The author (fourth from left) with the rest of the “Once on This Island” team, all bundled up.
NEW YORK—I’ve just come home from a rehearsal for one of the most fun events in this city, which is then telecast all over the world: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade!
The very first parade took place in 1924 when the annual parade started by Louis Bamberger in Newark, New Jersey, at the Bamberger’s store was transferred to the Macy’s flagship store on Herald Square. There were Macy’s employees in colorful costumes, animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo, floats and professional bands. So many floats and balloons have been introduced since, with many from the worlds of children’s television and animated films.
We were at our theater in our second day of tech rehearsals when our producer Ken Davenport announced to the company that we would be performing at the parade.
There was plenty of joyful screaming and jumping going on. For a few of us, this will be our second parade, but for many, this one will be the first. There will be four Broadway shows making appearances at the Thanksgiving Day Parade: “Once on This Island,” “Anastasia,” “SpongeBob Squarepants” and “Dear Evan Hansen.” It’s especially exciting for the first two shows I listed, as the team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty wrote them both.
Performing for this event takes quite a bit of preparation. First, the powers-that-be in charge of the parade came to one of our previews to figure out what number they wanted to feature. Next, they scheduled a recording session for us to lay down our vocals for what we were going to perform, which is a mash-up of a couple of our bigger songs.
We spent a good morning at the Power Station recording studio, bumping into the cast of “Anastasia” as we were heading out to our theater. And then a few days ago, we spent a couple of hours at the Ripley-Grier rehearsal studios with our director Michael Arden and choreographer Camille Brown to figure out how to best present the production number.
Fast forward to tonight. After our preview performance at Circle in the Square, the whole cast, as well as members of the production team, boarded a bus and headed down to Macy’s. In the freezing cold, we ran through our number twice with the NBC technical and camera crew, just to make sure they got the angles they needed to get.
So now, all of us are safe at home trying to get some sleep, as we all have another long day. Most of our days during this preview period have us in rehearsal for the afternoon, followed by a performance that night.
We shall be keeping this schedule up until our opening night on Dec. 3. However, despite the physical and mental fatigue with these long days, there is much for us all to be thankful for. We get to wake up every single day knowing that we get to do what we love to do, and share it with one another as a company and with the enthusiastic audiences that join us
at night.
Truly, this coming Thanksgiving Day, we will be up very early with smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts. It’s not just about turkey and pumpkin pie, but about being grateful. And we are very, very grateful.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade airs on NBC today. (For details, visit nbc.com.)