it seems like people might just be playing themselves? It was fun to get to see him play a different character. He had GREAT comedic timing and the guy can SING! I’ve still got some of the songs stuck in my head three days later.

We were leaving the theatre after the show and saw a little barricade set up along the side of the theatre with about 20 people standing around it. I figured the actors/actresses would probably be coming out later but we kept walking. After about half a block we decided, “What the heck, it was pretty warm out; we can at least wait for ten minutes…”  I ended up getting my playbill signed by the whole cast and got to chat with each of them for a minute. Zach came out last and couldn’t have been nicer. We were standing at the end of the barricade so we were the last ones there. We got to tell him we liked the show and joked around a little bit and he was even nice enough to take a picture with us! I asked him if it would be weird to use the picture for our Christmas card and he laughed but he wasn’t sure whether we were serious or not…at the time neither was I. Full disclosure: I did upload the picture into our Christmas card just to see if it looked weird…it did. I can’t believe I just admitted that to you all!



Ah well, at least we felt famous for a night!

No comments:

Post a Comment