I Camped Out for 19 Hours for the Closing of Sunday in the Park with George and Jake Gyllenhaal

Sunday in the Park with George is a beautiful piece of theatre so I had to go back and see Jake Gyllenhaal star in it once more. But I waited forever.

Camping out for 19 hours to see Jake Gyllenhaal star in a Sondheim show was not something I ever thought I would do. Yet here I am and here is my story to tell. Basically, I saw Sunday in the Park with George last Thursday and became obsessed with the production. It was beautiful and I was so glad I went.

Well, I wanted to see it again, but I had literally two days left to see it before the show closed by the time I got back from a vacation. So I decided to rush tickets for it! Unfortunately for me, the rush lines for Broadway shows are bonkers. I freaked out, got to the theater at 5 in the afternoon the day before the show on Sunday and made my camp.

It wasn’t a bad experience, just long and cold and I did see Ryan Reynolds, Jon Groff, Jake Gyllenhaal and, more important, Jake Gyllenhaal’s dog. Really, it’s a pretty dog.

Sunday in the Park with George

So when the show started, I was emotional because I slept for three hours to get the tickets and saw a million celebrities at once. That’s an exaggeration but remember, sleep deprivation. So Maggie Gyllenhaal and Blythe Danner were there as well as producers and people who knew Jake. But you know who the most important person to me in that room was?

Stephen Sondheim. That’s right folks, I was in the room with the man who made the songs that make me cry in the bathtub. So crying over the show was even worse because I was crying with Stephen Sondheim.

Anyway so act one ended and I looked up to see Maggie Gyllenhaal as I’m wiping mascara off my face because I’m a well rounded person. Then act two was pretty much the same, just me crying and blubbering about how important art and theater is. Basically I sobbed throughout the entire performance because Sunday in the Park with George is one of the most important shows I’ve ever seen.

I mean, it won a Pulitzer.

Stage Door

I wanted a full playbill so I went to the stagedoor again to try and get the autographs I had missed when I saw it the first time. What I wasn’t expecting was Sondheim to come out and for NO ONE to realize who he was. So he got to me and I just started clapping and saying “thank you” and it was weird.

Then the producer of Nightcrawler came out and my brain had a million things to say but I didn’t say anything at all because really, I’m still thinking about that movie.

But then the stars came out and we thanked them and it was just an overwhelming experience.

I did wait for Jake again because really, how many times in my life am I going to be able to see Jake Gyllenhaal and look into his eyes? So I told him that I camped out because the show inspired me and he inspires me. Pretty much I kept talking so he’d look at me. Because really, he’s got some gorgeous eyes.

Next: I saw Sunday in the Park with George and Met Jake Gyllenhaal and Lived

So unfortunately this show closed and I’ll never tell Robert Sean Leonard I cry to Dead Poets Society on the regular but at least I have this experience to tell my grandkids about when I’m dying on my death bed. “Grandma clapped at Stephen Sondheim once” will be a good one.