On Thursday June 7th, in order to complete the TWO WEEKS OF DECADENCE with the in-laws, my husband and I met them at Chez Napoleon, a favorite restaurant of theirs which we had no objections to eating at for their last evening in New York. Chez Napoleon is a family-run, authentic French restaurant on West 50th Street with delicately made and served dishes that taste wonderful. Definitely order a flavored soufflé when you order the rest of your meal, since it takes an hour to make and they cannot in any circumstance hurry the process along. In addition to a Lemon soufflé, I ordered the Moules “Napoléon” (Baked mussels with garlic butter and bread crumbs) as an appetizer, the Filet de Sole (Prepared meuniére-style, with butter & lemon, and almonds) for the main entreé, and some merlot (I love the merlot!!!). After I ate all this, I gasped my way to a Marquee Five rehearsal (we have a new Swing-themed show to put together).
This breaded and baked method of mussels is to die for.
Fillet de Sole – the toasted almonds were a great balance to the sweet fish
T minus 5 seconds until Lemon injection. 5…4…3…2…1…Lemon souffle has been injected!!! Liftoff!
The next day – Friday, June 8th – I was thrilled to perform in a staged reading of Adam Gwon and Sarah Hammond’s new musical “String.” As part of a 29-hour contract, we rehearsed for 29 hours this week and performed it in front of an audience at New Dramatists. The cast included Broadway alumni and National Tour masters, including some I had done readings with before. It was wonderful to hear the audience react to this bitter-sweet show, which is funny and which heartbreakingly discusses themes of life, death, fate, love and some of the most inexorable truths of this world. I really hope it gets a bigger audience and – ultimately – a Broadway stage!
My husband and I knew not to stay up too late that Friday night, as we had 9:30am (!) tickets to see Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus” in IMAX 3D the next morning. Yup, we took some coffee to go and went to AMC’s Lincoln Center 13 to see Scott’s not-a-prequel-I-swear to the “Alien” franchise. The movie itself, in a quick-review nutshell, is gorgeous to look at and I enjoyed delving into the world of Alien (with Giger and Moebius designs taking a front seat), but ultimately I had the same issues as in this review (WARNING: SPOILERS!). It opened up a lot of questions but didn’t answer them with any grace or satisfaction. It did, however, tempt me to want to see a sequel of it (would that be a sequel-prequel to “Alien”?), and for that I give the movie complete thumbs up.
I went home, took a nap, then traveled to the Bohemian National Hall to sing with Marquee Five at Mark Janas’ 60th Birthday party and fundraiser. We sang our arrangements of “All That Jazz” and “Wonder Love” (a Stevie Wonder mashup off of our CD, “8-Track Throwback”), and I thrilled to see Broadway, Cabaret, and other music stars perform for Mark Janas’ benefit. I don’t know what the final tally was, but by the time I had left that evening, $20,000 had been raised for Mark’s recovery! That’s what I call a giving family!
The stage at the Bohemian National Hall
Still reeling from the world of Prometheus, Pete & I came home late Saturday night and spent the first few hours of Sunday eating popcorn and watching the original “Alien,” which still holds up beautifully after 30 years. We then slept in and I recovered enough to head out Sunday night to watch the Tony Awards at a friend’s house. But that’s another story and another blog entry…
Coming up: the 2012 Tony Awards!