And New York was never the same again: The story of that time we opened a show and the Santiagos cam

Hey, everyone! HAPPY OPENING WEEKEND! Hahaha okay, so I realize it wasn't Opening Weekend for probably almost all of you reading this, but it was a pretty big weekend here for myself and my friends.

At the Table is FINALLY up and officially running!!!!!!!

We are all just so excited to finally be able to share this awesome work with the public. I can't wait to hear more and more reactions from our audiences moving forward. Our full opening night audience seemed to really love it! It was amazing to have a big crowd and feel the huge wave of relief calm all our nerves after we got that first big laugh. If you're in the city now through July 21, I strongly recommend hitting the internet and one of my 456 posts about where to find tickets. Michael Perlman and the cast has come up with some incredible work and I can't wait for ya'll to see it!

My first New York opening was a pretty big deal for me. It was so much fun to get all dressed up and go down to the theater and make sure everything was in it's place for the show. Elizabeth and I finished our pre-show about 45 minutes early so we were kind of walking around with a very telling look of restlessness in our eyes. I think we were driving the front of house team a little bananas popping upstairs every few minutes. We had this thing called a step & repeat, or, one of those big backdrops that hang at red carpet events with the company's name on it., which was SO cool and SO exciting. We had a pretty great celebration afterwards at the Soho Room which I knew as also going to be really fun for all of us so the hype was just out of control on this one!

And for the cherry on top - my family was driving all the way down from Buffalo, NY into Manhattan to see the show. I could not believe it for one thing and I could not have been more over the moon! To say I have the world's most supportive parents would be an understatement. I could not wait to introduce my mom, dad, and brother to the company. Of course, everyone loved them right away and we just had to get our photo taken according to Chopper, and they had a great time meeting everyone. It was so nice. There was absolutely a point in the night when I looked to my right and saw my mom and Aaron talking, Elizabeth and my Dad laughing about something on my left, and my brother standing next to me and I couldn't believe where I was for a second. Best feeling ever. Here are some photos from our opening night!

Some super attractive family working the Stepy & Repeat...oh wait! That's us! - Photos courtesy of FLT COmmunications

Just a really casual company photo. So proud to know these guys. - Photos courtesy of FLT Communications

So after all the Opening Night partying, the best part was: my family was staying with me for another two days! Since Monday and Tuesday are my days off, we had a lot planned. I first took everyone to Macy's @ Herald Square, as per my mom's request. OF COURSE, since I was trying to show off how great I was at navigating NYC, we got on the Queens-bound 6 train instead of the Downtown one, which was nice and embarrassing and made my dad just cranky enough to start the day! We had planned on hitting up FAO Schwartz since it was recently announced they would be closing, but we will just have to do that on their next visit in a few weeks when we close. After some shopping and some walking around Herald Square, it was time for the ultimate Santiago family outing...a trip to Yankee Stadium. This train trip was without hiccups, and the look on my dad's face when we came out from the under ground and got that first view of the Bronx/Yankee stadium was so worth the day's chaos. After we got numerous photos taken in front of the stadium, we had to book it past will call since it was Cap Night at the ball park. We all got free purple Yankee hats and I've never seen my dad so excited. Since we were there so early, we got to see a lot of a film titled something like "Legends of Yankee Stadium" or "Heroes of Baseball" or something like that, and I had a huge sob fest while watching footage of Jeter's last at bat and Mariano Rivera's last pitch thrown. None of the four of us could believe we were finally visiting the Ballpark which has always been at the top of our list of sport travel destinations. I took a DISGUSTING amount of photos, so I'll let the pinstripes speak for themselves. PS - A-Rod's butt looks about 25 times better in person in those baseball pants than I ever could have imagined.

I can't even begin to thank my family enough for coming out to support me this weekend, and I can't express enough how proud I am of my Fault Line family on finally opening this awesome show. I apologize for how spastic this blog post has been. I'm exhausted and I fell asleep like three times while writing it, but I promise, I will have another one to come very shortly. I can't wait to see what people think of At the Table, so stay tuned. In the mean time, I have a quote or two from this past week. Have a great Wednesday, everyone. Speaking of great Wednesdays (not my best segue, I'll admit)....

MAYA FARHAT IS COMING TO TOWN!!!!!! More posts on this beauty tomorrow. For now, enjoy a quote of the day. I have no idea what this one has to do with anything either, and it's been up in the hallway for like 7 days, so enjoy.

"Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity; we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, men will have discovered fire." - Teilhard de Chardin