If someone had asked me five years ago if I thought I would end up on a school trip to New York City, there is a high chance I simply would not have believed them, and yet, at the end of Term 3 I found myself off on a plane with four of QACI's amazing teachers and 29 of QACI's most feared loved students. I'll be honest, I lost my voice for the first 48 hours of being in NYC, but it was a lovely experience when I was really being forced to take in my environment in a completely different way. Jay-Z was not wrong when he called New York a 'Concrete Jungle', but I'll tell you what, dreams were definitely made there.
Broadway shows? You better believe those theatre kids had hearts in their eyes.
Julliard University Tour? Application forms already sent in the mail.
Broadway workshop with a cast member from Wicked and the best piano player ever? Ainslie and Evelyn saw the Harry Potter musical he wrote (It's on YouTube).
In the aftermath of that very brief overview, I'm sure you can tell this trip was nothing short of hectic. Personally, the majority of my self-bought meals was a $10.01 USD meal deal from McDonalds so I could maximise the amount of tote bags and Hadestown merchandise I could buy (And yes, if you've had a conversation with me since the 2nd of October, you would have heard about my $122 USD Hadestown ticket that put Ainslie and I in the third row from the stage, and Jack Wolfe ran right past us, and then we proceeded to get a selfie with him. Are you jealous yet? I hope so.)
But let's go back to the beginning. We'll come back to my Hadestown ventures. We arrived in the afternoon, and had a lovely bus drive through Weehawken, New Jersey (cue the Hamilton soundtrack) before arriving at our hotel, and I kid you not, the shock on our faces as we realised the theatre for Hamilton was right across the street (It got really noisy around 11pm, believe it or not – That stuff happens when you're in NYC at the same time as Leslie Odum Jr. and Lin Manuel Miranda, both of which were there on Leslie's opening night). Just at the end of our street (it feels too improper to say street, but it was too short to be a road), was Times Square, home of the M&M store, billboards, the Disney store, more billboards, McDonalds, a couple more billboards, and three very big The Life of a Showgirl billboards (you couldn't miss them). And what did we do in our first time in Times Square, you might ask? We walked right through it. Yes, we were on our way to another location and casually passed right through Times Square (right after taking a group photo).
I'll be honest, there are too many museums to mention, but some group favourites were definitely the Banksy Museum (and then the actual Banksy we saw on the street shortly afterwards), and the Museum of Broadway (Take a wild guess why). Now, amidst all of these gorgeous museums that we got to grace with our presence (Yes, I did speedwalk straight for the Van Gogh, Monet, Pissarro, Picasso, and Georges Seurat – seeing the Fabergé Eggs happened as a total coincidence when I got lost within The Met – because despite the common belief that they are overrated, gosh do I love the way Van Gogh paints and Monet's style and I'm distracted now, but check out Pissarro, it's genius), we had the extraordinary gift to see two Broadway shows and an Opera (And no, none of those was my trip to Hadestown. I told you to be patient). On our third night, we took a trip to Wicked, and you better believe everyone was dressed in their finest Pink and Green (they look good together). As someone who did not get to see Wicked in Brisbane, and has only seen the movie, why did no one tell me about the Part 2 plot twists????? Two nights after that, we visited Harry Potter & The Cursed Child, where I proceeded to buy $12 Butterbeer, and Bianca proceeded to buy a Hufflepuff scarf, and Alexa proceeded to be jump scared by every single special effect (it is a wonder she's still standing, since there were a lot – you should of seen her when the Dementors came out). This is the point where you begin to wonder why Julie and Maddie ever let me into Media Team, but it's too late and you're invested in wherever this mayhem is headed. See, the Opera was hosted in the Lincoln Centre, in the Metropolitan Opera, and oh my gosh, they were not lying when they said the architect was ambitious, because I'm genuinely wondering what it looked like before he scaled his plans down. But our viewing of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Claywas absolutely stunning (I mean, it has to be with that cast and Mandy Moore choreographing).
We were also given the incredible chance to do numerous tours, including Radio City, NBC Studios, Lincoln Centre, Julliard, and a close-up tour of Broadway's Hudson Theatre (Currently housing Waiting for Godot, with Keanu-freaking-Reeves, and no we did not see him), where we were told the most tragically romantic story about how the owners of this theatre were on the Titanic. Our tour guide did proceed to tell us that we are the best tour group he's ever had (He put it on their Instagram, so it must be true). Now that tour was done alongside our Broadway workshop, where we learnt one of the ensemble moments from One Short Day in Wicked (No, we will not be performing on assembly, thank you for your consideration 💛).
One of my favourite parts though (asides from Hadestown), was our trip to Brooklyn, where we were taken on what I think might be the best Street Art tour ever. The people leading our tours were a part of the street art community and knew absolutely everything about what they were talking about. On a similar line was our workshop at the Jazz Museum. Once again, this was an incredibly engaging workshop, where we got to see a few of our lovely year peers do some scatting (and Mr Brockman and Ms Hague, and you better bet there's at least five of us with recordings of that one, including Ms Smith!)
We were also lucky enough to visit Chelsea Pier and go on an architecture cruise, in which at least six people did the Titanic pose, and I failed miserably at getting a decent shot of the United Nations building, where our beloved Prime Minister was currently. We're also 80% certain that we saw Albanese's envoy drive past us on the street, apparently late to the meeting. But back to the cruise, we were treated to an excellent sight of the Statue of Liberty, where we proceeded to sing both Star Spangled Banner and the Australian National Anthem probably loud enough for the people on shore to hear.
But of course, there was one last place to hear the national anthem of the USA, and that was the baseball match between the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees. If you had seen the way Alice jumped out of her seat when that music began, you too would understand the importance of this moment.
In the aftermath of all this, if you've bothered to do the maths (good practice for those exams, no?), you might notice that there were two nights where we in fact, did not get back at 10pm. And yes, this is where we should have been catching up on sleep, or doing those English IO's, but no. Because we realised, “Oh, we're in the middle of Broadway, with all of the theatres at our disposal! Let's go to some more shows!" And that we did. It began with some Death Becomes Her tickets, and then some Stranger Things and Moulin Rouge purchases. Good choices, good choices. But then Ainslie, Liliana, and myself realised that Hadestown was on (you saw this coming), and so we made probably the best purchases of our minor existences. More Australians were encountered in that theatre at intermission as well. By the second free night, personally I was ready to collapse, but the Year 12s (and some teachers and others) decided to go see The Book of Mormon (I'll tell you what, the look on Reuben's face when he saw Alexa was going to see it – there were doubts there) and they all came back absolutely hysterical, you would not understand. Shoutout to Bianca and Reuben seeing Stranger Things twice though, and Ms Hague for going with them the second time. Apparently, it was really good, but I'll never know because it's impossible to take photos in there. My greatest achievement though, was definitely collecting a large number of playbills (thanks to everyone who got me one!) and of course, getting Jack Wolfe's signature (I did good, I only mentioned him twice).
But overall (in case you cannot tell), we are all still absolutely reeling from this trip, in sickness and in health, longing to go back to Ellen's Stardust Diner, and wishing we could see that performance just one more time. Plane flights were spent reminiscing (and sleeping), tears were shed, and peppermint tea was given (No, but that is just me boasting for being the flight attendants favourite on our 14 hour flight, I wasn't joking about the 'in sickness', although I will admit to Avalon being the favourite on the flight to Vancouver, just ask her), and now we are left in Australia, with our overabundance of tote bags and museum merchandise, wondering what to do with ourselves (probably our assessments).
- Maggie Williams, Year 11