By Bridget Valls
Looking to buy some apples, see some free art, go to a few bookstores, watch some shows, or meet the Secret Service and Douglas Emhoff. The Honors Theatre trip is your best bet!
Mr. Decker led this year’s group of 14 students and was pleased with his trip. He had SO many favorite parts of the trip (and a lot of unexpected lore).
He began by telling me about the “free art” they experienced on the street, like statues, murals, etc. He told me they even got to witness a Christmas movie being filmed.
His favorite piece of art was The Broken Kilometer, by Walter de Maria, who turns regular apartments into art pieces for people to see. Decker had taken his group last year to see another piece by him called The Earth Room. Safe to say I think Mr. Decker is a fan of Walter de Maria.
Susan Googe (11) enjoyed “walking around Central Park and Little Italy, going to the drama book shop, and trying a bunch of fun restaurants,” she told me.
Since they were in the Big Apple…they had to get apples. So their next stop on the trip was a local farmers market. They got apples, apple cider, and other non-apple products, but that’s not quite as fun.
This was not the only food spot they went to though. The deli Barney Greengrass was a fan favorite (even with the Secret Service!?). “This guy in a black suit and earpiece was just walking around asking people how they were doing and what they were up to,” Mr. Decker told me. This was when he dropped the lore that the Secret Service was interviewing people before Kamala Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, walked into the deli right behind him. Mr. Decker knew exactly who he was but his students did not recognize him until Mr. Decker told them. He asked them not to freak out or fangirl.
Since it was a smaller group compared to last year’s trip which included Honors Singers, they also got to do some different activities. They got to go to 5 shows in 4 days and a fancy hot chocolate shop, which I heard was amazing.
This wasn’t just a trip for pleasure, but also a trip for business. They went to two bookstores. The Strand was just for fun. It is a huge 5-story bookstore that we do not have in Atlanta. “Just a better Barnes and Noble,” Mr. Decker told me. They then went to The Drama Book Shop which was strictly business. Mr. Decker picked up a few scripts and actually bought all the scripts for this spring’s play there.
The shows were obviously a major part of this trip. “We saw 5 shows in total, which was great because they were all different and unique,” Susan Googe (11) told me. “Everyone’s favorite show was either Sunset Blvd. or my favorite Maybe Happy Ending,” Carson Tinkler (11) told me.
For Mr. Decker, Sunset Blvd. was a favorite because “It was like a movie and play together,” he told me. The actors were performing on stage, but a cameraman was filming and displaying the same scene on a projector just above the stage.
Susan had a different favorite from the others. “I loved The Outsiders because it did a really great job in combining the original story with the new music, and their choreography was really good,” she said.
If you follow the theatre kids’ Instagram, you probably are aware of how close this group of students is. When I mentioned the Instagram and bonding of his students to Mr. Decker, he laughed and told me about some of the activities that made his students even CLOSER. “The NYC subway is a bonding experience in itself,” he said. And he also said all his “theatre nerds” loved the Broadway museum.
The only negative thing I have heard about this trip was the weather conditions. It never got above 32 degrees, and sometimes, when they were walking, they had to step into churches and other local spots to warm up. On the upside, they did get to see some snow!
