My Blog Has Abandonment Issues

Whoa.  Way to abandon a blog for two years sweetie!  That said, though I never stopped going to the theatre it has lessened due to a pesky thing called grad school sadly.  What happened then you may ask?  Well, new job for one which I've been in for about a year. AND occasionally gives me #jobperks such as tickets. 

I LOVE TICKETS.

So I'm wanting to get this going again, and we will have LOTS to talk about in 2016.  

First and foremost: Broadway in Chicago's 2016 Fall Season.  Oh hello.  I'm a subscriber again (or I will be on March 1st).  Yes, yes, Hamilton is on there BUT check out the rest of this line-up....

Photo from Broadway in Chicago

Hamilton

Aladdin

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Bodyguard

What do all these productions have in common?  To the best of my knowledge, they've never been to Chicago. Not to mention I think they're all relatively newer tours of shows. The whole reason I sadly left my perfectly picked out seats with BIC is the lack of rotation (or just plain dumb shows no one wanted to see).  But this? THIS is amazing and I could not be more excited. 

Hamilton - No-brainer. Can't get NYC tickets? Next best thing!

Aladdin - Disney musicals are either really good or really not-so-good. This one that I've heard so much about though I can't wait to see

Hedwig - Saw it with Neil Patrick Harris in NYC. AMAZING show. I can't wait to hear who the traveling Hedwig is. The best 90 minutes in theater.

Curious Incident of the Dog - Loved the book when it first came out and I was a Borders employee. The cast recording sounds great so I'm excited.

Bodyguard - The only one I'm skeptical about but in the end, it should be fun with good music.

What else is upcoming?  Well so far we're going to the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) Semifinals.  That's right.  Just like Pitch Perfect!

ScreenRant.com

Also, Matilda the Musical which I love that cast recording and am very much looking forward to that production.

Matilda the Musical

I'm sure there will be much, much more to come in 2016.  Anything else in the smaller theater world that you're seeing and keep staring longingly at the tickets on the fridge, wishing the day would get here sooner??

  

My quick thoughts on Sound of Music Live

Yes it has aired and re-aired by now, but I'm still mulling it over.  As are many people that are musical theater lovers that we know.  So because everything that there is to be said is said I'll bullet point my main points: 

• Carrie Underwood did fine.  Singing.  Acting?  Not so much.  It was obvious she wasn't comfortable.  Poor thing was outta he league except with The Lonely Goatherd, but she is a country singer.  I hope she's proud of herself though for stepping outside of her box and doing something new.  Before she does something like it again though, she needs Acting 101.  
• I feel bad for Stephen Moyer - all you can see is Bill from True Blood and him going "Sookie!"
• Audra McDonald.  I heart her.  Seemed to young to be the all knowing Mother Abbess, but at least she could sing.  
• Laura Benanti.  Show-stealer that one!  She was a treat from the Elsa in the movie that's for sure.  I loved the catty attitude.  
• From the very beginning I was confused, considering I read nothing about this beforehand.  Why was Audra singing "My Favorite Things" at the beginning?  Well thanks to the super helpful Playbill live tweeting, I quickly found out that it was  because this was based on the *stage* version.  Cue a much more interested household on our end!  
• I thoroughly enjoyed the song "No Way To Stop It" with Christian Borle and Laura Benanti - not in the movie and a "pleasant" surprise of a song despite the subject matter.
• There was ZERO love between Underwood and Moyer.  I did a "oh now I'm suppose to believe they fell in love.  Okay...".  

To sum up - I didn't hate it but I was far from loving it.  Not to mention I learned a lot about the stage production, which we're seeing later in 2014 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.  It's never been a favorite musical of mine, but I appreciated it highly, and this production spent a lot of money, but they missed out on some casting opportunities.  

But in the end, my favorite Tweet of the night came from Lin-Manuel Miranda (of In The Heights and Bring It On):

This is what it boils down to in the end.  People watched a musical, and if they turned it on just for Underwood, then they saw their first musical production perhaps, and I like to think that we hooked a few new lovers to the theater!

Othello: The Remix

My favorite daily browsing of BuzzFeed reminded me of my favorite show that we saw this summer, which was Othello: The Remix.  I heard about it from a coworker and the next day the show popped up super cheap in my daily Goldstar newsletter.  So why not?  

Now I am a fan of Shakespeare, while my wife is definitely not (not even David Tennant in the BBC's version of Hamlet could keep her interested while I'm laughing like crazy).  She's not a fan of having to decipher what the actors are actually talking about.  And she loved this show as well.

To be short and sweet about it, it's a rap version of Othello.  And not in the way I thought it would be either.  I expected four guys on stage rapping the words of Othello.  But no!  They actually rewrote the entire story with more modern words and set it to rap and hip hop.  These four guys (and one DJ who was more involved than just changing music on a laptop) ran around in overalls playing all the characters in the play - sometimes by changing something slightly such as a hat and other times going full drag in a slip over the head dress and a wig while going falsetto!  They were amazingly talented and I've never laughed so hard at a Shakespeare before - and I love Shakespeare!

