Day 4-Carnegie Hall, Maybe Happy Ending

by | May 6, 2026 | Uncategorized

I realized after I posted yesterday that the headline said we went to see the play “Oh, Mary,” but I had not written about it. As you may remember, we are seeing four plays, and as I write this, we have been to all four. I would have to say that most of the folks on the tour were very nice when they said that “Oh, Mary” “was not my favorite.” Others were downright critical and said it was one of the worst plays they had ever seen.

I have to admit that I liked it. Kathleen liked it even though she is not a big Maya Rudolph fan (she was playing Mary when we saw the show). It is a VERY broad and dark comedy. If you have not seen it and think that you might, spoiler alert. “Oh, Mary” is about our 16th first lady, Mary Todd Lincoln. It takes place in the last weeks before Lincoln’s assassination. Mary is a drunk, she is bored and wants to be in a cabaret show (is this the start of a great comedy or what?). Maya made her entrance to great applause and proceeded to crack us up with almost five full minutes of over-the-top physical comedy without speaking a single intelligible word. For some, it was all downhill from there. Lincoln is portrayed as gay, and Mary is a horrible person who only wants booze and to perform. She is pretty much nasty to everyone. Her husband hires a man to give her acting lessons, who turns out to be John Wilkes Booth, later revealed to be Abe’s secret gay lover. There is even a scene where Lincoln is sitting at his desk screaming (you think it’s about the war), but when Mary leaves, he is actually having oral sex with a soldier who was under his desk. See what I mean? This play was easy to either love or hate. And I haven’t even (and won’t) told you the biggest twist of all. It ends with Mary's cabaret show.

Enough about that. More about the other plays later. Today’s post is about a kind of short day since it was Sunday. We were up late (we didn’t have to meet until 10:00 am) and off on a tour of Carnegie Hall. It was awesome. We had a great guide, and we learned a lot. The hall is beautiful. I only wish we could have seen a performance there. Photos are both above and below. And I almost forgot to mention that since we did not meet up as early, I had more time to roam around Manhattan and take photos. They are down there as well.

That afternoon, we saw our only matinée, “Sometimes, Happy Ending,” about two robots living in Seoul, Korea, who fall in love. I know, that sounds more absurd than “Oh, Mary.” But this was the play that most of us loved the most. I won’t go into all of it, but it was a beautiful piece with a cast of only five, so much heart, and so much to say about the human condition that we just loved it, no matter how impossible the situation seemed. I also have to mention that the sets were breathtaking, and the way they handled the entire show with sets, lights, and costumes was off the charts. No wonder this show won last year’s Tony for best musical.

That was about it (slow day on Sunday!), except for a group dinner at Marseilles restaurant. You don’t even have to guess that this was a French place and the food was excellent. I like escargot and have them when I can (mostly on ships). Their escargot was the best I have ever had.

After dinner, it was back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep. Monday would be much busier.

Day 3–Theater Talk, Walking Tour, Tapas and Oh, Mary

by | May 4, 2026 | Uncategorized

After our big night out seeing Operation Mincemeat (which everyone generally liked), we were up again the next morning and off to a theater talk. This meant we walked about three blocks to a building that housed some small playhouse-type theaters (that hold about 50-60 people and are used for small plays, rehearsals, and the like) and went up to one of the theaters on the third floor to meet with two fantastic people. The first was Tim Dolan. Tim has been a longtime actor and dancer on Broadway and in touring shows. But a few years back, he decided he'd better find a more regular paycheck (because he now has a family), so he started a tour business giving tours of Broadway and also started one selling Broadway souvenirs. We have had him as our speaker twice so far, and he is an absolute font of Broadway knowledge. And because of his acting experience, he is a JOY to listen to.

This morning, he was moderating a discussion with Cassie Silva, who is a currently working actress that we will see on Tuesday night in the musical & Juliet. In the very short hour we had them talking to us, we learned so many behind-the-scenes facts and heard so many great stories that we wanted the talk to last all day. Sadly, we only had them for about an hour (but we got Tim back two more times later in the week). In the video below, I want to give you a small example of what the talk was like.

After our theater talk, the entire group of 41 had four walking tour options to choose from in the city. Group one headed out to walk the High Line in Midtown and visit the Little Island. I have walked the High Line numerous times, so I skipped that one. Group two would take a tour of the Gilded Age neighborhoods. If you are familiar with the HBO series of that name, you will know that this is the area where the turn-of-the-century new money clashed with the old. It’s a great story, and I highly recommend the show (created and written by Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame). Group three took the subway south to Lower Manhattan and did a tour of Hamilton’s New York.

I chose to join the fourth group for a walking tour of Midtown and Grand Central Terminal with our guide, Bruce Roberts. I would have to call Bruce a mensch. A very interesting one. He used to be a full-time guide, but then he went into producing. He currently has productions running in two or three places around the country and is part of the production team for a West End (London) show coming to Broadway later this year.

