- Carmen's Rating
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4
- Photos
The chance to be up close and personal with a Rockette? I’ll take it!
That was one of the highlights of this $17 1-hour backstage tour of one of music’s most famous buildings. The other was getting to see a small portion of the sold-out Radio City Christmas Spectacular through an upstairs viewing room. (If there’s a show or rehearsals going on during your tour, they allow you to watch for about 5 minutes or so while giving some more historical and technical info in the background.)
Ask me to recite back to you any of that historical and technical info, however, and you’ll be hard-pressed to get an answer out of me. Having never seen the Rockettes live and in person, I was fascinated and tuned everything else out. Wurlitzer Organ? Roxy Who? Art Deco design? Fascinating hydraulic stage technicalities that were guarded by the government during wartime? Look people, there are 36 perfectly proportioned women on stage dressed as toy soldiers lined up and falling onto each other like dominoes. I can’t be bothered at the moment with listening to anything, I’m enjoying the show! (As a matter of fact, we stayed a bit behind the tour to watch them finish out the act and got a bit lost and in a bit of a pickle with our guide, Joyce, who was very patient while she was chiding us.)
Despite the fact that I didn’t remember a lot of the details, Joyce was an excellent guide. She put excitement and enthusiasm into her history lesson, with zeal that couldn’t be mistaken for cheese or rehearsed. She truly loved talking with us, walking us through as if she were guiding us on a visit through her own house.
At the end of the tour we had the opportunity to ask questions of a Rockette (who was the second tallest in the line at 5’10’’) and have our photos taken with her. I didn’t expect to get so star-struck, but I had a moment.
Funny side note: Try to plan your restroom breaks at another location. Due to the show letting in and out, the line for the women’s room was (typically) about a mile long. I had 10 minutes until my tour left me and a bladder full of hot chocolate. I put on my blinders, and with the assistance of a concessions' employee (and with about 20 other women), we high-tailed it through the men’s room. Some were shocked, some were non-pulsed, and some were intrigued. Nevertheless, I was back in time for the tour and there were no reported accidents!
If you’ve got several days in NYC (or have seen most of the statues and climbed the buildings already), this tour will be a well-spent precious hour.
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