FIRST DATE Adaptation Written Austin Winsberg | Music and Lyrics by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner Longacre Theatre, New York City - August 8, 2013 - January 5, 2014 (34 previews; 174 performances) STORY The show begins with 5 New Yorkers sharing their dating disasters ("The One"). The scene shifts to an unnamed restaurant in modern day New York City. Aaron, a quirky man, enters the restaurant and begins to talk with the waiter. Based on how nervous he is, the waiter guesses that this is a first date. After the waiter seats Aaron, an artsy woman named Casey enters the restaurant. She spies Aaron putting in eye drops as he waits for her, making her dread the date even more; she then orders strong drinks in hopes that the date will be quick and painless. Casey and Aaron exchange some small talk and it is revealed that the date was set up by Casey's sister, Lauren, whose husband Kevin is a co-worker of Aaron's. Through the small talk, they both develop first impressions of each other ("First Impressions"). Casey's friend Reggie calls her during the date, offering for Casey to use his call as a way out of the date ("Bailout #1"), but Casey thinks enough of Aaron to ignore the call. Aaron and Casey begin to bond over friends from summer camp and high school after discovering their hometowns are near each other. Aaron casually makes a joke about Jewish geography, to which Casey responds she's not Jewish. This leads Aaron to a dream sequence where he imagines his dead Grandma Ida, who scolds Aaron for not dating a nice Jewish girl instead. Casey's extremely Christian father then shows up in Aaron's dream sequence, and tells Aaron that he is not happy with the idea of Aaron becoming his son in law. Next, Aaron imagines the son he could potentially have with Casey confronting him about which religion to choose and how he wishes he wasn't born ("The Girl For You"). Aaron nervously asks her questions about religion hoping that she does have some Jewish in her before discovering she is an atheist. Relieved, he makes a joke about Casey's views on spirituality (she believes in the power of meditation), but it backfires when he accidentally insults her. This results in a long awkward pause ("The Awkward Pause"). Casey is then visited in her mind by her sister Lauren, who urges Casey not to screw this date up, because "Casey's biological clock is ticking," especially if she continues her current dating pattern of going the distance with bad boys on the first date and ruining any potential with nice guys like Aaron. Meanwhile, Aaron is visited by his best friend Gabe, who convinces him that the date is going well. However, Aaron then imagines his ex-girlfriend Allison, who tells him that she still sexually fantasizes about him ("Allison's Theme #1"). Gabe tells Aaron that he's romanticizing the memory of Allison, because he's only remembering the good things about her and not the bad things. He also tells Aaron to avoid bringing up Allison again, because it could ruin any future he might have with Casey. Aaron decides to fix the date by making more jokes, which leads to talk of jobs. Aaron describes his job at Wall Street, and expresses that all he likes about the job is that it pays well. Casey works at an art gallery which makes her somewhat happy because she can study her craft, photography. Aaron mentions how good her exhibit looked which leads Casey to conclude that he googled her before the date. She immediately does the same thing to him, and the two of them bond over embarrassing stuff on the internet (I.E. Aaron played Dolly in his high school production of Hello Dolly) (The World Wide Web is Forever).Casey is hungry so she asks Aaron to leave the bar and eat dinner with her. Casey initially wants to order a burger, but Lauren tells her it will give the impression that years from now she will be overweight, so she orders a salad instead. Aaron, on the other hand, wants a salad, but Gabe tells him that "salads are for wussies," so he orders a burger.
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