Author Archives: jennifer

Broadway / Off Broadway / Off Off Broadway Shows I Saw in 2025

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Welcome to the recap of shows I saw in 2025!   There were 192.  Last. year when I did this post for 2024 (which you can find HERE) I vowed to keep track of what I spent this year.  Since I do book a lot of shows through papering services, I thought it would be so cool to add it up and see how little it cost.  I have a membership to Club Free Time, which has a fee of $4.50, Stagelight which has a fee of $5 and TDF – Off Off Broadway membership (the only tier I qualify for) which is $11-15 each show.

So surely once I added everything up, it would be SUCH a low number that all the people in all the lands would do an audible AHHHHHHHHHH upon reading, right?

Holy shit, wrong.

I cannot list out the price per show because the number one rule of papering services is that you can never talk about the shows you got tickets for though a papering service.  But I can tell you the that entire year’s total is…..drumroll please…. $8075 wait WHAT?  How did that happen?!

Here is how it happened:

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Las Vegas Trip Report: The One Where I Leave to Cruise to Hawaii

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Good morning Las Vegas!

My plans today are to work and then head downtown to use my November free play.  Well thanks to Formula One, the bus is not running on the Strip.  Google Maps is telling me to walk to Polaris.  They cannot be serious about this?  I took an Uber to Circa.  I have dining credit here.  Saginaws got rid of my favorite sandwich, Nicole’s Tangy Turkey.  No no no no no.

Today was just not a good gamble day. For me anyway.  It was a good day for the dude I saw at California who was waiting on his $1600 handpay for hitting the progressive royal.

Being in California broke my heart.  I cannot stay here because they yanked my comps so other than the $10 free play, I also cannot play here because why would I?  But I love it here. But fuck you.

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Las Vegas Trip Report: The One Where I Buy Buffalo Bonuses

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Good morning Las Vegas! I would show you a photo of sunrise taken from my balcony except I didn’t take one because oh well?

I am in the Chelsea Tower at Cosmopolitan, so nowhere near Cosmo’s Starbucks. I am however, near Vdara’s Starbucks and for an insanely rare treat, their mobile ordering is actually turned on. It is a Christmas miracle. Unfortunately, it is too early in the morning to get croissants from Vdara’s Market Cafe. They are open 24 hours, but the croissants are never ready until after I start work.

Back up to the room to work like a jerk. Then I took a break to gamble and did really shitty. I am now dead even for the trip. I was up $300 before going out.

Back to the room to eat the salad I got at The Henry this morning and stored in my refrigerator. Then to finish work. Then to just DIE. And by “DIE” I mean “why did I book anything for tonight?! I had to have known I would be completely exhausted, why would you book THINGS?!”

But I did.

First up – Soulo Head Spa.  I can never say enough great things about this place.  I got the world’s longest head spa and added on extra shoulder and face massaging.  It was so blissful.  I will be doing this again when I come back to Vegas after my cruise.

From here, I went to Rio where I have $50 free play.  They actually call their free play “Frio play” which is adorable.

I am not sure why, but I decided to buy a $60 Buffalo bonus. I won.  Did it again, won again.  Did it again, won again.  Mind you, by “win” and “won” I mean a few dollars, nothing major.  Until the major win happened.

I hit for 118 spins.

It retriggered up to 177 spins.

And I won!
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The One Where I Go To Las Vegas AGAIN

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Today is the day, I arrive in Las Fucking Vegas.  I am going to be gone from home for 40 days, HERE is where I posted all the places.

JFK was insanely empty, I have never seen it that empty before.   My flight was also pretty empty but have no fear, we still had the required screaming baby.  

We left early and landed early.  I don’t really know what time either of these things were?  I am so mentally disconnected from everything that is not my upcoming cruise that I cannot focus.

I decided to take a cab to Cosmopolitan and the driver asked me if I was here for F1.  Eff no.  Turns out it starts on Thursday.  Guess who has to get back to the airport on Thursday fuck everyone.