The show has left the Chicago Shakespeare Theater but apparently has recently hit the news by performing for inmates, which I think is fantastic.  Inside a place where people have either committed a crime against others or on the flip side, in there for what someone else did to them, the play speaks to those inmates I should hope.  

This has been continuously traveling throughout the world, and I would pay to see it again if it came back through and have made a permanent mental note that if I see the The Q Brothers have started a new show to go immediately!

Finally, we got to say "HELLO!"

If there has been one statement we've gotten a little tired of hearing it's been "you guys haven't seen Book of Mormon yet??".  No, no we haven't.  And for no particular reason really.  We had the money, we had the time since you had to buy the tickets about 6 months out, but we never got the motivation to just go buy them.  

Then one day Val's sister, who I think has never seen a musical in her life, got free tickets to see it in St Louis.  Then it got to the point of "well if she's seen it we have to go now!".  And I'm glad we did since I had just discovered the news that it was leaving Chicago soon.  So I went to the box office and scored two balcony seats within the next month by not being too picky and Val and I would have to sit one behind the other (which actually, the people next to me never showed so the second half we got to sit together!)

Now, onto the actual show.  Elder Price is usually played by Nic Rouleau, but like most matinees, we got the understudy of Stephen Mark Lukas.  I don't know of Rouleau and haven't heard anything fantastic about him as the Elder, but Lukas was not fantastic.  It took him a few beats to find the pitch.  His voice didn't make it through "I Believe".  And he was just dull.  Now, that being said, having not seen Mormon before this could be how they all act (dull, not off pitch) but I could have cared less about the character.

So Elder Cunningham helps the show out.  That's how it is?  The Elder Cunninghams in NYC and West End are usually the ones I hear about.  And now look at Josh Gad on TV!  In any case, this Cunningham was play by Ben Platt, who if you're a music nerd like us, you'll remember as the Star Wars nerd from the (amazingly funny) movie Pitch Perfect.  He played Cunningham as a bit mentally challenged it seemed.  He got a ton of laughs.  His voice, also not strong, but still better than Lukas'.  I think he did the character very well and it was nice to have someone that didn't sound exactly like the original cast recording.  

Now, having been listening to the cast recording for about two years now, and knowing every single line, I was set up for disappointment.  But I wasn't in the end.  It didn't blow me away at all, but it was one of the most highly entertaining shows I've ever seen.  Seeing it finally in person was even funnier than listening to the recording or watching clips from the Tony Awards.  The set was really detailed for a touring show, the costumes are basic though.  One thing that we both enjoyed is that every character plays several minor characters in the show.  I can only imagine the costume changes going on backstage during those times!  

Though we weren't impressed with Lucas, and I liked Platt while Val was meh about him, the one we both loved was the kid that played Elder McKinley, Pierce Cassedy.  He lit up the stage as the closeted gay Elder.  His singing was more decent than his cast mates.  And all around with his dancing and acting skills, he was a delight to watch.  Also, we want to now be BFF's with him.  I thought about asking when passing him in the theater hall with his Broadway Cares bucket.  

I'm SO happy we finally saw this show. There is nothing like looking over on a Sunday at 2pm and seeing 70 year old people laughing at jokes about clits being cut off, maggots in scrotum  and AIDS.  It's something I can't imagine ever experiencing again.  It's not a show you come out feeling renewed in humanity or found you learned a valuable lesson.  But in the end you laughed your ass off and it was worth it.  Don't go for amazing singing - go to have fun.  Because I was crying several times and I know every word to the music in this show.  They did a great job bringing these interesting characters to light for sure!

Guess we don't have to make that NYC trip after all

In a season of Chicago theater that included oddities such as Pinkalicious, Colin Quinn and Love, Lost and What I Wore, I was scared and excited to hear what Broadway in Chicago might bring to the table this time.  I was wishing for two things that I knew would be touring:  Sister Act, American Idiot, and Book of Mormon.  Mainly Book of Mormon.  


In fact the night before, Val and I were discussing an upcoming trip to NYC for the sole reason of seeing this production.  Which at earliest was going to be April, considering all other tickets were gone.  The following morning I'm on my Twitter feed and see a breaking news announcement.  I couldn't believe it.  Chicago got Book of Mormon to start the second leg of their tours!  Thank goodness we didn't book that trip.  Though April 2012 is closer than December of 2012, but I'll take it!


