The rise of the Delta Nus
Perle and I (Roxi) love the theatre.
We’ve driven hundreds of miles to catch touring and regional shows in nearby states, we’ve stagedoored, volunteered at BroadwayCon, watched musicals overseas and occasionally spend afternoons dramatically reading plays and singing musicals off-key.
When I moved here in Nov. 2016, my love for theatre was intensified by easy access to Broadway and off-Broadway shows. It was further fuelled by my theatre-obsessed sister and our other roommate, Selethel.
Therefore, our adoring audience can imagine the thrill I got when I learned there was a musical theatre music festival hosted by Darren Criss.
Perle and Selethel attended the first Elsie Fest in 2015, none of us went in 2016 (Jewish holidays) and Perle and I went together in 2017. We missed 2018 because we were in Las Vegas for a good friend’s wedding and the bride probably would have missed a couple of her bridesmaids if they bailed for a musical theatre music festival.
This year, we were especially excited to go to Elsie Fest and nothing was going to stop us.
Except…
This year, Elsie Fest was on a Saturday, not Sunday.
Now for your average Joe, this isn’t an issue. But for a practicing Orthodox Jew like Perle, who doesn’t drive or take public transport on the sabbath, this was kind of a problem.
But not an insurmountable one.
A month prior, we had walked the 10 miles from our Brooklyn apartment to the Delacorte Theater in Central Park for Public Works’ Hercules, so this 9.4 mile trek would be nothing.
We waited for payday and bought our tickets.
As we headed out into the cool October air, we started loudly singing Broadway, off-Broadway and Disney songs, as we’re wont to do.
A couple of days prior, I had interviewed the cast and creative team of “A Musical About Star Wars” and I was all hyped up about the amazing afternoon we had spent with them as they recorded their cast album.
I was discussing with Perle that one of the perks of my job at a newspaper was the occasions I had to write about theatre as a member of the press and how sad I was that those opportunities were coming to an end as I was leaving my job.
Then lightning struck (figuratively)...
I turned to Perle and blurted out: “Why don’t we start a theatre blog?! I know the press side of things and you can do the art stuff.”
Truly, it’s amazing that it’s taken nearly three years of living in New York City and fangirling over Broadway (and off-Broadway) for us to come up with this idea.
By the time we had crossed the Manhattan Bridge, we had a name, a tagline and a fairly solid plan. Then it was just a matter of setting up social media and Google accounts, a website and writing some content.
Amidst job hunting, a variety of creative projects (writing for me and art/animating for Perle), Jewish holidays and temp work, we’ve finally gotten this up and running. We’ve also been reaching out to members of the theatre community and hope to start putting out pretty regular content.
So keep an eye out because it’s time for us to seize the day. And let’s raise our glasses to the ladies who blog,
Sincerely, us