Columbia is home to a fascinating cast of characters, and gap year students are no exception. In Give Me a Break, we’ll give you the skinny on what some of your peers have done during their time off. In this edition, Bwog’s resident Taker of Roads Less Traveled, Sam Schipani, talked with Noah Robbins and Remy Zaken about their time in the business we call “show”—Broadway.

Noah, as Eugene Morris Jerome

Mere days after Noah Robbins, CC ’14, got his Columbia acceptance letter in the mail, he was cast as Eugene, the wisecracking narrator and alter ego of playwright Neil Simon, in a Broadway production of Brighton Beach Memoirs. “It was a good couple of days,” he admits. To fully commit to the production, Noah chose to take a gap year, deferring his entry to the freshman class. He starred opposite Laurie Metcalf (Jackie Harris from Roseanne) and Jessica Hecht (Susan Bunch from Friends) as his mother and his aunt. “I, on the other hand, had just finished starring as Max Bialystock in my high school’s production of The Producers, so I felt like things were about even experience-wise,” Noah joked.

Despite rave reviews, poor ticket sales and and bad marketing forced Brighton Beach Memoirs to close shortly after it opened. Noah still relishes the experience, particularly when it comes to meeting his theater idols. While he was waiting for the elevator one day, his personal hero, Nathan Lane, stood beside him, preparing for his first rehearsal for The Addams Family. Noah stood there, sweating profusely and wrestling with the decision of whether or not to attempt and make eye contact with his Broadway idol, until the star exited the elevator. Noah found out shortly afterwards that Laurie Metcalf was a friend of Nathan Lane’s and she offered to introduce this new Broadway star to his inspiration. “Later that week, outside of the building, he waved to me on the street while I was in mid-conversation with someone else. I waved back and continued my conversation. No big deal.”

Nathan Lane isn’t the only celebrity Noah encountered during his gap year. One night, the playwright of Brighton Beach Memoirs, Neil Simon, visited the cast. “No one knew why. We were all a little on edge about it, and we all hoped it wasn’t because he was unhappy with our performances.” It turns out Neil Simon had just rediscovered the brainstorming, stream-of-consciousness narratives written 30 years earlier that inspired Brighton Beach Memoirs, and he wanted to read them to the cast. “It was absolutely incredible, and really moving. I still can’t believe any of it happened.”

Isn't she lovely?

Spring Awakening, a racy story revolving around teenage sexuality and the winner of eight Tony awards, has touched the hearts and streamed through the speakers of musical theater and alternative music aficionados alike. But while most of us were rocking out to “My Junk” and “The Bitch of Living” in our dorms, Remy was performing them live on Broadway. Remy played Thea, one of the German schoolgirls struggling with the woes of growing pains, alongside Lea Michele, Jenna Ushkowitz, Jonathan Groff (all of recent Glee fame), and many other talented actors.

Remy became involved with the show during her junior year in high school while it was still an Off-Broadway production. When the show transferred to Broadway the following fall, it became wildly successful. Faced with her love for singing and acting and the ever-increasing popularity of the production, Remy decided to defer a year of school.

Given her newfound musical theater fame, Remy had the opportunity to meet an impressive assortment of celebrities, including Tina Fey, Danny DeVito, and Stephen Spielberg. While working on the show, Remy learned the correct way to interact with a celebrity, and today, she generously shares some of her wisdom. “Genuinely tell them that you like/love their work, if you do. They’re very appreciative,” she advises. “Then, if you want, you can politely ask for a picture with them. They most likely will say yes. This doesn’t work if you’re interrupting them from something important, like eating, talking to their friends, or using the restroom.”

But behind the glitz and glamour of Broadway, there are always bloopers! “One time during the hayloft scene, the hayloft ropes could not pull the bottom off of the stage, so Jon and Lea had to do ‘I Believe’ right in front of us,” Remy explains. “We had rehearsed the scene like this before, and we knew what to expect, but still, it was quite a shock to have them simulating sex literally inches away from us.”

