I solemnly swear...

Why hello there faithful blog readers!  Hopefully you all have not given up on me completely because I'm back!  Or at least I'm going to try.

There is so much to catch up on!  Where should I even begin?

I guess I'll start with shows!  You're probably asking yourself..."isn't she going to talk about her job, or her new apartment?  You know...the things we actually care about?"  Well, the answer is ...yes...eventually.  But first this hehe.

My parents were here last weekend!  That was awesome because I missed them!  Also they helped me move all of my stuff from storage into my new place which was also awesome.  Of course I still have to unpack most of that stuff...which is why when given the option between updating my blog and unpacking I chose....well clearly I chose my blog ^_^

We also did my laundry...aren't my parents awesome?

So anyway, besides unpacking we saw Anything Goes.  I saw it in the fall but was saddened to find out that Sutton Foster was on vacation when I saw it so I was unable to see her in it.  Fortunately, she was NOT on vacation this time and we had an awesome time at the show!  But, since I already have a post dedicated to this show I shall move on.

Way way way before this (like in January) was my dad's booking conference that he didn't actually attend this time around, however, he did send me to see a couple of shows in his place.  These are the shows I saw:

Say Goodnight Gracie is a one-man show based on the life of George Burns.  I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed this show.  It was funny and emotional at different times and explained enough of the references that even though I've probably never seen anything with George Burns in it, I know enough just from having experienced pop culture that I could follow the plot and knew what was going on and who this guy was.  It was definitely cool.

Another show I saw was called Intergalatic Nemesis.  Basically they turned a graphic novel into kind of a radio style stage play.  Images from the novel appear on the screen as the voice actors stand in front of the screen and narrate what's happening as well as perform the dialogue.  Then there is also a sound effects guy performing all of the foley effects.  Interesting concept....kind of boring in execution.  I definitely liked the idea of this show, maybe it was the book itself that I found kind of boring.  The plot just seemed very overdone and predictable and I was bored, that's the only thing to it.

The other show I saw...which I LOVED, was Broadway's Next Hit Musical.  Basically this is similar to Baby Wants Candy which I saw last year where the cast improvises a musical around the title.  In this show the cast gets suggestions for titles of songs and from that they come up with the name and brief plot of the musical, all in the background of an award show.  They perform 3 or 4 of the songs from different shows and then the audience choose their favorite by clapping.  Then, after intermission the performers perform the whole musical (albeit a slightly shortish one).  All in all it was a hysterical evening.  I really wanted my song title to get chose (6 ate 9, but 9's still fine) but unfortunately it did not get chosen.  Oh well.  Our song titles for the evening were "Go Get Your Duck" from the musical Kid War, "Don't Rain on my Laptop" from the musical Get Out of Here Demon! and "Lady Brain" from the musical Mrs. President.  Get Out of Here Demon! ended up winning the audience vote so they performed that show.  The whole night was pretty funny and very enjoyable.  It was a fun night of improv to be sure.

I also got to see How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying...yes again hehe.  But this time it had Darren Criss in it!  So basically it was awesome.  And I think that sums up my theatre going experiences for now :)

Even as a poster on a slightly oddly shaped column he's dreamy

Oh, and one final thought for this blog post.  Apparently they film a lot of cop shows in my neck of the woods.  Word on the street is that they were filming the show 22 here the other day.  I've never heard of it, but I saw trucks and trailers!  I didn't see any cameras though...maybe next time.

2012

Well it's 2012! And I realize I've been a little MIA since before I left my apartment in December.  Unfortunately I don't think this post is going to be amazing but here's a little run down :)

I finished school! Yaay!
I got a job!  Yaaaay!

I'm working for BBC America as a freelancer which is really super cool so far.

I'm in the apartment looking process and am currently crashing with a friend (an amazing, wonderful, I don't know how I deserve such a good friend)

I saw some shows last week that I'll talk about at some point.

I'm going to go see How to Succeed with Darren Criss this week.  Squeeee!