Bruce had been brought in by Alex of Break-Away at the last minute. It seems we originally had only three tours scheduled: Hamilton’s NY, Midtown, and GCT and the High Line. I was excited to do the Midtown tour because I had never really been to Grand Central Terminal to take photos. But a group of ladies on the tour (unbeknownst to me) corresponded with Alex and asked about a Gilded Age tour. When we got here, I was fine with that and thanked Alex for setting it up for them, but he had worked it out by canceling the GCT/Midtown tour I wanted to do. I told him that and said, “It’s OK. I can walk over on my own.” Lo and behold, the next morning when we met up, Michael, our head guide, said, “We now have four tours and the Midtown/GCT tour was back on.” Alex really goes the extra mile for his groups.

Bruce got into all this because he has worked with all the guys who have been touring us around, and they called him to ask if he wanted to spend his weather-perfect Saturday walking a bunch of old people from Washington State around midtown. He said yes, and we got lucky. Our tour went from the theater where we had heard Cassie and Tim speak, through the theater district, to Rockefeller Center, around the Chrysler Building and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and we finished up at Grand Central Terminal. Photos are below. Remember to click to enlarge them. Again, we learned all kinds of trivia and heard many background stories about the city.

After that tour, it was a quick (I mean, really QUICK–3 minutes on the train from GCT to our hotel) ride, and it was time to dress for dinner. I had picked out what turned out to be an outstanding Spanish tapas place called Boqueria. The food was superb, the service excellent, the company better, and the Sangria the best I have ever had. We had a wonderful time.

After dinner, we headed to our second Broadway show. Tonight, we were seeing Oh, Mary, a complete farce about our 16th First Lady. Suffice it to say, they threw out the history books on this one. Mr. Lincoln was black… and gay. John Wilkes Booth was his gay lover. Mary Todd was a drunken, delusional want-to-be cabaret star. OK, are you totally mixed up? So were we, and we saw the play. There were mixed reactions within our party the day after this show. But with that kind of story, there have to be. Most of the folks were nice and said it was “Not my favorite.” I appreciated that. It’s not a play for everyone. Even with Maya Rudolf as Mary (she was hilarious, though in a very broad, physical comedic portrayal).

On Broadway, there is no censoring, just self-censorship and doing what makes sense.  —Robert Lopez

London, Lasso, Lunch & A Mystery

by | Jun 14, 2024 | Photography

Yesterday was very different compared to our previous 14 here in the UK. It was our first full day in London. I almost didn’t post about it, but then I decided to use it as an example of how I plan our travels and why I sometimes stress when we are out. I can see plans getting messed up.

So, let’s start with the main goals of the day. One was to tour Richmond, a suburb on London’s far, far west end—beyond the West End you think of when you think of London. The one that’s like Broadway in the USA. That is funny since that other West End is where we wound up late last night. And the biggest problem is that we are staying in Greenwich, a suburb on the far, far, east end of London. And London traffic sucks. I mean really sucks.

If you know me, you know how much I love the television show Ted Lasso. This show literally changed my entire outlook on life. I use it regularly as therapy. If I have a terrible day, I watch an episode or two of Ted Lasso. I love Ted as a TV show as much as I love Princess Bride as a movie. Ted Lasso is set in Richmond, and if we were to come to London, I would have wanted to see Richmond. And I would like to take a Ted Lasso Tour of Richmond. I was able to find a tour company that does tours based on movies here in London called Brit Movie Tours. They have a Harry Potter tour, a Game of Thrones tour, etc. We booked it, which meant I had to coordinate getting us from one extreme end of London to another. It also meant I needed to avoid some of the more usual ways of making the transit. With Kathleen’s back and knees, I had to avoid stairs and a ton of walking, so that meant no Tube. And the idea of a two-hour-plus Uber ride from Greenwich to Richmond was just too much.

To top all this off, we also made plans to see a West End musical last night. So, with the four of us depending on my travel planning expertise, I found some interesting (I think) ways to traverse London, miss a bunch of the traffic, see the city from a different point of view and not kill us in the process…which I almost did. I am saying right now that this schedule was too much, especially for poor Steve and Jamie, who were still mostly in California during this time. Seeing a musical in the West End when their bodies told them it was 4:00 am is not fun. So, in the future, one big thing per day. Not one in the morning and one at night. The night before, I sent the four of us a text with the schedule for the next day. I thought I would show you what it looked like.