Even Remy admits to flubbing her lines onstage. “It is the scariest feeling in the world because time seems to slow down, and you feel like everyone knows that you’re forgetting your lines, when in reality, it’s a minor hiccup,” she confesses. “I remember looking at Phoebe with huge deer-in-headlights eyes and thinking, ‘What’s my next line?!,’ and then it came back, just as quickly as I had forgotten. The brain is so weird.”

There was a pretty bad smashup at 118th and Broadway, just outside the Barnard gates. Police were on the scene helping the taxi driver out, who was parked in his car when the van behind smashed into it. An ambulance has been called.

Purportedly, the white van swerved to avoid a large car making a U-turn at 118, and crashed into a line of parked cars. Be careful when crossing at these intersections, look both ways as well as straight ahead!

Where did he come from? Why Broadway? Is this woman wearing any clothing? Filed under: things we'll never know, for sure.

Bwog happened upon a freshman living in an upperclassman dorm who doesn’t have a meal plan and wasn’t pre-registered for Core classes—what’s going on here? That’s what we were wondering, too. Chief Freshperson Scrutineer Alexandra Avvocato investigates.

Bwog: So I hear rumors that you’re currently living in Broadway. How exactly did that happen?

Forgotten Freshman: Columbia isn’t always a place where things make sense.

Bwog: Well…when did you first know about it? In the email?

FF: Yeah, it just said “Broadway” in the email, and I didn’t really think about it ’til I got here.

Bwog: Did you notice that you were the only freshman in the dorm during NSOP?

FF: I wasn’t even here for NSOP. I got here on the first day of classes. My cab here broke down over the bridge and we had to push it.

Bwog: What?

Freshperson calmly repeats his statement.

Bwog: Ok. So, how does it feel to be the only freshman in an upperclass dorm?

FF: It’s pretty cool. The people are nice; everyone kinda thinks it’s funny. But there’s an upperclassman living in Furnald who I might switch with since he obviously deserves the upperclassman dorm.

Matt, Bwog’s associate: Don’t do it! The rooms are shoeboxes!

FF: Yeah, but some of these freshman dorms are awesome. John Jay has all this wood panelling, Furnald’s lobby is awesome. The Broadway lobby looks like a doctor’s office.

A debate ensues on the relative merits of Broadway and Furnald. Topics include room sizes, bathrooms, social life, and how “kinda 70s retro” each dorm is.

Read about it after the jump.

QuickTix exists to let you know how to use and abuse your CUID. It pops in every other Wednesday.”>

If you went to something like this, you could actually dress up for once.

QuickTix exists to let you know how to use and abuse your CUID. It pops in every other Wednesday.

Campus events on sale now:

• Lyrics from Lockdown: September 24th, 7 pm, Miller Theater, $7 w/ CUID, Tickets.
• Afropolitan/Afropolitan After Party: September 30th, 8 pm/12 am, Roone, $10 w/ CUID, Tickets.

Off campus events on sale now:

• NY Philharmonic: October 1st, 8 pm, $47.5, Tickets.
• BAM The Speaker’s Progress: October 7th, 7:30 pm, $18, Tickets.
• Met Opera: Barbiere di Siviglia: October 11th, 7:30 pm, $26, Tickets.
• King Lear at the Public: October 20th, 7 pm, $21, Tickets.
• Billy Elliot: October 20th, 7:30 pm, $42.5, Tickets.

A more civilized age via Wikimedia

Earlier this morning, a taxi cab flipped over on 120th and Broadway. It is appears that a red Volvo attempted to make an illegal turn, causing the cab to stop short and flip on its side. A tipster informs us that the cab was attempting to make a left during a red light, which caused the red Volvo to collide with it. Broadway is now blocked off between 118th and 120th Streets. Firemen have pried off the roof of the cab with the jaws of life, successfully removing the cab driver, who has been given a neck brace and moved to a stretcher. Both the cab driver and that of the Volvo have been put into ambulances. We are waiting to hear whether any others have been injured.

Update: Bwog talked to NYPD who say that there were no students injured.

Update, 11:28 a.m.: Most of the traffic has cleared at the 120th and Broadway intersection, with cars now moving freely around a few remaining police cars and fire trucks.

