Empire State opens annual Valentine wedding contest
When the Empire State Building puts out a request for proposals, qualified applicants must be willing to say “I do.”
The city’s tallest skyscraper allows weddings only once a year - at Valentine’s Day.
Fourteen couples will be chosen to marry, renew their vows or affirm their commitment to each other in ceremonies atop the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day weekend, 2010. Each couple will get a free, private 30-minute ceremony with up to 20 of their guests.
“From big-screen movie love scenes to sky-high proposals, this destination has always been a symbol of romance,” said Carley Roney, editor in chief of The Knot, which is sponsoring the event.
To enter the contest, applicants need to submit their romantic story, photos and reasons for wanting a skyscraper wedding to The Knot or Empire State Building by Dec. 9.
Winners will be chosen based on originality, creativity and their connections to the building.
'Present Laughter' to sell Broadway tickets from $10
Tickets go on sale today for the Broadway revival of Noel Coward’s “Present Laughter” with Victor Garber.
And since the comedy is a production of the Roundabout Theatre Company, 100 tickets will be sold for only $10 each, but only to the first four preview performances starting Jan. 2. Tickets may be purchased online, via phone (212) 719-1300, or at the box office.
“Present Laughter” will play the American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., map. Opening night is set for Jan. 21; the play is set to close March 21.
The USS New York arrived in New York City this morning, passing the Statue of Liberty before heading toward the World Trade Center site to offer a 21-gun salute in honor to those who died September 11, 2001.
The USS New York warship is a San Antonio-class LPD (Landing Platform Dock.) Its bow stem includes seven and a half tons of steel recovered from the World Trade Center towers.
The video:
Later today, the USS New York will dock at Pier 88 on the Hudson River to be formally inducted into the United States Navy at a shipboard ceremony Nov. 7.
The USS New York will be open to the public, free of charge from Nov. 4 though 11. The opening times:
Empire State shines for Halloween, Marathon weekend
The Empire State Building will change its colors in observance of this weekend’s two big events: Halloween on Saturday and the ING Marathon on Sunday.
The top three tiers of the city’s tallest building will stay orange, black and white all night for Halloween. (Normally the lights turn off at 2 a.m.)
On Sunday night, they’ll switch to orange, blue and white to celebrate the New York Road Runners and the 2009 ING New York City Marathon. The five-borough race begins Sunday morning in Staten Island.
Picture source: File image from Edelman Public Relations.
Producers issued a provisional closing notice and will decide Monday whether the show will go on, Playbill reported.
But as of Saturday morning, tickets remain on sale through Jan. 30 via the show’s official sales outlet, Ticketmaster.
On Friday, the New York Times quoted one of the show’s producers who said the reviews were not strong enough to boost ticket sales. “Broadway Bound,” another Simon play scheduled to play in repertory with “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” may not begin performances at all, according to both Playbill and the New York Times.
The most recent Broadway grosses, for the week ending Oct. 25, shows the theater for “Brighton Beach Memoirs” was at 61 percent capacity, but with a shockingly low average ticket price of only $21.32.
The semi-autobiographical play, set in 1937 Brooklyn, is both comedy and drama under the direction of David Cromer. Laurie Metcalf, Dennis Boutsikaris and Noah Robbins star.
“Brighton Beach Memoirs” plays the Nederlander Theatre, 208 W. 41st St., map. Regular tickets are priced from $63.50 to $98.50. Premium seats are $148.50. Student rush tickets are $30.
Image source: The official website for “Brighton Beach Memoirs.”
The revival of “Finian’s Rainbow” opened on Broadway on Thursday night and tumbled into the surprisingly warm reviews from the critics.
Set in the fictional state of Missitucky, the New York Times notes — approvingly — the plot seems “cooked up by somebody hitting the whiskey bottle a little too hard.” It takes on issues of race relations to easy credit and throws in a wacky leprachaun to boot.
A 24-member orchestra backs the cast, which features Kate Baldwin, Jim Norton, Cheyenne Jackson, Christopher Fitzgerald, Alina Faye, David Schramm and Terri White. The production is directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle. The music credits goes to Burton Lane with lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. The book is by Harburh and Fred Saidy.
“Finian’s Rainbow” has an open-ended run at the St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44th St., map. Regular tickets are on sale through march 28 and are priced from $35 to $115. Premium and aisle seats sell for as much as $250 each. Wednesday evening prices are a bargain for Broadway, ranging from $25 in the balcony to only $57.50 for orchestra.
Children under the age of 4 are not allowed in the theater.
The “Finian’s Rainbow” Broadway reviews:
Daily News - “What makes the show a gem is the beautiful score by Harburg and Burton Lane. It’s wall-to-wall ear candy and director/choreographer Warren Carlyle’s witty staging, joyful dancing and fine cast showcase the music to the max.”
