Today, we got to experience a bit of NYC's famed entertainment industry, with seats at a live taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The evening ended with an unexpected brush with America's Next Drag Superstar...
As soon as our flights were booked, I started looking for interesting, affordable things to do in NYC. My top choice was to attend a live taping of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. As it turns out, the only way to get tickets is through an online ticket lottery, administered through the Twitter account @Daily Tix. On one particularly lucky day, I was able to snatch 2 tickets for the Thursday, May 22 taping, which also happened to be the last taping before a weeklong show hiatus.
In brief, these "tickets" did not guarantee admittance. The show is overbooked to ensure a full house, so to claim your physical tickets, you have to line up at the studio (located on 11th Ave. at 52nd St.) at 2pm on the day of. We were encouraged to show up early, so we arrived around noon and ended up getting tickets #35 & #36.
Tickets in hand, we were free to leave the studio until 4:30, so we went and grabbed coffee and a snack. We found an amazing Parisian cafe called La Bergamote (52nd St. between 10th Ave. and 11th Ave.) – highly recommended.
With some fuel in our bodies, we returned to the studio at 4:30. There was a bit more waiting involved, but around 5:30, we were lined up and led into the studio. Our seats were assigned to us as we walked in, and by sheer coincidence, there were two seats available front row centre. Our lucky day!
The show was super fun! There was a comedian who "warmed up" the audience and made us test our volume (ie. as loud as possible!) Then, Jon Stewart arrived and did a pre-show chat with audience, taking questions, making us all laugh. The taping involved his usual shenanigans (even silly costumes), and then his special guest was Drew Barrymore. Fun!
We were released from the studio just before 7:00pm, with our sides aching from laughter. We grabbed some Greek cuisine on 9th Ave. and made a plan for the evening. As luck would have it, we were able to get a table at Therapy Bar where Bianca del Rio – RuPaul's Drag Race next Drag Superstar! – was performing her first show since her win on Monday night. It was an amazing night of drinks, snacks and laughs.
Our first full day in New York, full of fun and surprises!