Here is a very long letter signed by leaders of all the student councils about CU-EMS/CAVA’s request to move their HQ from Carman to 103 Broadway. The councils have decided to support CU-EMS’ move to 103 Broadway, but not 103 and 102 Broadway, as CU-EMS had originally requested. The councils hope the CU-EMS will be able to make the move across the street during winter break. Bureaucracy, after the jump!

Read more…

Alternating Wednesdays is when Bwog shares all the good things to be had at the TIC. Here goes.

Tickets sold for on-campus events this past week: 1050

Around Morningside:

• Walkabout Yeolha: October 20th-23rd, Wednesday-Friday 8p, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Riverside Theater, FREE w/CUID. Tickets.
• The Physicists!: October 21st & 23rd, Thursday 8pm, Saturday 3pm & 8pm, Minor Latham Playhouse, from $5 w/CUID. Tickets.
• The Little Prince: October 22nd & 23rd, Friday 7pm & 10pm, Saturday 7pm, Diana Black Box, $5. Tickets.

Tickets sold for off-campus events this past week: 289

Out and About:

• Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson: October 21st 8pm, $51 w/CUID. Tickets.
• Little Foxes: October 21st, 8pm, $55 w/CUID. Tickets.
• Scottsboro Boys: October 21st, 8pm, $32.50 w/CUID. Tickets.
• Met Opera Boris Godunov: October 25th, 7pm, $28.50 w/CUID. Tickets.
• Cedar Lake Ballet: November 5th, 7pm, $29 w/CUID. Tickets.
• Gala Career Transition for Dancers Hosted by Angela Lansbury: November 8th, 7pm, $39 w/CUID. Tickets.

Because your Sarah Palin idea has officially jumped the shark (also, yowza–>)

Get your black lipstick, it’s time to go Goth-Loli 

Woe to the theater! You’re showing your age.

You are now one degree of removal closer to Tina Fey

No love for Martin Sheen

Bwog on a Budget, your wallet-friendly guide to living in the city returns this week, with a fall shopping guide for discount points of destination in and around the city.

Discount Department Stores

Don’t let the promises of Dolce and Gabana and Manolos fool you.  Invariably, you will search through piles of strewn polyester before you find any of the aforementioned treasures. Caveat emptor: low ceilings, dim lighting, and checkered linoleum floors induce migraines.

• Century 21 On a good day you might find some Betsey Johnson or Diane Von Furstenberg styles from last season for cheap.  Any other day you’ll just find very long lines and very small communal dressing rooms.  22 Cortland St. at Broadway Read more…

You might recall that awhile back a famed street artist drew Hillary Clinton’s face on the sidewalk in front of Citibank. She looked stupendous, and our artist left in his wake promises of two additional portraits to come, namely those of Barack Obama and John McCain. Well Columbia, we are thrilled to report that for Mr. Obama, that time has come.  Well, nearly — the forehead might need some shading in. But oh, he is a masterpiece and a fine addition to sidewalk in front of the Citibank.

Bwog noticed the following masterpiece chalked into the sidewalk in front of the Citibank on Broadway. (It reminds us of the chilling day that Ron Paul supporters had somehow obtained and mastered chalk.) To ward off any devastating criticism of a possible political bias, the artist has assured us in a note written next to HRC’s cheek, “McCain and Obama to follow.” Check back later in the week for photographs of said Portraits of Straight Talk and Change/Hope, respectively.

(Hello, Politico!) 

Michael Snyder, Bwog’s resident off-campus theatre critic, serves up his thoughts on the Broadway rendition of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming.

Now that Harold Pinter has been awarded the Nobel prize, his plays have officially entered the canon, and yet a play like The Homecoming, now in a wonderful revival at the Cort Theatre on 48th Street, in many ways feels far more modern than most new plays you’re likely to see on Broadway.

The story of The Homecoming is simple: the curtain opens on an ordinarily unpleasant day in the blue-collar, north London home of Max, his two sons Lenny and Joey, and his brother Sam.  The drama really begins when Max’s oldest son Teddy returns for a surprise visit from America where has been a philosophy professor for nine years. He brings with him his wife Ruth, about whom he has told his family nothing.