The following day, BIC decided to announce their spring season of shows.  And I read the article and finished thinking about when I wrote that we were no longer BIC subscribers (which we aren't) but now, we might have to be again.  Here's what Chicago can look forward to for the Spring 2012 season:


American Idiot 
Bring It On
Fela!

along with:
South Pacific
In the Heights
Mamma Mia
Riverdance
Cats
Jersey Boys


And then Book of Mormon for the holiday season.  American Idiot I've been wanting to see just for something different in the Broadway world besides remakes of old shows.  And being a Green Day listener since 'Dookie' I tend to listen to their newer albums.  The first time I heard American Idiot, I thought it was quite powerful, so I wasn't surprised when it took to the stage.  It wasn't something I was going to make a trip for, but now that it will be here, that's easy!  


Fela! always has sounded fun, emotional and powerful.  Though most of what I've seen was on TV, I think it will be enjoyable.  Bring It On, well, this one I'm not sure of.  The movie I adore in all it's cheesy campy style.  The musical?  I'm not sold, but I won't turn it down.  I kind of want to down a bottle of wine before hand to make it funny.  But who knows?  On it's own it might be.  Also, seeing the cheer-leading competition going on on stage could be interesting, right?  Well, we'll see!


The latter shows, are some I'm not enthused about but there's only one I don't want to see and that's Cats.  But then I think, am I a bad theater goer since I've never seen it's stage production and only viewed it on DVD?  I loathe that music though, and the whole concept seems silly.  So I suppose, if it's in the package, fine, I'll suffer through, but let's hope it doesn't come to that.  In The Heights is one I would like to see the most.  Lin-Manuel is brilliant (as seen with his fine writing below for the 2011 Tony Awards, NPH's great rap written on the fly) and this show looks edgy and gritty with well written music.  

So Chicago, which show(s) are you most looking forward to?  Of course everyone in the Theater Loop is abuzz about Book of Mormon.  Heck, we're getting 15 of our closest friends to get the earliest tickets available I think!  But, do you agree that this Spring season makes up for the Fall of 2011?  Though....I will miss those awesome Bank of America seats we had when we canceled our subscription....*sigh*

Looking Ahead: Broadway in Chicago's next season

As I continue through the past few weeks of Broadway in Chicago's current season on this blog, you'll begin to realize we didn't like as many shows as we've liked.  Or actually, that's basing it on loving Next to Normal in April - because they can't screw that up, right?  Eek!  


Considering the lack of thrill we've gotten from the offerings we're in the consideration process for next season, which should be announced here pretty soon.  We've had gut reactions and then some that we've come around to eventually.  In the end I think it's going to be the combination of the season package that will decide it for us.  


So here's what they're offering after this season, so far:


Beauty and the Beast

Now this has been announced forever, so I'm thinking it's just for the holiday tourist season and probably won't be part of our season tickets package.  I saw this back in.....wow....1996 I think, in London.  It was a birthday present from my grandmother.  I got all dressed up for the theater in London, took what at that time was one of my very few cab rides, and felt magical about to see my favorite Disney movie on stage in real life.  


Now this is one of my favorite shows to memory.  The song 'Home' is original to the show and one of the best songs.  The costumes were breathtaking and the songs sounded fantastic.  How many times have I seen this movie, and then this show makes me cry at the end!?  Crazy talk.  So in the end, this is one we might/might not pick up.  I would watch it again, but I'm not sure Val cares too much for it.  So check as "maybe" for now.


West Side Story

YES.  This is one that ever since we moved to Chicago that we've been saying "if that comes here, we're going to it", and then here it is.  I'm pleasantly surprised by the controversy of some of the lines being in Spanish.  Scandalousness!  Whatever.  People get over it, they were Puerto Ricans!  But whatever helps them sell tickets....anyways, this is a definite yes for our ticket holdings.








Love, Loss & What I Wore

First thought about title?  Straight chicks.  Then saw logo?  Straight chicks.  And then read the descriptions about women and their relationships etc....sounds a bit better, but I don't think I'm the audience they're trying to reach.  As a lesbian, who was always a tomboy anyways throughout life, I didn't have too much love and loss, and I care less about fashion!  For me it's tank tops and flip flops all the way!  So the verdict?  Pass.




Ann: An Affectionate Portrait of Ann Richards

As someone who grew up in Texas, I know who Ann Richards is.  Unlike the lady in the bathroom during Les Miserables when we were talking about next season ("WHO?!"  was the response I got upon telling her the show).  Now, don't get me wrong, Ann Richards was a great woman and a great asset to Texas at the time.  An entire show dedicated to her.  I'm on the fence about that one.






Memphis

2010 Tony Winner for best show.  The plot and such doesn't interest me much, but it's supposedly good?  Though in my opinion it was slim pickings for this years Tony's.  The song they play everywhere (I'm not sure the name) has that "Na na na na na na-na na" line in it that goes FOREVER.  If it's part of the package, sure why not?  If not, I don't know if I'll make an effort to see it.










Come Fly Away

*snore*














Have you seen any of these shows?  Love em or hate em?  Feedback before we throw down money is appreciated! :)