Ted Lasso/Theater Day Schedule

  • 7:15 Breakfast
  • 7:55 Take Uber to Greenwich Pier
  • 8:23 Take Uber Boat (RB1) to Blackfriars. 
  • 9:14 Transfer to Putney Boat (RB6) to Putney Pier
  • 9:57 Arrive Putney Pier
  • 10:00 Take Uber to Richmond Station/The Quadrant
  • 11:00 Ted Lasso Tour begins at Richmond Station/The Quadrant
  • 13:00 Ted Lasso Tour ends
  • 13:10 Lunch
  • 14:05 Take Uber Boat (RB6) to Greenwich
  • 15:45 Arrive at Greenwich Pier and take Uber to the hotel
  • Rest and relax for 45 minutes
  • 16:30 Take Uber to Ivy West End (time dependent on traffic) for dinner
  • 17:30 Dinner at Ivy West End
  • 19:30 Kathy and Stella Solve a Mystery at The Ambassador’s Theater
  • 20:00 Take Uber back to the hotel

So, a little explanation. In London, they have a service I had yet to hear of before, The Uber Boat. You book it on your Uber app, you meet it at one of about 30 stops on the Thames, and it takes you from one side of the city to the other on a catamaran-type boat that, in some places, moves pretty fast and in others, not so much.

Of course, the schedule didn’t go perfectly. It was pretty much doing great right through until we were supposed to head to dinner at the West End Ivy. My only complaint (Mulgrew time) was that the second Uber Boat was almost 20 minutes late…but your faithful travel planner had planned that time into the schedule…so we actually arrived at the tour meet-up spot at 10:50 am for an 11:00 a.m. tour. Also, when the second Uber Boat arrived, something was VERY wrong with the sewage system on board. I mean, gaggingly wrong. One of the worst smells I have ever smelt. This meant I sat outside for most of that trip. Luckily, that meant some river-level photos of London. I will let you judge that for yourself. Here are the photos I took on our way west. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Ted Lasso

When we arrived in Richmond on our VERY stinky boat (we actually got off at the furthest west stop, the Putney Pier and then had to take an Uber car to Richmond), we were met by Bruce, who would be our guide to all things Ted Lasso. From this point (if you are not a huge Ted Lasso fan, you can skip forward…and never speak to me again ?), otherwise, here are some photos of the tour and how they relate to the show.

After we finished our Ted Tour, we went off in search of lunch. During the tour, we had walked by this small (really small) Italian place that smelled like a little bit of heaven. Actually, it smelled like Steve and my Italian grandmother’s kitchen on Christmas Eve. We had to go back and see if we could eat there. We could! Sadly, I had eaten much of my lunch before I remembered to take a photo of it. So if you like plates of half-finished pasta, you will love this. Suffice it to say, I inhaled this sucker. One of the best plates of pasta I have ever had.

Then an Uber to the Putney Pier, the Uber Boar (Damn! We got the stinky one again), Uber to the hotel and get ready to go out again.

The Theater

This is where we almost lost it. I had budgeted an hour to get from the hotel to the Ivy Restaurant in the West End, which was across the street from the theater. According to Google Maps, we only needed 45 minutes, but I didn’t build in how long it would take to get an Uber. The ones in the morning had been there in minutes, but when we went to get an Uber to leave at that time, the Uber app told me that the closest driver that would accept our drive was 25 minutes away. To be fair, he was only two miles away, but in the London traffic, it took him 25 minutes to get to us. Seriously, 25 minutes to go two miles. By the time he got to us, we were already 10 minutes behind schedule. My biggest fear was that they would give our table to someone else, and since I had booked them through Open Table, I didn’t have contact info to reach them to let them know we were on our way.

Thankfully, our driver made a better time than we thought he would, arriving only 14 minutes after our reservation—a good thing because they only hold them for 15 minutes. We got to the desk, and I overheard the hostess tell people in front of us that the next open table was at 9:15 p.m. But our table was waiting, and we had a great meal before we adjourned to the theater just across the street.

What did we go see? Well, when you want to see a show in the West End, you pretty much have three choices. One is one of the older, established shows like Phantom, Mama Mia, or Wicked or the longest-running play in history—Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap, which has been playing continuously in the same theater since 1951. Seriously, Kathleen and I saw it there in 2003. It’s still going strong. We really wanted to see something new, so this one was out.

Your second choice is the new shows, which have limited runs and famous actors starring in them. We would have loved one of these, but they sell out in minutes if not seconds.

We went with the third choice, a new musical. Lots of them open and don’t do well. Some open for the first time in the West End and do GREAT. Lion King comes to mind. The one that we could get decent seats to is a brand-new musical about two girls with a murder podcast. It’s called…

...Solve a Murder! And it was a hoot. Great music and a superb cast of seven who kept us laughing and crying for 2.5 hours (with an interval) and a fun plot. We really enjoyed it, and Steve actually made it through without falling asleep for too long. I am truly sorry I forced them to have this long day when they weren’t fully recovered from their jet lag. After that it was just back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep. As I write this we are waiting until 10:45 a.m. to check out of the hotel and head to Viking Venus for the second half of our journey. More tomorrow.

There’s nowhere else like London. Nothing at all, anywhere.  —Vivienne Westwood