Passport NYC

Travel Writing

Exercise 5

It wasn’t the first thing I saw, but it was the thing that stood out the most and made me finally feel like I was actually there. Bright lights, billboards 5 stories high, some of these billboards advertisements and others are for musicals in town. Tons and tons of people, giant skyscrapers, 50 stores on one block. I’m talking about Times Square in New York City.

I went to a Musical Theater camp this summer called Passport NYC and we were staying in Manhattan. When I got to camp, I knew I was in New York City, but something didn’t feel right yet, something was still missing. Then came the first day of classes and we walked through Times Square to get to class and that was it. I was officially in New York City. For a Musical Theater person, my dream is to one day not just see a show on Broadway, but be in a show on Broadway, see all of those seats in the theater filled for me.

This camp was the perfect opportunity to get great practice and meet with some top name people who work in the Broadway business, whether it was meeting with a casting director, a president of certain theaters, or a marketing research company. All of the classes and trips and experiences were simply amazing and I learned so much.

Meeting with all of the people working behind the scenes was really cool. We got to experience and learn about all of the different jobs on Broadway. You don’t have to be an actor to be on Broadway. You can be a director, or an agent, or even a person who works the lights. It’s all still Broadway.

The many classes we had at DANY Studios were really fun. Every day we would have three classes there; a voice class, a dance class, and an acting class. Our voice teacher was an actual member of the Ensemble in Cinderella, Branch Woodman. It was so awesome being able to get really personal with a Broadway actor and become good friends. Our dance class was led by my brohemian rhapsody, Chris Liddell. He’s a really cool and a fabulous dancer. He’s a New York Yankees fan, so we talked about baseball a lot at camp. Our acting class was led by Corrie Cooper. She’s extremely nice and fun to be around and she really brings out the best actor in all of us. We had class every day from 9 to 1 with an hour for lunch.

After our morning classes, we would go out for our specialty visits. Some of my favorite specialty visits were; touring Juliard, touring the Lincoln Center, meeting Jordan Roth, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters, and meeting with a Broadway marketing company. All of our visits were amazing and I learned so much about all of the different aspects of Broadway. Every visit made me more and more aware of the fact that this is what I wanted to do, I want to be an actor on Broadway. Another cool part about meeting Jordan Roth was that his office is just a few floors above the stage, so we were able to hear the actors rehearsing for a Beatles Tribute show, then we got to go and actually sit in the theater and listen, it was amazing.

Once we were done with both our classes and our specialty visit, it was finally time to return to the 92 Street Y where we stayed. Musical Theater having the longest day out of all of the other specialties, we were always the last ones to get back. We would usually only have like 20 minutes to shower and get ready for dinner, it was insane.

The night capped of another wonderful day of NYC with more wonderful stuff in NYC. The entire camp would all do something together so that we had time to meet people in other specialties as well. Some of the really cool things we did together was; go on an open top bus tour of NYC, seeing a screening of the movie Magic Camp, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, seeing a Musical. On top of the one musical the entire camp saw together, the Musical Theater specialty got to see 5 other shows. The 6 shows we got to see were; A Trip to Bountiful, Pippin, Cinderella, Motown, Matilda, and Kinky Boots. My favorite show was Pippin. It was this really interesting story about a boy named Pippin searching for meaning in his life. He saw all of the magic and circus stuff going on around his life, all of the fame, but he didn’t want any of that. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, but he knew that the fame was too much. He knew that everything had its season and its time, and that whatever he was meant for in the world would come to him soon. It was magic show, circus, and musical all in one and it was simply amazing.

My trip to New York City couldn’t have been any better. I learned so much, I made a bunch of new friends who share the same interests and goals as me, I made a bro for life, I made connections, I had the best summer ever… again. I went last summer and I didn’t think it could get any better, and this summer shot far beyond my expectations. I loved it so much and can’t wait till next summer.