On any other weekend, a gaggle of teenagers belting songs from “Hadestown” in the hallway of the New York Hilton Midtown would raise some eyebrows.
But for three days that ended Sunday, they were in the right place. More than 5,000 others — including several Beetlejuices, a handful of Heathers and the rare Dolly — made the pilgrimage to New York for the fifth annual BroadwayCon, a haven for the most passionate musical theater fans.
Some arrived in full character for the event, where attendees can meet and take photos with the stars of their favorite shows. Passes range from $80 for one day to $1,000 for a full weekend platinum pass with extra perks.
When fans weren’t doing their own dramatic hallway renditions of musical numbers, here’s what they were up to.
Which witch will win?
For Nyssa Sara Lee, dressing up as Ursula — the evil sea witch from “The Little Mermaid” — wasn’t just about putting on a costume. It was a test of endurance.
What was it like to waltz through the convention in a 35-pound ensemble, hefting aloft a web of tentacles 15 1/2 feet wide?
Two words: “It hurts.”
“I almost passed out yesterday because I got super hot,” added the 26-year-old cosplayer from Salt Lake City. “If I’m running, or if I lift it up too much — I even have ice packs to put on my spine on the base of my neck, because it’s a workout.”
But the four months she spent creating the costume, and the physical hurdles it took to wear it, were worth the effort, she said. Cosplay — dressing up in character, a big component of fan conventions like BroadwayCon and others — brings her joy. Wowing other admirers doesn’t hurt, either. Nyssa Sara Lee (a name she uses on everything but legal documents, she said) strapped on the tentacles both Saturday and Sunday and spent much of the weekend posing for photos.
And Sunday afternoon was her chance to show it off on the main stage at the convention’s annual cosplay contest. The competition was tough: Nyssa Sara Lee was up against another Ursula, a tiny Angel Schunard from “Rent” and all four gods from “Once on this Island.”
A Deer Evan Hansen was also in the running — a centaur-esque play on “Dear Evan Hansen,” with the title character’s signature blue polo for a torso and a rear end of the woodland animal.
“I’m not in it to win it,” Nyssa Sara Lee said in an interview before the contest. “I would love the recognition. But my payout is literally just having people say, ‘Thank you for doing this.’”
The judges, including Fredi Walker-Browne of the original “Rent” cast, agreed. Nyssa Sara Lee took first place, winning a pass for next year’s BroadwayCon.
‘Six’ gets the royal treatment
The screams at BroadwayCon’s “Six” singalong weren’t typical theater cheers. This wasn’t the raucous standing ovation a cast gets on opening night. These were full Beyoncé-at-Coachella screams. The screams you hear when a queen of pop — or six — steps onstage before several hundred superfans.
“Six” doesn’t begin performances on Broadway for another month, but the girl-power British musical about the wives of Henry VIII had an outsize presence at the convention, including a dance workshop led by the show’s choreographer, Carrie-Anne Ingrouille.
Tanya Heath, 31, arrived on Saturday as Catherine of Aragon, wearing a black and gold dress a friend lent her for New Year’s Eve and a spiked crown she made at 2 a.m. that morning.
She was a royal army of one compared to the six high school seniors from New Jersey, who held a sleepover Friday night to finalize the outfits for their group cosplay. They became obsessed with the show thanks to its cast album.
“They have the lovability of a jukebox musical,” said Rachael Mishkind, the group’s Jane Seymour, “but with the originality of a regular Broadway show.”
Young women inspired by the show’s feminist message are at the heart of its fan base, but Aisling Kruger, the group’s Anna of Cleves, thinks the audience may be expanding.
“My dad’s really into British history,” she said. “He’ll hear it and be like, ‘Oh! Jane Seymour!’ and get really into it.”
All business at the swap
Jayda Lipstein, 15, knew she had a jewel in her hands, and she wasn’t going to part with it easily.
She was holding court with fellow Playbill collectors in a small conference room on Saturday afternoon. And her 2008 “In the Heights” program, featuring the full original Broadway cast listed inside, was in high demand.
One girl wanted to swap a “Come From Away” signed by the original cast. Another offered to throw in 20 bucks and a “Beetlejuice.” When that didn’t work, she upped the ante: How about her whole stack? A “Jersey Boys”? A “Mean Girls”?
Lipstein stood firm. But around her, sentimentality reigned. Jarod Engle, 19, was on the lookout for special colorful editions of the Playbill for “Beetlejuice,” a show he hasn’t seen yet. Brianna Boucher, 17, sitting in the fluffy pink tulle of her “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” Veruca Salt costume, said she would trade anything for a “Bring It On,” a musical she loves but also never got to see.
Back at Lipstein’s table, Claudia Emanuele, a 21-year-old writer from Connecticut, joked that she would “trade you my whole soul” for the “In the Heights.” She shares a name with the musical’s treasured abuela character — and when Emanuele saw the show, she said, it marked the first time she heard her name pronounced correctly onstage.
In a room packed with fans who barter for nostalgia, Lipstein’s all-business mentality was an outlier.
As other collectors learned, to their chagrin, she doesn’t even have any emotional connection to “In the Heights.” She acquired the program by pure luck, hidden in a box in her grandparents’ basement.
“Everyone wants it,” she said, coolly appraising the room. She concluded that she might be better off just selling it to the highest bidder on eBay.
‘Mary Paw-Pins’ and more
Amid the Playbill handbags, the crocheted Broadway character dolls, the paintings on sheet music and the pink-painted “Mean Girl” shoes, there was Melissa Crabtree, at a table lined with cats.
Not “Cats,” the show, but images of her own gray-striped cat, Mabel, turned into souvenirs that commemorate a whole array of Broadway shows.
It was Crabtree’s first time in New York, and her first time at BroadwayCon — where the maze of vendor booths stretched across two floors.
At Crabtree’s table, there were stickers of cats dressed as characters from “Hamilton” and “Hadestown.” Enamel pins depicting stage manager cats with tiny feline headsets. Miniature buttons with frazzled cats announcing a dire warning: “It’s tech week.”
Mabel “doesn’t let me dress her up,” Crabtree said. Instead, she started illustrating a round, cartoon Mabel, happily clad in Broadway costumes. Mabel appears as the wives of Henry VIII from “Six” and dons the flowery island garb of “Once on This Island.” There are even Lighting Crew Mabel and Sound Crew Mabel, who each sport an ensemble fit for running the show behind the scenes.
Crabtree, a Chicago-based actor, started drawing theater-centric stickers three years ago to put in her planner, and the shop grew from there, her husband, Jon, said. While she interacted with customers, he sat nearby, using a button maker to quickly craft reinforcements.
Every sticker set even has its own Mabel-inspired pun, from “Mary Paw-Pins” to “Licked” — pronounced, of course, with two syllables, like “Wicked.”
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