Needless to say, Pinter did not become famous as a master storyteller. Eschewing exposition, Pinter allows us only the most vital details of his characters lives, presented intermittently throughout the play’s spare two hours. Thanks to Pinter’s brilliant and meticulous craftsmanship, it is in piecing things together after the play ends that you realize just how much information he has given you and in so few words.

Read more…

In which Bwog theater correspondent Michael Snyder ruminates on Broadway’s take on familial destruction:

In our post-post-modern world of narrative tricks and linguistic games, it is easy to forget that a meticulously constructed, intelligently written, and vigorously performed family drama can still pack a powerful emotional and intellectual punch.  If you need proof, look no further than Tracey Letts’ spectacular new play August: Osage County.  Not since my first encounters with Williams and Albee have I been so wildly entertained by viciousness, and not since Long Day’s Journey Into Night have I been so completely invested in the lives of a family on stage.  At this point, August has been so showered with praise that to write another rave review seems redundant, and yet it is difficult not to get excited over a play so clearly poised to become a classic for our generation of theatergoers.

Read more…

Halley Bondy, BC ’06, already has a one-woman show running Off-Off Broadway—Sleep Tight Mick— that explores the idiosyncrasies of modern pop culture from the eyes of a polygamist cult escapee. FlavorPill loved it. The Anthro/Women’s Studies writes to Bwog about playing eight characters, living in a temp/intern/freelance vortex, and on-stage orgasms. 

How does a Barnard grad like yourself get a play up Off-Off Broadway within a year of graduating? 

I’ve always gravitated toward theater but I wanted to avoid the demoralizing audition circuit. Compared to a lot of New York actors, my resume is really bleak, but I’ve been building my writing creds…and you don’t have to audition for that.

As a journalist I learned New York theater isn’t some inaccessible entity in the sky. I befriended Robert Dominguez, an editor at the Daily News where I worked [as an intern after I graduated]. He had somehow managed to maintain a stressful journalism job while producing plays in the Fringe Festival. I shyly presented my writing to him, and a creative collaboration began. We researched different play competitions around the city and came across the ONE festival at Teatro la Tea. I wrote Sleep Tight Mick, I entered it, performed it, and won. It has since gotten another festival at the Manhattan Repertory Theater, and I plan on entering it to many more.  

How did the idea for this play come about?

Sleep Tight Mick is about a young woman who grew up in a polygamist cult and has to adapt to life in New York after she escapes. (If it’s autobiographical at all, it’s only through metaphors). I was interested in a lovable character who is completely ignorant of our day-to-day experience, who lives outside of society as we know it, and who is purely a victim of her circumstances. I wanted to create an icon who forces us to laugh at our culture. One of my greatest inspirations for the show actually took place in an American history class I took at Barnard under Professor Thaddeus Russell. In short, after the slaves were emancipated, the government sent a legion of semi-evangelists to go down south and teach the newly freed slaves how to behave like they’re ”free” (“Desire work” “Love work” “No booze” “no dancing,” etc). The speeches must have sounded completely absurd to them, and not to mention, almost as binding as slavery.

And polygamist cults are just too cool to resist. Read more…

3111 Broadway between 122nd and 123rd

Morningside Heights has a new spot to satisfy your sweet tooth. Chokolat Patisserie, long a shuttered storefront, opened within the last month in the beyond-Barnard, downhill stretch of Broadway (although its website is still under construction). If you’re looking for a Hungarian substitute to hunker down and study, Chokolat is probably not the place for you: it’s tiny, with just four bar stools assembled around a meager counter top. But when it comes to food, the newcomer will beat its bohemian cousin hands down every time, with an impressive array of delectable breakfast pastries, cakes, pastries, tarts, breads and other goodies. Cakes and pies come in individual servings as well as full-sized. And the best part is, the prices aren’t ridiculous – I paid $1.75 for a lemon raspberry muffin, perhaps one of the best I’ve tasted. In addition, their coffee is delicious, though their tea selection may be lacking. Stop by for a snack and some coffee to warm up and help this establishment stay open! Open M-F from 7:30am to 10, and Saturday and Sunday from 8-11.