broadway knows how to party!

So last night was the opening night party for In the Heights on Broadway! I was invited and of course I went. Now, I was expecting a big room full of people and an open bar, possibly a dance floor also. What was actuality, however, was so much better!

We met our boss at the theatre right after the show ended, and just walking into the theatre, I spotted Sutton Foster, Anthony Rapp and Stephen Schwartz. I knew it would be a good night. :) So we got on the shuttle bus that took us to the party, along with Natalie Cortez (Morales in A Chorus Line).

The party was at Chelsea Piers, at Pier 60, it was at the end of one of the docks, in a huuuuuge building. We went in, checked our coats, gave the guys our tickets, and headed in to the par-tay. The room was a big L shape, with probably 7 or 8 bars around the outside, a dance floor, a bunch of tables on one side, and long tables along the outside with amazing food on them. We went into one of the food lines first, got pork and rice, which were both absolutely delicious. As soon as we walked in, we were handed drinks by a waiter. No idea what was in them, but they were good! A few of us headed to the big bar after we ate and got drinks (Malibu and cranberry juice is PHENOMENAL!) and then we decided to wander around the room. On the dance floor, a few people were salsa dancing to the salsa band that was playing, who kept playing great songs. At the far end of the room was the "In the Heights" backdrop that they use when the stars come in to take pictures. Well at this point, this place was packed. We couldn't get within 20 feet of it because of the gridlock. So we just wandered a little bit more.

Right off the bat, I saw Charlotte d'Amboise (Also from A Chorus Line. I hate to say it, but she's aged a lot in the past couple years), many many familiar faces, but I wouldn't be able to tell you what show or what their name is. I'll try and remember who else I saw: Noah Weisberg (Legally Blonde original cast), of course the entire ITH cast, Lisa Lambert (one of the writers of The Drowsy Chaperone) was dancing next to me for a while, Bob Martin was talking to Troy Britton Johnson (both Drowsy OBC/Bob wrote it), Asmeret Ghebremichael (Legally Blonde OBC/ITH Off-Broadway cast) and Stephen Schwartz, who I pretty much freaked after we made eye contact a few times...um...I can't think of any more right off hand that I just saw and didn't talk to. We decided to break our cool and take a picture with Anthony Rapp, because many of the cast members were, too, so we didn't feel like idiots. After scanning the room for any more familiar faces, we headed back to the dance floor.

We danced up a storm. I was wearing 5 1/2 heels, so my feet started killing me about 1am, but I kept them on and kept dancing! Well after a little bit of dancing, my friend and co-worker Kyle goes "OHMYGOD THAT'S SARA RAMIREZ!" I recognized the name but couldn't think of the face, and then suddenly I looked and saw her! (Callie from Grey's Anatomy and OBC and Tony winner of Spamalot) (If you want to see how amazing she is EVEN WHEN SICK(!), watch this) So anyway, we needed to get a picture with her, for she is fierce, so we headed over to where she was. She headed to the bar so we waited for her to get her drink, and then greet one of the ITH cast members, and I, being the one with the "most balls" of Shelley, Kyle and myself, tapped Sara on the shoulder as she was about to walk away, and I said "I am sooo sorry to bother you, but could we possibly have a picture?" and she, being a total sweetheart, was like "Of course! Don't worry about it!" and she took pictures with both me and Shelley (I'll post all of the pictures from the night once I steal Shelley's). She stood there for a minute while we thanked her, just in case we wanted to start a conversation, and then we all headed towards the dance floor.

We danced with our boss and the few co-workers who were there for a while, my boss being the most intoxicated haha. He's so cool. And a very white dancer. But we still had a great time making fools out of ourselves and then when he was leaving, all putting our hands in and cheering "GOOOOO MERCH!" yeah. Real cool there.

After a while, Sara also came on the dance floor, right by us, and let's just say that girl's gotta have some black in her! FABULOUS dancer! Someone dropped a glass, shattering it, and she, being a nice person, got down and helped pick up the millions (okay exaggerating) of little pieces of glass. Very cool. Well, I made it my goal for the rest of the night to actually dance with her, and that I did! :) At one point, the crowd made a circle and a few guys from the cast and a few others started break dancing and doing crazy hip hop moves. They seriously have no bones. It was so cool! So of course everyone stops dancing to watch these guys, and Sara comes right next to me, actually shoulder to shoulder and right behind Shelley! (Shelley spazzed out because Sara touched her butt hahaha) Anyway, while we are cheering the guys on, we look at each other and after a while we started dancing too. So I danced with Sara Ramirez. Hell yes.

So after that Shelley and I were thirsty and a little hungry too, so we went to one of the food tables and got the best ONION RINGS I have ever tasted! The onion was really thin or something, because I couldn't really taste it at all, but omg. So good. We went out to this separate room, sort of a patio, overlooking the water and Jersey. It was very nice. :)

Well after dancing for hours we got pretty tired and were going to leave once they played a song we didn't really like. Which of course didn't happen. But we started fading fast so we grabbed our purses and decided to leave while the party was still in full swing. On the way out, we grabbed our coats from the coat check and as we were walking out to the shuttle bus, they handed us amazing hot chocolate! The whole night was very high class. I hope this is the first of many opening night parties that I will be at, and hopefully soon, I will get to sit at the tables reserved for "CAST". :)

.jmm.