New York Times - “All the comforting pleasures of the genre — infectious song, exuberant dancing, jokes both lovably corny and unexpectedly fresh, and of course the satisfying pairing of a him and a her — are on abundant display in this thoroughly winning production, a welcome picker-upper in an uneven Broadway season.”
Wall Street Journal - “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more musically satisfying Broadway show than ‘Finian’s Rainbow.’”
Hollywood Reporter - “But whatever one thinks of the story, there’s simply no disputing that this is one of the greatest musical comedy scores ever written. Here’s but a partial listing of the classic numbers: ‘Old Devil Moon,’ ‘Look to the Rainbow,’ ‘If This Isn’t Love,’ ‘When I’m Not Near the Girl I Love’ and, of course, ‘How Are Things in Glocca Morra?’”
World Series game day: Times Square rally, free food
Tonight at 7:57p.m., the New York Yankees host the Philadelphia Phillies for Game 1 of the 2009 World Series. Here’s the feed from the hype machine:
Times Square today at 12:30 p.m. will host a Yankees Pep Rally. The event will take place on Broadway between 44th and 45th streets. Be there or watch via the Times Square webcams.
The Empire State Building tonight and Thursday will light up blue and white for the Yankees.
There will be free Yankees cupcakes today courtesy of Crumbs and the Cupcake Stop Truck.
Free cheesesteak sandwiches — courtesy of the Greater Philadelphia Marketing and Tourism Commission — today at Shorty’s on Ninth Avenue from 4 p.m. until game time at 7:57 p.m.
First Lady Michelle Obama and the vice president’s wife, Jill Biden, will attend tonight’s game, NY1 reports.
FishBowlNY has pictures of the morning’s front pages, featuring plenty of trash talk.
Ticket brokers say resale prices for World Series tickets are going lower, the Associated Press reports.
NY's ghost tours, cemetery treks, and a free 'Phantom'
There are a few upcoming haunted tours, cemetery treks and other Halloween-themed events on the calendar:
The Merchant’s House Museum which claims bragging rights to the title “Manhattan’s Most Haunted House” leads Candlelight Ghost tours through the end of the month. This Sunday, it will lead the annual procession to New York City Marble Cemetery, re-creating a funeral from 1865.
Trinity Wall Street will toast resident Alexander Hamilton (“Non-alcoholic beverages will also available.”) in the graveyard on Oct. 30, followed by a screening of Phantom of the Opera” in the Gothic cathedral with live organ accompaniment by Robert Ridgell. Both events are free.
Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx will lead three flashflights-required tours of sites associated with its most tragic guests.
'After Miss Julie' reviews not as bad as you might think
“After Miss Julie” opened on Broadway last night, a spectacle writ large due to tabloid-bait Sienna Miller. The reviews — which are literally all over the map — may say as much about the state of our celebrity-obsessed, Schadenfreude-snarfing culture and the arts’ and media’s unwary dependence on it.
The New York Daily News calls the play’s lead character “one seriously hot mess” but frankly, almost none of the reviewers say the same about Miller’s acting. True, some say she’s in over her head in a difficult role, but several legit reviewers have some very nice things to say about her. It’s hardly as bad as you might conclude after seeing the supposed review roundups in People (“Broadway Critics Applaud Sienna Miller – for Her Looks”) or England’s picture-heavy Daily Mail (“Nice legs, shame about the acting! Sienna Miller gets Broadway bashing.”)
This Roundabout Theater Company production of “After Miss Julie” is penned by Patrick Marber based on August Strindberg’s original. Moved to post-WWII England, it’s still about race and class, but sexed up. Miller plays the entitled Miss Julie who seduces her daddy’s driver, played by Jonny Lee Miller. They both make their Broadway debuts in this production. The cast is rounded out by Marin Ireland. Mark Brokaw directs.
“After Miss Julie” plays through Dec. 6 at the American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42 St., map. Regular tickets are priced from $66.50 to $111.50.
Playbill lists the show as appropriate only for mature audiences.
The “After Miss Julie” Broadway reviews:
New York Times - “Playing the title role in Mr. Marber’s adaptation of ‘Miss Julie,’ August Strindberg’s love-and-death shocker from 1888, Ms. Miller registers as a healthy, sane young woman with good diction, good posture and great legs. Commendable as these attributes are, they are of limited use in portraying a tautly wound, death-courting neurotic who is eaten alive by her own demons.”
Daily News - “Miller, making her Broadway debut, is improbably beautiful, every inch the ‘fine-looking filly’ John calls her. She’s committed and competent, but her performance is a shade monochromatic, not modulated enough to make Miss Julie’s jagged edges sharp.”
Variety - “Sienna Miller looks smashing as the wayward aristocrat, but this is a complex character fraught with contradictions, and she comes off simply as a loony tart whose cat-and-mouse games careen out of control.”
Associated Press - “And there is a relentless quality to Sienna Miller’s performance, not terribly subtle or vulnerable, but compelling in its obsessiveness.”
