NYC 2025-Day 6-The Colbert Report Report-Buds' Version
We realized the other day how our writing styles are different. Ginnie provides a roadmap, a recipe, that would allow you, to reproduce an event. Times and places. I want to capture the feel, the emotional stakes.
We're going to do parallel play where we both write our impressions of attending The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The Ed Sullivan Theater is a dozen blocks up from our hotel. The 15-minute walk took us through a sleepy Times Square. The place will fill up with crowds, performers and hucksters. This frozen afternoon, a few b-boys were trying to summon up the courage to put on a show but had neither the audience nor the motivation for more than a few struts and a handstand or two.
On a more energetic night. It's Times Square, baby!
We found the line staffed by some very serious interns. They let us know the "first load" would be in only a few minutes.
The view was nice. Our line companions included an exuberant Italian couple. Where were they from? Eee-taly. Yeah, no kidding. 😹
But before we knew it, loading commenced. This involved packing our motley crew into the lobby.
Over the next hour, blocks of us were released to the bathrooms. We were filled in on the procedure. ABSOLUTELY no phones. Our energy drives the show. A comedian will warm us up. There's a band. Our energy drives the show.
Then boom, we were admitted. There's an upper balcony and a lower deck. We were in the back right.
A continual surprise in NYC is the proximity of theaters to the street. On several of our Broadway shows the side of the theater will open up directly to the street to release patrons after a performance. In our case, the lobby opened nearly directly onto the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Our warmup comedian was Paul Mercurio. He started with a hearty "Fuck Donald Trump" and continued with a friendly "can you believe dis guy?" energy. He'd bring people on stage, we'd hear a few stories and then he'd remind us again that it's important to bring a real and positive energy. Our energy drives the show.
I was buoyed along by the swelling good cheer, the popping music, the laughs, the warmth, the growing bonhomie among the crowd, the roar, the cheers.
Stephen Colbert (may I call you Stephen?) came out and answered a few Q&A's from the crowd. My Gin, eyes shining and buzzing with people energy, waved her arm vigorously. She never got called, but her question was a good one.
What brought you joy today?... and it can't be something about being here with all of us.
Stephen, if you're here and want to answer, first you gotta register for an account, then you can leave a comment with your answer. We'd love 😍 to hear from you.
Stephen was asked about how he stays positive and maintains energy and hope.
I feels like a carbon control rod that's lowered into the toxic bath of daily news. I absorb some of it and radiates it back to his audience in a non-destructive way.
And then finally he reminded us that our energy drives the show. Most of us were ready to run through a brick wall for him at that point.
We got started.
This show is "live to tape". It runs straight through then the hour or so of footage gets turned into the 40 minutes you'll see on TV. Our guests were Adam Scott (repping Severance season 2, but we think of him as a demon from The Good Place) and Janet Yellen.
We had a monologue.
Cyborgasm
Adam Scott
Janet Yellen
Our energy drives the show.
Our energy drives the show.
The emotional resonance of the show was interesting. We were like the human batteries from The Matrix. A heightened experience, charged up and drained down.
Our energy drove the show.
