Bye Bye New York

Sunday July 17

When I made my reservations to depart New York I had two choices. Leave at 7:00 am or leave at 9:00 pm.  I’ve done that crazy 7:00 am flight before and I end up ruining the night before because I have to get up at 3:00 am in order to catch the shuttle.  So I decided to bank on the fact that the hotel would give me a late check out, (after all I was a long term customer), and have one more day in the city. So my great late check out ended up being for an extra hour-how generous of them-so I stowed my bags and went off on my last few hours of exploration.

One of the wacky things I did in NYC was to take photos of every Chase logo, sign or bank I saw.  My friends thought I was crazy, but it kept reminding me that I was spending someone else’s money and I had an obligation to make wise decisions.  So on Sunday I found a few more Chase signs to shoot.

That Sunday was the hottest day of my trip so I limited my walking to the NY Public Library, explored some more buildings, did last minute shopping and ended up in Bryant Park.  This was a great location to sit and reflect on my amazing ten days and figure out what I needed to do next.   I did more thinking than planning but I did manage to review my time, flesh out some notes and catch up with a few people who I couldn’t fit into my schedule.  Eli Bolin, one of the students I had really wanted to catch up with (Sesame Street composer and one of the founders of The Story Pirates) had spent the last few weeks battling walking pneumonia and bronchitis.  The good news is that he is spending two weeks in Claremont in August so we have a plan to meet at that time. 

After a quick shuttle to JFK I had more time in the airport to work.   Since my blog went haywire sometime during the week (the entire thing was only in the Wingding font and I couldn’t get anything to work so I could read it or post) I made more notes and continued to type my blog into a Word document.  I hate not having teenagers to help solve my computer dilemmas. 

I think it will take many weeks, if not months, to digest my experiences in New York. Sharing the workshops with other theatre director friends has given us the opportunity to bounce ideas for our classes off of one another during our other conferences this summer, and .  I also found that as I blogged about my experiences it gave me the time to reflect and review the workshops, shows and meetings.  A huge side benefit was that I kept researching facts, people, dates and shows as I typed to make sure I was getting everything correct.  Each time I would research one thing it took me to something else and I ended up learning even more about events, people and the history of the different shows.

At this point I know that this experience has given me a renewed energy as a director, teacher and theatre educator.  I’m guessing that this year I will win the “what I did with my summer vacation” contest with my colleagues.  Sadly, there is no prize for this contest.  Truthfully, I already won the prize.  The good news is that what I did this summer in New York will have a life long effect on both myself and my students.