I remember watching Miss America in the early ‘90s around age 10. I recall being sort of bored by the broadcast, much preferring the talent competition over swimsuits, evening wear, and platform questions. I would have happily watched all contestants perform their talents instead of just the top 10.

Cut to 2016: wish granted! I was script supervisor for the Miss America preliminary competitions, which ran three consecutive nights leading up to the main show. Here’s how it works — the girls are split into groups of three, and each night they rotate through swimwear & evening wear, talent, and platform questions. Preliminary winners are chosen each night to receive scholarship prizes. The preliminary judges narrow the contestants down to the Top 15 (though they are not revealed until the televised broadcast), at which point new judges who have not seen the girls evaluate them and pick winners.

So I got to watch all 52 contestants (representing all fifty states plus District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) sing, dance, twirl a baton, play the piano, or perform a monologue!

Let’s back up and start with my arrival in Atlantic City. It was my first time here. I hate to knock a travel destination, but… it was sort of the pits. Though I really can’t complain because I was happy to be working in a new-to-me city. Here is my spacious yet sorta outdated hotel room at Bally’s:

A loo with a view:

I arrived on September 1st just before the start of Labor Day weekend. That is generally the last hurrah for Atlantic City as they transition into off-season shortly thereafter. But the predicted arrival of Hurricane Hermine snuffed out the crowds earlier than expected — this photo was taken 2-3 days before the hurricane was scheduled to hit, and you can see the storm clouds are already brewing.

The Zac Brown Band performed to a full crowd on the beach in the photo below. There were two more concerts scheduled that weekend, but both were cancelled due to the impending hurricane.

On the morning of Saturday Sept. 3rd, everyone braced for the worst weather to hit over the next 24 hours — I spotted sandbags along the Boardwalk, restaurants closed early, those concerts were cancelled. But despite stormy skies, it never actually rained.

Sunday evening was glorious — the sky glowed with pretty colors, and tourists whose holiday weekend plans had been foiled by cloudy weather enjoyed a final night along the Boardwalk. After staring at a computer screen all day, I was diligent about getting my steps in and would not stop until I’d surpassed 10,000; that night I brought my little point-and-shoot camera along to get shots of the Boardwalk. The next 10-ish photos are from that walk.

The Trump Taj Mahal is scheduled to close permanently very soon (it’ll be the fifth Atlantic City casino to close over the past two years). Union employees were picketing at the main entrance.

By Labor Day, skies were bright blue and everything was a little quieter:

And for further comparison, I took this next photo the day after Labor Day on my 10-minute walk to work… everyone’s gone!

One other random photo that doesn’t fit in elsewhere — each night we’d go out to dinner somewhere, and one of those places was the upscale Asian-fusion restaurant Buddakan. The food was outstanding.

Okay, now that we’ve covered Atlantic City basics, let’s move on to our Miss America venue — Boardwalk Hall. It can seat almost 15,000 people! It also has the world’s largest musical instrument, a pipe organ containing over 33,000 pipes. The sound is overpowering and made me feel a tad emotional! Dr. Stephen Ball is the resident organ player; he would come in almost daily to play show tunes, which my musical-theater-loving heart very much enjoyed.

Here’s a shot of Boardwalk Hall a few days before the preliminary competitions began:

And before we knew it, the preliminary competitions were upon us. As we’ve established, I most enjoyed watching the talent portion of the show, so it was fun to sit in the audience while the girls rehearsed their song / dance / baton routines each day.

Random fact: I know all of the U.S. states in alphabetical order, as I still have that song from elementary school memorized. That knowledge finally came in handy!

View from the end of the runway:

Here is a peek at the contestants’ lounge:

Remember when I said the girls were divided into groups of three as they rotate through swim / evening wear, talent, and platform questions on each night of the preliminaries? Well those three groups are called Alpha, Sigma, and Mu, hence the name on the sign below.

During the first two nights of preliminary competitions, I spent part of the show prepping the script for the following night(s), but would come out to the house to watch some of the show. On the final night my script duties were essentially complete so I stayed backstage near my boss and the host area. These next photos are from the first night of competition:

The evening wear competition, hosted by former Miss America Heather French Henry:

Reigning Miss America 2016 Betty Cantrell performed a different song each night:

Let’s jump ahead to the final night of preliminaries — I ran upstairs to watch the winners as they were announced:

See the young guy wearing a red bow tie and sash? That’s Landon the Intern (#LandonTheIntern) who our host Dena Blizzard recruited for her various comedy bits throughout all three nights. He was a very good sport… and even walked out on-stage in her dress at one point.

Betty Cantrell announces that night’s winners for Talent and Lifestyle & Fitness (aka swimsuit / evening wear):

And then she walks those winners down the runway:

Now for a quick look backstage — I didn’t take many photos there because it’s a more sensitive area as the girls are prepping to go on-stage. Here is the host area:

And here is where my boss Michelle sits — she is a producer, and also handles production supervisor duties:

I ran into a friend from college! Eric Cornell is a Miss America judge at the state level, and this past year he judged competitions in Pennsylvania and Colorado. He is also a Broadway and off-Broadway producer so I loved hearing about his latest projects.

Here is a homemade sign Michelle and I made for one of the host bits that didn’t end up getting used, but was quite apropos for a final photo after prelims ended:

And I got to work with a whole script team of new friends: Lisa, Jennie, and Michelle. Shout out to Mark and Kerry in the background.

My job was over after the preliminaries ended, but it felt weird to leave when all of my fellow co-workers were so heavily steeped in Sunday night’s main competition. But I watched from home in my PJs and cheered them on. Miss Arkansas Savvy Shields is our Miss America for 2017.

The next morning I headed back to Philadelphia and then New Haven via train. Props to Saxby’s Coffee in Philly for the delicious Cinnamon Cookie latte.

View of the Manhattan skyline from the train:

That’s a wrap on Miss America! I am so glad for the opportunity work on this show, meet new people, and get to experience a new city (even if that city left me feeling a little grimy). And I got to watch all 52 talents, which the at-home viewing audience doesn’t get to see — 10-year-old Erica would be so pleased to know that.