Sunday, November 25, 2007

Jarrod, Jennie, Jump and Jazz




I actually went to work on Saturday as my family slept in. I was pretty proud that I was actually going to be 15 minutes early. As I got out of the cab outside of the Women's Project on 62nd and West End Avenue at 11:45 am, there was only one person on the sidewalk...it was Jarrod Emick.

Jarrod is from Hot Springs, SD. He was at SDSU when I did some dramaturg work for them in the early 1990's. He went on to star in Broadway shows such as Les Miserable, Miss Saigon, Damn Yankees (Tony Award), Rocky Horror Picture Show and Ring of Fire. Jarrod and I have been friends for almost two decades. He just got back into the city after working in Washington State and has been crashing on friends' couch above the WP. I had left him a couple messages telling him I was in town. This is just so unbelievable...first Theresa Flannery in the subway and now Jarrod Emmick on the street. The Theory of Dakotativity involves a strong centrifugal force.

After rehearsal, I hurried down to Union Square to pick up tickets to Jump. My sister, Jennie, came up from Baltimore to surprise Teake. My boys and she adore 0ne another - it was fun to have her here. While I was at rehearsal, Jen and the guys went to Battery Park.

Jump...Teake described it as an Asian Royal Tennebaums. I thought it was more like Bruce Lee meets the Olympics meets MXX. It was really funny and impressively athletic. It was decribed on Playbill.com as:

After achieving worldwide success, Korean phenomenon Jump has landed at Union Square — and it's easy to see what makes its appeal so universal. Almost wordless, the show is a high-energy mashup of martial-arts spectacle and vaudevillian slapstick comedy. One routine starring a sake-loving uncle makes the best case for alcoholic acrobatic hilarity since Jackie Chan's Legend of Drunken Master. Occasionally breaking from its impeccable choreography, the cast brings audience members on stage for improv; the ensuing laughs are big and simple, appealing to the circus fan in all of us.

For the evening, Teake and Jennie decided to find a showing of Beowulf (they watched it at a 3D theatre). I surprised Dick by taking him to the Jazz Gallery to enjoy an evening with Jeff "Tain" Watts, a famous jazz drummer. I have to admit that a lot of it was so chaotic, that I got lost in the notes; however, I know enough to recognize that he hit his hardware so many times that something amazing must be happening. Dick seemed to love it, and that was my goal. Tain was gracious enough to take a pic or two afterwards. It was another quintessential nyc eve. We stopped by the Barrow Inn and had a glass of wine with Natalie before turning in for the night.

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