Songs For a New World

More Jason Robert Brown! And this is my absolute FAVORITE. Where with Last Five Years I don't love every song, I LOVE EVERY SONG in Songs For a New World so much.

It was an interesting night. At 6:40ish we got to XL Cabaret and waited on line went to the box office but instead of getting tickets we were just checked off a list. After a series of ushers checked my name off the list, we went inside the venue and were told that the standing room section was just anywhere in the carpeted area. Around 7:15 the first announcement that they were holding for technical difficulties happened. At 7:30 there was another announcement that they were still having trouble. Then the director, Jeff Calhoun, got onstage and started telling jokes. He brought up each performer one by one and took questions from the audience. The four performers were gracious about answering a few questions and trying to keep everyone happy and excited. It was amazing. It's like you hear about this kind of stuff happening, but you're never there when it does... and FINALLY I was there. So great. Also, the audience was mostly industry people so that was fun so look around and try to spot people I recognized. They'd added another show at 9:00 since the first one sold out, and that show didn't end up starting until after 10:30 because of the situation!

The show finally started a little after 8. And it was worth the hour and a half I spent standing and waiting. It would've been worth five hours of standing and waiting. It was that good. So unbelievable.

The greatest thing about standing for this show was that there were so few people standing we could move around and see everything. Also, the performers moved throughout the space, standing on tables and singing while moving through the audience. This was fun to watch, but even more fun to experience... they would wait by the stairs between songs and I would turn and Michael James Scott would be standing two inches away from me preparing to go on. Dying. Fan-girling.

Nick Adams has one of my favorite voices in the industry right now. He's so magical. So that was fun. But I don't know when the last time I heard four people sound this good singing together. It was insane. My favorite things in a room all at once -- people belting their faces off, theater industry people, and Songs For a New World.

The perfect evening.

The Last Five Years

I didn't go into this expecting a really great narrative. For me, this show is just a concert with two really great singers. And that's what it was. I think if you wanted a real musical with a strong plot, you will be thoroughly disappointed.

Adam Kantor and Betsy Woolfe did not have great chemistry but their voices are out of this world. So separately they were amazing, but the few moments they came together onstage were severely lacking in intensity.

I'm not in love with all the music in this show. I think there are a few songs that are out of this world amazing and then others that are just "eh" -- like a few songs are great to listen to for fun, but then some that you wouldn't turn to for kicks and giggles (at least not me). But when sung through in 90 minutes, everything works because you can pick up on the little riffs that repeat throughout.

The set was FABULOUS, and the staging was fun.

Second Stage is a great venue and perfect for this kind of show. It didn't hurt that Jason Robert Brown was sitting two rows in front of me... #starstruck.

Really Really

Everyone needs to see this show.

Okay, so first I need to say that the audience was not what I was expecting. I thought the draw for this show was Zosia Mamet from "Girls" and therefore the audience would be made up of young people. It wasn't. It was a Saturday matinee, so old people were expected, but in general the entire audience was a lot older than I thought it would be.

In London I saw a lot of theater that was shocking and very explicit and gritty and sexual. Theater over there (well, stuff that's not West End) is much more uncensored than it is here. To say I was excited when I walked into the theater and saw the set and felt like I was back in London seeing a fringe show is an understatement. The best thing shows I saw in London were in theaters that felt like the Lucille Lortel with sets that looked like that of Really Really.

This show felt very British in terms of production value. The lighting design and execution was phenomenal and the set and set changes were out of this world. It was great. So so good.

I completely understand why this show did not get good reviews. Unless you're living in the same kind of world that the characters are living in, it would be super hard to relate to. Fortunately for me (and the friend I saw the show with), we are at the point in our lives where there was a something we could relate to in every character. The whole atmosphere was so college and so edgy and just insane. I love it. The play itself was very interesting and there were surprises at every corner.

I can't enough good things about this show, or rather I can't think of anything I didn't like... at all.

Really Really left me wanting to crawl out of my skin and shaking with discomfort for hours after.

Hands on a Hardbody

So this show was about Texas. Literally the plot was about keeping your hands on a truck in order to win a contest.

The show had some very strong moments and some wonderful music, but there were moments when I had a hard time believing the show was taking itself seriously. Like the song "If I Had a Truck"... I couldn't stop laughing at the lyrics. It seemed like it was meant to be funny, but the characters all had such depressing story lines that I was confused about how I was supposed to feel as an audience member.

Everyone always talks about shows being "ensemble shows" but there are few shows I've seen that I would actually give that label. This was one. Yeah, there were the well-known actors who might have been given a little more stage time than others, but overall it was equally balanced and everyone got a song. I felt like I knew everyone's voices by the end, which is rare.

The cast was good. It was funny to see Keith Carradine singing and dancing onstage... he's from "Dexter" so I'd seen him on TV, but didn't know he was a stage actor. Hunter Foster has a great voice and the part was perfect for him even though he was the least likable character in the show. Allison Case is charismatic and adorable but her voice wasn't as strong as I wanted it to be -- I remember liking her voice more in Hair. Jay Armstrong Johnson was really good. His voice is strong and he was just pleasant to watch, but I could feel his discomfort with the stunts (climbing on top of the truck and doing all sorts of flips). David Larsen was basically playing the same character he played in American Idiot but he sang the second best song in the show and boy, can he sing. The two best performances belonged to Jon Rua and Keala Steele -- the strongest voices by far.

It was pretty obvious the show was still in previews. I could tell some of the choreography wasn't completely set and it just didn't seem perfectly polished.

Not my favorite thing I've ever seen before, but I'm glad I saw it and it was an interesting and fun show even if it made you feel like a bad person for being American... because all I really walked away with was the belief that America is a super depressing place.

Quiet.

Obviously I haven't seen a show in a while... since there have been no new posts. But I will be in NYC for a whole week in March so that means TONS of theater and TONS of opinions and thus TONS of blog posts. Get excited! I AM.

Exciting.

The fact that Pippin is coming to Broadway is exciting enough. BUT the cast was announced today, and luckily not much has changed from A.R.T.

Below is the article from Playbill about the cast!
Article on casting

It's been a long time since I've graced this blog with a post, so I figured I would dig deep and find something interesting to share even thought I haven't seen a show lately. Going to college far away (eh, like 4 hours) from NYC will do that to you.

You might be wondering why I don't go to Albany or Proctor's in Schenectady and catch a traveling Broadway show or just something at The Egg. Well, my friends, the reason is because my nights are no longer free... #rehearsal.

So my interesting theater news is that I was cast as a member of the chorus in our Theater Department's production of Sweeney Todd -- big news since our program does not provide any training or opportunities for musical theater, or at least not often. I think the last time we did a musical was 12 or 15 years ago. But now, Sweeney Todd.

I guess I will be giving you updates throughout the semester (the show is in April). We just finished our first week of rehearsal and the chorus has learned all their music except "God, That's Good" and "The Contest/Pirelli".

It's been a long time since I've been in a musical, and I've always complained that whenever I'm at school I'm deprived of musical theater. Well, guess that's not the case this semester.