So yes...my life is in transition right now so blog posts will be more sporadic than usual, but I'll try and update when I can.  I'll do a major update after life settles down a bit.

:)

I'm Graduating!

Well, it's finally happened.  I finished my thesis and I've turned in all of my paperwork.  I'm graduating!  I should be getting my diploma in February ^_^

Other than that there isn't a whole lot of news.  I've been packing up my room and moving the majority of my things to a storage unit to be dealt with later in January once I actually have an apartment.

Packing

I've had a couple of job interviews and am still waiting to hear back so we'll see how that goes. And pretty soon I'm going to a networking event at MTV for former interns, maybe something will come out of that?

Well anyway, that's about it.  I leave for home on the 23rd and I'm super excited!!!

100!

So first of all, this is my 100th post on this blog!  Woooo!  Dance Party!

As you probably know by this point, I'm in the final stages of writing my masters thesis.  I just got back my last draft with comments from my advisor so I need to sort through those before I can be completely done, but one thing I finished are my storyboards!  I like the way they turned out so I thought I'd share them.  If you don't know, for my thesis I designed a tv show based around ASL (American Sign Language) and the way I showcase the show in my paper is by including a script and storyboards of a sample episode.  I forced my awesome friends to be the models for my storyboard since I can't draw, and I figured this would look better in the long run.

So without further ado....here they are!

David Archuleta

2 posts in one day?!  What madness is this!?

Anyway, if you haven't read the thanksgiving post, the post directly below this one is new as well :)

So last night I ended up going to see David Archuleta in concert.  Yes, the guy who came in second place in American Idol a few years ago.  Let me explain how I ended up going.  The Irving theatre and the Gramercy theatre (Irving is where I saw Darren Criss, Gramercy is where I saw Starkid), has a mailing list that they call "music geeks".  And every Tuesday I get an emailed newsletter that has the upcoming events at both theatres.  There are always also a list of 4 or 5 upcoming shows where they are giving away free tickets to the first person to email them back.  So this last week I saw David Archuleta on the list and thought "I've heard of this guy...I guess I'll email and see if I can get tickets because I probably won't".  Lo and behold, a few hours later I get an email saying that I've won two tickets!

So...I went! haha.  The concert ended up being really really fun.  The theatre had about half the amount of people as it did when I saw Darren Criss so it was a lot more of a relaxing atmosphere.  And David Archuleta is really kind of adorable and really does have a great voice.  What I didn't know going in, and made the concert that much more fun, is that it was mostly Christmas music!  I think it must have been to help promote his new Christmas album or something.  It really put me in the Christmas Spirit though :)

The pictures from this one aren't very good because all I had was my cell phone, but it should give you some idea.

Jeff LeBlanc who opened the show.  He was actually quite good.

David Archuleta - Isn't he adorable?

Thanksgiving Weekend!

Well I'm about a week late in updating, but I've been working very diligently on my thesis and I've had a lot of work stuff to accomplish.  But here is my Thanksgiving Update!  (PS.  It will be kind of long I'm sure)  I think I'll break this post up by day since there is so much to say.

THURSDAY:
First of all:  Thanksgiving Day.  This marks the first Thanksgiving that I haven't spent with family, and the 2nd I've spent without my parents.  Actually there was probably one Thanksgiving I spent in Colorado without family or my parents but I was in Colorado so it felt like home.  But anyway, this year my friend Stacey came up from DC (partially to celebrate with me, but really just so we could see a concert that Sunday).  One of the professors I work for invited me to her house for dinner, which was really sweet of her.  So Stacey and I went and it was a very nice dinner :)

FRIDAY:

On Friday night we saw The Judy Show in order to preview it for my dad.  It's this little off-broadway one woman show starring Judy Gold.  She's a comedian and the show was basically her life as a Jewish-lesbian-mother of 2.  She talked about all the sitcoms she loved growing up and how her life was or was not like them, and also how she still wanted to pitch her own sitcom about her life.  I thought it was pretty funny because I got most of the tv show references.  It kept me laughing during the show, but is not a show I'd go see again.

