I’ve never felt theater to be a big part of my life. If I ask someone, “What is Broadway?,” it isn’t meant to be a thought-provoking or rhetorical question. Literally, what is Broadway? I don’t feel that one-hour long trek through the rain with our intent mainly focused on finding theater rather than studying was able to answer my question, but it did help. I, at least, see now that New York has a ton of theater crammed into a relatively small part of the city.

Because I knew nothing going in, almost every find was a learning experience. What was of most interest to me was the thrust stage, mainly the fact that there was a specific name for it, but also because image searches on google brought up some really beautiful pictures. The most amusing find, though, was when we stopped at a random street corner to plan out next move. We had a short chat with a policeman there, and on the wall of the building next to him was painted comedy and tragedy masks—one of the items on the list, just sitting on the wall of a random building.

My train ride home was a really surreal experience. I came across two separate performances. One was a magic demonstration involving nerf balls. The other was a dance routine. I’ve always had a rather one-dimensional view of these performances. Magic shows were entertainment. Dance routines were an annoyance. Simple. That was the first time I linked them to something else—the theater of New York. It may also be the last time I do so, but nonetheless it was a new experience of an old experience.