Life and Times of a Displaced Jersey Girl: president

Approximately 14 years ago, my mom took me to see a new musical that had recently opened on Broadway. The show was RENT. My mom is very big into theater so over the years she has taken me to probably over 50 shows on Broadway (some of them I have seen 2 or 3 times). My mom instilled in me my own love of Broadway and one of the things that I hate about living away from New York is that I can't just hop on a train to see a show whenever I feel like it. When RENT first opened on Broadway it became an instant overnight success. Tickets were sold out for months in advance, so when my parents were finally able to get tickets, I was ecstatic.

Not only did we have tickets, but we had 3rd row seats, which is sort of the first row (The first 2 rows were only sold on the day of the show, so a third row ticket is the closest you can get when you buy ahead of time.) The day of the show my 2 friends, and my cousin met my mom and me at our house in the morning. I remember the events of the day so clearly. My dad was upstairs watching the news and right before we left, he came downstairs and we had a conversation that went like this:

Dad: "Say hi to Bill for me!"
Me, Mom, friends and cousin: "What?"
Dad: "Its Chelsea Clinton's birthday. The president is going to be in New York City today to celebrate her birthday!"

That was all. Just a simple conversation that we forgot about moments later. NYC is HUGE, so who really cared that the president was going to be there right? There was no way we'd ever see him.

Apparently, we were wrong with that way of thinking. We arrived at 41st Street where the Nederlander Theatre, home of RENT is, and the street was barricaded off so that no one could get on it. We were a little worried because we had tickets to see a show and the street looked like there was no chance in the world we were getting onto it. So my mom asked a police officer who was guarding the street what was going on. His response? "The President is going to see RENT." Now, maybe I'm just a huge nerd, but whether or not you like Bill Clinton, we thought that was pretty unbelievable. Especially since we kind of ignored my dad when he made the comment about the Clinton's being in the city that day. So needless to say, we were still allowed on the street, but only if we had tickets to the show, and only after we went through a series of metal detectors, purse searches and my mom had pepper spray taken away from her.

Once we got to our seats, the theatre was just abuzz with noise as everyone waited for the president to come in. We assumed that he would sit in a box seat, or at least be secluded from everyone somehow, but we were wrong again. We noticed that the 3 rows behind us were empty and we actually sat there talking amongst ourselves saying "There is NO way he's going to sit right behind us." But he did! 2 rows behind us. The row directly behind us was filled with secret service agents, the row behind them had Bill, Hillary, Chelsea and friends, and behind that was another row of secret service agents. I am going to have to dig out my pictures from that day, because we got some good ones!

So the show started and it was quite possibly the greatest show I had ever seen on Broadway. I had already memorized the soundtrack before seeing the show, and had already fallen in love with the characters of Mark and Roger. I was so determined to meet and get autographs from Anthony Rapp, who played Mark, and Adam Pascal, who played Roger. My mom and I always waited by the stage door after shows to get autographs and pictures of the cast. We have done it at every show so it was always assumed that we would do it for any future shows. When we headed into NYC that day, I was determined to get Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal's autograph. Well...that wasn't going to happen. Apparently, when the President of the United States is in the theatre, that means that every single patron is ushered off the street as fast as possible after the show and no one is allowed to wait by the stage door. During intermission of the show we were able to get up and shake the president's hand. We also had Hillary Clinton sign our RENT playbills. So after the show, when we were ushered off the street, my friends and I were soooo disappointed that we didn't get to meet the actors that we adored. We spent the rest of the day whining (we were only 14 or 15 years old), saying things like "I can't believe I couldn't meet Adam Pascal." To which my mom would respond: "Girls...you met the president! Quit whining!"

For the next several years I whined and complained about how I didn't get to meet 2 of my favorite actors. It killed me because so many of my friends from school had gone to seen the play and had met them. So I admit...I was horribly jealous. Then Adam Pascal reappeared on Broadway in the musical AIDA. When AIDA opened, my mom gave me tickets for my birthday. I remember the card because it said something like "I don't know what this play is about, but Adam Pascal is in it, so maybe now you can quit whining!" It was the best birthday present ever :-). I did get to meet Adam Pascal FINALLY after going to see AIDA. A few months later I also got a "job" working for Adam Pascal. He has a few CDs out that are produced through an online only record company. Their website was looking for volunteers to hand out postcards advertising the albums after AIDA let out each day. So I volunteered. I spent about 4 weekends handing out postcards (I think this was in 2000), which also earned me the right to be personally introduced to Adam Pascal in the process. I also saw AIDA 2 more times before he left the show. So I have several nice pictures of Adam Pascal, some with me in them, one is autographed and others are just him. For the moment, I was appeased because I got to meet one of my favorite actors.

That still didn't completely stop my whining though. I still wanted to meet Anthony Rapp. RENT was still playing on Broadway but the cast had changed several times since the original cast left. It figures that once I moved to Corpus Christi, Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal revived their roles in the play for a few months. It just wasn't possible for me to get home during that time, so I whined about it. Then the movie version of RENT came out which I cheerfully went to see, but then I spent a few days whining afterwards because the movie stared the original cast, and once again, I was annoyed that I had never met Anthony Rapp.

So fast forward to this past weekend. RENT had a 12 year run on Broadway but it is officially closed now. The Broadway tour is still running though and it came to Seattle this past weekend. The big hype about the Broadway tour? Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp came back to revive their original roles again. I was soooo excited when I heard this. This is apparently a huge deal that they are back too because the show is being advertised as "Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp in RENT the Broadway Tour". The original show never had any "stars". No one person was advertised in the advertisements for it, so I was pretty excited to see their names on the marquee.

We went to the 2:00 matinee showing this past Saturday and I had a blast! I felt like a little kid because I was so excited to see my favorite actors live on stage again! I also realized that it has been 14 years since I first saw the play on Broadway! I didn't realize it had been that long, but I do feel kind of pathetic that I have been whining for 14 years about not being able to meet Anthony Rapp. So of course, when the show was over, I raced out of the theatre to find the stage door. My friends followed but I am convinced that they think I'm crazy. I was shocked at the huge crowd that gathered at the stage door. I just wasn't expecting 2 Broadway stars to have such a huge fan base on the West Coast (although they were in the movie version), but everyone waiting out there was waiting to see them.

So now I can finally say, that after 14 years, I finally got the autographs that I wanted! Not only did I finally get an autograph from Anthony Rapp, but I added another Adam Pascal one to my collection too. Even that one was exciting to me because I became his fan because of RENT and now I finally had his autograph on a RENT playbill.

I don't think my friends were as excited as me and I don't think they really understand WHY I was and still am so excited! But I am thankful that they humored me though, and one of them even took pictures for me. All in all...it was a great day. Now I can say that I met the President AND Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal :-)!