There's an Opera Out on the Turnpike

Like any self-respecting Connecticut yankee, I have always been slightly skeptical about our neighbors to the south. And no, I don't mean our neighbors below the Mason-Dixon line, I mean our neighbors on the other side of New York: the fine citizens of the Garden State. On the surface, we would appear to have a lot in common. New York is "the city", and we're close enough to sort of consider ourselves part of it - an auxiliary part, but at least more in the know than, you know, those poor bastards in Indiana. And yet, there is a great divide. New Jersey is "bridge and tunnel" trash. Connecticut is "commuters." CT-ites think they live there because they want to, but New Jersey people live there because they have to. We smugly pop our pastel polo collars, thinking that New Jersey tries to be Connecticut, but despite its best efforts, it just can't.

(Obviously, these are all gross generalizations, over-simplifications and slight exaggerations. Don't send me hate mail.)

Naturally, I grew up brainwashed, believing that New Jersey was full of tacky big-haired girls in splatter-painted tube tops and purple eyeshadow who hang out in minimalls. It was a place of foul-smelling factories and crowded turnpikes, best driven through as quickly as humanly possible. This week, however, I learned that above all else, New Jersey is a land of contradictions.

When we first crossed the border from Mass. into Jersey, I didn't actually believe we were in Jersey. It was all green! And full of trees! And lakes! And nature and stuff! It was really breathtakingly beautiful. It turned out we were in some sort of State or National Park, so I figured that didn't really count. But then we crossed out of the National Park, and I thought for a minute we had somehow ended up in a greener, flatter Vermont, but no, it was still Jersey, just endless farms of gently rolling hills, and it was still really beautiful. I mean, I knew there were some farms in New Jersey, because many farmers' markets in the city feature Jersey tomatoes, but I had no idea it was quite so agricultural. The first school we stopped in was across the street from...a feed supply store. Not a mall. A feed supply store. Feed and tractor parts.

And then the first thing I noticed at the next school was a poster featuring smiling cartoon children who cheerily proclaimed "Our Students DON'T Support Weapons or Fighting!" which, for whatever reason, did not reassure me. Here were the stripmalls with a school plunked down in the midst of a Bennigan's and a Sassy Stylzz hair salon. However, even here it didn't look nearly as stereotypically Jersey as I had expected. It just looked like the less preppy parts of Connecticut (yes, there do exist less preppy parts.) And nobody's hair was that big. Frankly, teachers dress pretty much the same everywhere. And more importantly, kids are awesome everywhere. The kids assigned to help us load-in/load-out here were apparently on some sort of academic trial, and trust me, our set is so heavy that is a punishment bordering on cruel and unusual. (Yes, theatre as punishment. Just like in A Walk to Remember, in which the bad boy is forced to audition for the school play and ends up falling in love with good girl Mandy Moore who's playing the lead. Well not just like that, because no one had a terminal illness or fell in love, as they were all in like sixth grade.) These kids were so sweet, and so helpful (we're talking professional level cable coiling which is no mean feat as my cables are like giant knots with two plugs sticking out), and really interested in all the different aspects of technical theatre. They were so enthusiastic I assumed they had volunteered until I found out otherwise. Plus, it was at this school that I recieved my two favorite compliments: 1. A random boy in gym class yelled out "YOU'RE A GOOD ACTRESS" and 2. in the first time I have finally felt pretty enough to pull off the lead in The Necklace, someone told me that I was quote "killing it in that dress." Damn girl, indeed.

As I drove the van (yes, I drove the van! I drove a van on the New Jersey turnpike and NOBODY DIED!!!) into Staten Island, I came to the profound realization that I had way, way underestimated the Garden State. The people are awesome, and the scenery is really pretty. In short, as many Springsteen fans had already discovered, Jersey rocks.