The Strip is ready:
I get to Cosmopolitan and it is past midnight.  I have not one but two emails from Cosmopolitan saying my online checkin failed and letting me know to go to the front desk.  I didn’t think mobile checkin worked for Cosmopolitan at all so these emails are concerning.  They were from human names, not a distro.

I attempt to check in and as is normal when checking in, the person helping me has to call someone.   This often happens when you check in late at night because your room type is probably gone and they need permission to move you.  Sometimes upgrade you.   But with the pairing on those oddball emails, I find myself getting a bit paranoid.   He gets me a room and I need to swipe my card for incidentals and it declines.  Um.  Let’s try again.  Declines again.  Oh dear.  I have more card with me so I just use a different one and I am given room keys yay and for the first time since MLife took over Cosmopolitan, I got Strip view!   Oh how I have missed this!

I called my credit card company first thing and they said they needed to verify some potential fraudulent activity.   First one, Cosmopolitan trying to make a charge for $0.  Second one, Cosmopolitan trying to make a charge for $600 (that would be the incidentals.).  So that was all fixed, my card is back.  And let’s fucking go?

I decided that despite it being incredibly late and I have to work in the AM, I am going to be a good girl and go to Walgreens for water.  I do this and come back and play.  Whoops?  I will only play $100 of my $225 free play.  Okay no I won’t.  I will play it all. Is that BUFFALO?  OH LET ME PLAY SOME MORE.  

Finally I am at $245 which is exactly $225 free play + my $20 I started with so I cash out and go and eat at The Henry.  The server was wonderful, the food was not that great.  The hashbrowns are normally in a crispy square.  Tonight they were oozing oil and brown nowhere.  The server was fantastic though. Shout out for the extra iced tea to go I LOVE YOU.

I was going to go to bed now but saw single line quarter Double Double Bonus video poker and gave it a whirl.

Now it is definitely bed time, I can barely keep my eyes open.

I am going to bed up $260 which is a fantastic day to end day one.

Good night.

December Travels Begin Today YAY

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Remember when I started this blog to have a travel blog?

I am leaving tonight to start an insaneo trip that I have been waiting all year for.   It started out as a cruise to Hawaii, which leaves Long Beach on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  I then decided for funsies, to see if I could add a second cruise to the beginning since it seemed like a waste to have Thursday – Saturday off work, just to wait for my cruise.  Well guess what.  There not only was, there was also a second cruise for me to add.  So I am doing:

Long Beach to Ensenada
Long Beach to Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas
Long Beach to Hawaii and Ensenada

I had been toying with spending Christmas in Las Vegas because I get 5 consecutive days off work for only one vacation day.  Then I realized it was dumb to fly home from California, only to fly right back to the West Coast a few days later.  So I booked Las Vegas for 14 days.  And then added on four more Vegas days pre-cruise.

I fly home from Vegas on an overnight flight on a Friday.  I will unpack what I assume will be 387948374 pounds of coffee purchased in Hawaii and repack for a New Years Eve cruise leaving from New Orleans.

I will also go see Pen Pals with Melissa Gilbert during the 3 nights I am home in NYC before flying to New Orleans. Laura Ingalls!  I have a few other shows I’d like to fit into my very short time home but who knows.  I may do ALL THE THINGS.  I may just sleep.

Just between you and me – I hope I do all the things.

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45 Days Until Las Vegas > Mexico > Hawaii > Las Vegas

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And then after Las Vegas, I go home and unpack / repack and head out to New Orleans to spend New Year’s Eve cruising to the Carribbean.

Sounds amazing, right?  RIGHT?

I am actually feeling a bit excited about the Vegas part of the trip, which is something I am not sure I have felt in a long time.  I was supposed to go to Vegas this past January as a kick off for a National Park tour. I cancelled that.  Then I was supposed to go in May, cancelled that too.

I wanted to re-read last year’s trip report for Vegas so I could see what my mindset was for that trip.  Was I excited last year?  I remember I hadn’t planned to go, but then needed to be out of my apartment for 3 weeks for a renovation so that’s where I went.  But was I correctly remembering that I wasn’t excited?