SATURDAY:

On Saturday we tried twice to get lottery tickets to The Book of Mormon, but to no avail.  So instead we went to see the new Muppet movie!  I thought it was super cute, but what can I say? I love the Muppets!!!











SUNDAY:
Now Sunday was an awesome, and I do mean an AWESOME day.  Sunday was the day of the Starkid concert!  Overall the concert was a blast and we had soooo much fun. It was a long tiring day though.  Basically the show started at 4pm, the doors opened at 3pm for the general admission line, and opened at 2:30pm for the VIP line (which was us!).  So we ended up getting in line about 2pm. The show itself didn't end up being over until 8pm!!  Now for those of you who haven't done the math yet....that is 6 hours!  Of standing!  Needless to say we were exhausted after the concert but I still had such an amazing time.

I suppose I should say a bit about what Starkid is.  It's a little hard to explain.  Basically Darren Criss (who plays Blaine on Glee and who I'm slightly in love with haha) started this group with his friends at University of Michigan when they were in college.  One of their first productions that rocketed them into stardom was A Very Potter Musical, which is basically a full length musical parody stage show that they filmed and then put on youtube.  Unfortunately the sound quality is pretty bad, but it's a hysterical show and really cool because the whole thing was written, directed, acted, produced, choreographed, sung, etc by this group of college students!  Now they have relocated their theatre group to Chicago and have since produced several other musicals that they also put on youtube.  They are all super talented and I'm very impressed with them.

I think I'm going to describe the concert first and then I'll put all the pictures at the end of the post.  So the first thing we did once we got to go inside is they lined us all up and gave us a poster, lanyard, and a program.  Then we waited in line where all the Starkid folks were seated at a table and we could just go down the line getting them to sign our posters.  It was awesome!  They all seemed really cool and were honestly enjoying talking to fans.  The other cool thing is that Darren Criss was there!!  He wasn't actually supposed to be at the Sunday show, though he did appear at the 2 Sat shows and the 2 shows on Friday that were in Boston.  Stacey and I were bummed when we couldn't get tickets to the Saturday show, but it didn't matter because we still got to see Darren Criss!!!

So I got my poster signed and then we went to stand by the stage.  We were about 5 rows of people back, which was very very close and I could see (for the most part) really well.  The first out was Charlene Kaye, who is a friend of theirs and is also working on her own records and music.  She's really good actually.  I preferred seeing her live than her music videos.  But here's one of her music videos she did with Darren Criss if you're interested:



After Charlene Kaye, Darren Criss came out and performed a mini-set of just a couple of songs.  That was fun because I was sooo much closer to the stage than when I saw him perform a few months ago.  He is so talented.

After Darren Criss, came The Gregory Brothers.  They became somewhat of a youtube sensation a couple years ago with their "autotune the news".  Basically they took news clips and turned them into little songs.  I never thought the youtube videos were all that exciting, but it was entertaining to hear them in person.

And then of course the main act came out, Starkid.  They were phenomenal.  The whole show was very clearly well planned and it was fun to hear all of the songs from their different shows.  They were really funny as well.  Basically the whole show was great even though by the time I got home all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and sleep for 3 days :)  Oh and of course we were surrounded on all sides by screaming fangirls with very high pitched voices.  I think I'm too old for concerts like this haha ^_^

And now for the pictures!

My VIP Badge 

Signed Poster!

Darren Criss's autograph....my life is now complete :)

At the concert

Darren Criss and Charlene Kaye

Darren Criss

The Gregory Brothers

Starkid!

Darren Criss came out and did one final song in the middle of the
Starkid part before he had to catch his flight back to LA

Their busdriver, Don, came out and did a song too randomly.
He sang a country song and he actually had a very beautiful voice.

And that was my awesome fun thanksgiving weekend with Stacey!