New York: the concrete jungle where dreams are made. There’s nothing you can’t do and the lights will inspire you! I could quote my girl Alicia Keys for days, many many days, but I won’t because I’ve been tasked to write about the recent field trip taken by Mrs. Manzar’s and Mrs. Richardson’s English Three classes to the big apple. There, we got to see the TONY AWARD WINNER for BEST PLAY, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  After reading the book in class together, it was amazing to see the novel come to life in the theatre. (And yes, that’s how they spell it.)

TCIOTDITNT: The Most Complicated Acronym Ever

The story itself, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, can only be described as a masterpiece. Written by Mark Haddon, whose other works include nothing you’ve ever heard of, the story represents something that every other book in literature lacks: Christopher John Francis Boone. A teen genius (or savant, to be more specific) who is trapped in the body of a severely autistic boy. Christopher, accompanied by his pet rat Toby, stumble across his neighbor’s murdered dog and vows to unravel the mystery set before him. From his detective work, an emotional roller coaster of betrayal and the truth about his mother’s mysterious disappearance comes to light, leaving Christopher to question everything and at the same time, nothing. Due to his perplexing condition, we get to look at life through the eyes of a boy with Aspergers, a condition on the Autism Spectrum that makes it hard for people to view the world in the typical way, making them completely unaware of social norms. TCIOTDITNT, is also one of, if not, the most interesting book we’ve read throughout the FTHS English curriculum. If you take a class where this book is not in the curriculum, I highly recommend you ask another English teacher in the department for copy, or go see the play, which stays very true to the novel! Honestly, I recommend you do both, in that order.

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE JONNY IN THE NIGHT-TIME

Leaving in the middle of 11th period to New York was a blessing, because we went outside in physics to throw paper airplanes and I did not feel like sweating on a Friday. After an actually really brief bus ride, we got to eat dinner at The Hartland Brewery. If you go to New York, I highly recommend you go there; the food was delicious and the pulled pork (even though I’m supposed to be Kosher) was delicious. Also, at the restaurant, my friend Krissie (shoutout to Krissie!) and I saw this blonde girl get up from her table and run away crying. She was crying like crazy, heaving and rocking back and forth. It was so awkward! I really wanted to go over there and ask if she was okay, because if there was a crying scale that accurately measured the level of tear flow, she’d be a 46 out of 10. She was an improper fraction! Anyways I wasn’t allowed to go over and console her but her mom came over and I guess they worked things out? I don’t know for sure, but I really hope she’s okay.

Our walk to Times Square was really fun. A few of us played a game like Impractical Jokers, daring each other to say things aloud to nearby pedestrians who clearly did not need to

be bothered by a bunch of giggly teenagers. We would yell things like “Excuse me, do you know where the closest guava is?” and got the weirdest stares. One lady flipped me off #goals. After a few snapchat geo-location pictures later (because how could you not!), we made it to the center of the big apple, the apple core, if you will. After crossing through an armada of sweaty men dressed like Olaf from Frozen (I counted 7), VERY under dressed women, and unfortunately not the naked cowboy, we had time to kill, so we went to the M&M Store. Some advice: you can easily take advantage of the free samples because you get five handfuls per staff member, so if you keep rotating staff members you can have Halloween in Spring. Anyways, a thing that me and my two friends did was this: I stood close to a bunch of foreign people with their selfie sticks out and ready, and they would run up to me yelling “ARE YOU JONNY FROM VINE?” and asked for autographs and pictures and freak out. This would get the attention of the other tourists, who would shyly, but eagerly, ask me to take selfies with them. It was so much fun pretending to be famous, I should really just get famous so I can do it year round.

So once it was time to leave candy heaven, we all walked to the Barrymore Theatre. Along the way, one of the girls in our group (*cough cough Faina*) bought a mixtape from some girl on the street! We listened to it later, and I have to say, it was terrible. So when we walked into the theatre, all the way at the very very top, I began getting nervous and thought that being so high would give us actual nosebleeds because of the elevation and all that junk. But as it turns out, the seats were perfectly fine. Nobody was blocking us and we had a clear view of the actors on stage. So moral of the story: don’t buy a stranger’s mixtape and you can sit anyway when watching Curious Incident and still have a rocking time.

An interesting thing about the play is that the character Christopher Boone, just like in the novel, is obsessed with prime numbers. So creatively, every prime numbered seat in the theatre had a special coloring and a contest letter attatched. If the letters of your name added up to a prime number (A=1, B=2, etc.), you could go to the front desk on the first floor and claim a cute TCIOTDITN (that is such a pain to type!) button. I just asked the woman who worked the front desk for a button and she said sure, so if you go to the theatre and don’t have a prime numbered name, just be suave and ask away.

So as I mentioned earlier, the play won the Tony award for Best Play on Sunday, June 7th. For those of you who don’t know, that’s the highest award a play on Broadway can achieve. A major reason the play won was probably the intricate and artistic way the stage is set up. I don’t want to spoil the excitement and amazement of TCIOTDITN, but you have to know this: the stage itself is amazing. It looks like a giant box, with doors instead of curtained exits, and has a ton of big squares making it look like a huge grid. Benches and cubes line the walls, used throughout the play as props. Also, projectors can be found all over the ceiling, giving the actors amazing visual ‘sets’ to interact with. Once you go see the play, you’ll understand exactly what I mean. Lastly, stay a minute or two after the curtain call because Christopher does a math problem that is insanely funny. Yes, a math problem.

I would just like to say thank you to Mrs. Manzar and Mrs. Richardson for putting together an amazing field trip. Literally not one thing went wrong. Everything went smoothly time-wise, the food was great, and, of course, the entertainment was phenomenal. Go see The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I promise, you’ll feel emotions that Christopher, and even YOU, never thought existed!