When I went back to read the posts, I realized I never updated the main page HERE so I went ahead and did that.   Then I began reading the trip report and felt fuzzy brained because it was like reading someone else’s trip report since I didn’t immediately remember some of it.  Even though it is MY trip report and happened less than a year ago.   I know I was working through it and my job is mentally intense so it is not surprising that I would have gotten the posts up without them or the actual days I was living – being added to my memories.  But I felt like I wanted to respond to some of those posts so I thought I would do this here.

So here is me responding to THIS post: Continue reading →

Off Broadway: She Arts Festival – Mommy and The Word of the Day

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SheNYC Arts is a festival that showcases women in theater.  There’s 7 shows happening in New York City and all looked great but unfortunately, I could not attend all because I found out about it too late and only had a few spots free.  Champagne problem of being addicted to Off and Off-Off Broadway is that there are too many shows happening to see them all.

She Arts also does shows in other locations.  I am honestly eyeing Atlanta.  I did the thing where I priced flights and hotels but have not booked anything yet.  You can find more information HERE.  This whole idea has opened a whole new world for me where I can start traveling for shows.  2026 is starting to look a lot differently than I thought it would because of this.  But I am getting way too far ahead of myself.  Actually even having mental travel plans for a time period that is 17 months in the future at all is probably getting ahead of myself but hey.

Back to NYC.  This year, She Arts is happening at Classic Stage Company.  I had never heard of this venue before.  Its in the back room of a coffee shop and is a lot larger than I was expecting when I walked into the coffee shop.

Let me repeat that – the theater is in the back room of a coffee shop.  You walk into a COFFEE SHOP and go to the theater.  This is like heaven on earth.  You arrive early and you order coffee and sit and drink coffee while waiting for the house to open.  

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Dear Diary, I Saw Beau the Musical: Off Off Broadway

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As the title states, I saw Beau the Musical.  I have mentioned I prefer plays to musicals but this one has a ton of positive reviews so I decided to see it.  I am so glad I did.  The only thing I knew was that it was about a queer man who discovers his grandfather is not dead as he had been told.  

The show as at Theater 154, which holds 74 people.  I had never been here before.   I was incrediby cranky because HOT when I arrived.  I was holding up the QR code to have my ticket scanned without even realizing my ticket didn’t have a QR code.  I was wondering what was taking the woman so long and why she had a weird look on her face.  Oh because I am an idiot, got it.

It took me forever to get here because fuck you the MTA.  It is 90 something degrees outside.  I had to transfer trains. If it’s 90 something outside, it’s a million something inside a train station and of course the D train is delayed. I had to wait 23 minutes for the D, on top of the 10 I had to wait for the N. I never cooled down, could not end the sweating. I was soaked before I even left my train station at home, super soaked by the time I arrived at the venue.  And still wet when I got back home hours later.

Once you enter, you go downstairs.  Restrooms to the left, theater to the right.  There’s two restroom entrances, neither were marked men or women so free for all.  There was no line for either, which pleasantly surprised me since I was sure I was going to be too late to use the restroom before the show.

Walking to the theater brings you past a bar, I wanted a drink so bad I AM SO BURNING HOT.  I got a Diet Coke which was lukewarm, but it was only $3.

There were signs up that you could go inside and get a drink from the Distillery Bar on the stage. I didn’t know what that was about so I didn’t get off the bar line.  Once I did get inside, I saw there was in fact a bar on the stage.  

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Show Review: Lowcountry, an Off Broadway Play at Linda Gross Theater

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Lowcountry played at the Linda Gross Theater, also known at Atlantic Theater.  Capacity is 199. There is only the one seating section. No mezzanine or balcony.  There are steps / stairs down the sides of the seats.  I saw an older gentleman struggle to make his way down.  This was likely made worse by the loud woman behind me commenting on it.  But this is not a review of assholes in the audience.

The last date of this show was July 13, 2025.  The show was directed by Jo Bonney and starred Jodi Balfour as Tally and Babak Tafti as David, with Keith Kupferer in the minor role as Paul.

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