So I've kind of been a giant ball of stress and emotion recently, hence the lack of posting.
But I did have a fun weekend a couple of weekends ago when Tom came to visit me!
He was just here for the weekend and he's done most of the normal touristy stuff before so I decided to take him on "Allison's Awesome Adventure Tour". Stops include Toys R Us, the Nintendo World store, the Lego store, and Dylan's Candy Bar. Oh and we saw Phantom of the Opera. Basically, we had a lot of fun :)
On the subway!
Monica came to visit too! I also met another friend of Tom's!
Other than that I haven't done a whole lot. I was briefly distracted from real life with the Colorado Wildfires. Luckily everyone I know seems to be ok but it was a pretty scary couple of days. And I'll definitely miss the Flying W :(
I've also been dealing with apartment drama but I won't get into that here. So basically it's been a bundle of emotions, which helps illustrate my theory that I post less when I'm stressed out and you can tell exactly what months are more stressful than others by the amount of posts that they have :P
Oh! I almost forgot! I have a new baby cousin tooo! He's completely adorable :).
Ok, that's all for now. I'll be in Oregon next week for a quick trip which is super exciting too!
On Sunday Kari and I decided to have a little adventure and we wandered down to Bloomingdales to check out an exhibit they were having of Broadway costumes. It was smaller than I expected, but pretty neat!
Phantom of the Opera
The Producers
Sister Act
The Lion King
The Lion King
The wardrobe from Beauty and the Beast
The hats are from Aida
More Aida hats
Since Bloomingdales is right next to Dylan's Candy Bar...we of course had to pop in and check it out / buy candy. :)
They had a big advertisement for these new Girl Scout candy bars! I really wanted to buy some but they had already sold out. I don't think GS had this much marketing in my day....
Saturday night I went to see Don't Dress for Dinner. It was actually the show's closing weekend so I'm glad I had a chance to see it.
The show is a french farce and so it was very very funny. I think I laughed practically the whole time. It's hard to explain what the show is about, but the short version is that it's a married couple who each somehow end up having their lovers invited to the house all at the same time. So it's a lot of miscommunication and slapstick humor. Also the part I really enjoyed is that one of the actresses in it was in Urinetown when I saw it on Broadway when I was 14. She was hysterical in the show and I find it so amusing that I saw her in a different show just over 10 years ago!
I also ended up going to Brooklyn during the day on Saturday and saw some awesome views of Manhattan!
This is basically the financial district
If you look really carefully you can see the Statue of Liberty
First of all, there is finally a good video out there for Harvey, so take a look!
And then here are my favorite Tony Award moments as promised last post :)
Of course we have the opening number:
And Neil Patrick Harris' opening number:
And an awesome Newsies performance:
The Year in Plays was pretty good. I especially liked the live performance from Peter and the Starcatcher and One Man 2 Guvners:
I think finally just the closing number! I'll wait to post any other cast performances that I liked until I see that show, if I get a chance to see any of the shows haha.
If you care about not knowing who won the Tony awards last night...well then you'd better come back and read this post later. That's your warning.
Kari and I made Tony predictions right before they started last night but as I wasn't around my computer at that time, I'll post them now along with who actually won! We got a lot wrong (mostly when it had to do with Nice Work If You Can Get It, but I think we made some pretty good guesses! Our guesses are highlighted in blue with winners notated in bold.
We had a total of 13 correct guesses (Kari had 15 because I really just wanted Newsies to sweep the board and she was smarter and realized that Once would win a lot of awards).
I think Once pretty much swept the board with 11 nominations and 8 Tonys as far as musicals go and then as far as plays go Peter and the Starcatcher had 9 nominations and 5 Tonys.
I'll do another post later with some of my favorite moments :)
Best Play Clybourne Park - Winner Other Desert Cities Peter and the Starcatcher Venus in Fur
Best Musical Leap of Faith Newsies - Allison's prediction Nice Work If You Can Get It Once - Kari's prediction- Winner
Best Revival of a Play Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman - Winner Gore Vidal’s The Best Man Master Class Wit
Best Revival of a Musical Evita Follies The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess - Winner Jesus Christ Superstar
Best Book of a Musical Lysistrata Jones Newsies Nice Work If You Can Get It Once- Winner
Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre Bonnie & Clyde Newsies - Winner One Man, Two Guvnors Peter and the Starcatcher
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play James Corden, One Man, Two Guvnors - Winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman James Earl Jones, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man Frank Langella, Man and Boy John Lithgow, The Columnist
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play Nina Arianda, Venus in Fur - Winner Tracie Bennett, End of the Rainbow Stockard Channing, Other Desert Cities Linda Lavin, The Lyons Cynthia Nixon, Wit
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical Danny Burstein, Follies Jeremy Jordan, Newsies Steve Kazee, Once - Winner Norm Lewis, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Ron Raines, Follies
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical Jan Maxwell, Follies Audra McDonald, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess - Winner Cristin Milioti, Once Kelli O’Hara, Nice Work If You Can Get It Laura Osnes, Bonnie & Clyde
Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play Christian Borle, Peter and the Starcatcher - Winner Michael Cumpsty, End of the Rainbow Tom Edden, One Man, Two Guvnors Andrew Garfield, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman Jeremy Shamos, Clybourne Park
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play Linda Emond, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman Spencer Kayden, Don’t Dress for Dinner Celia Keenan-Bolger, Peter and the Starcatcher Judith Light, Other Desert Cities - Winner Condola Rashad, Stick Fly
Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical Phillip Boykin, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Michael Cerveris, Evita David Alan Grier, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Michael McGrath, Nice Work If You Can Get It - Winner Josh Young, Jesus Christ Superstar
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical Elizabeth A. Davis, Once Jayne Houdyshell, Follies Judy Kaye, Nice Work If You Can Get It - Winner Jessie Mueller, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Ghost the Musical
Best Scenic Design of a Play John Lee Beatty, Other Desert Cities Daniel Ostling, Clybourne Park Mark Thompson, One Man, Two Guvnors Donyale Werle, Peter and the Starcatcher - Winner
Best Scenic Design of a Musical Bob Crowley, Once - Winner Rob Howell and Jon Driscoll, Ghost the Musical Tobin Ost and Sven Ortel, Newsies George Tsypin, Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark
Best Costume Design of a Play William Ivey Long, Don’t Dress for Dinner Paul Tazewell, A Streetcar Named Desire Mark Thompson, One Man, Two Guvnors Paloma Young, Peter and the Starcatcher - Winner
Best Costume Design of a Musical Gregg Barnes, Follies - Winner ESosa, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Eiko Ishioka, Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark Martin Pakledinaz, Nice Work If You Can Get It
Best Lighting Design of a Play Jeff Croiter, Peter and the Starcatcher - Winner Peter Kaczorowski, The Road to Mecca Brian MacDevitt, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman Kenneth Posner, Other Desert Cities
Best Lighting Design of a Musical Christopher Akerlind, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Natasha Katz, Follies Natasha Katz, Once - Winner Hugh Vanstone, Ghost the Musical
Best Sound Design of a Play Paul Arditti, One Man, Two Guvnors Scott Lehrer, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman Gareth Owen, End of the Rainbow Darron L West, Peter and the Starcatcher - Winner
Best Sound Design of a Musical Acme Sound Partners, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Clive Goodwin, Once - Winner Kai Harada, Follies Brian Ronan, Nice Work If You Can Get It
Best Choreography Rob Ashford, Evita Christopher Gattelli, Newsies - Winner Steven Hoggett, Once Kathleen Marshall, Nice Work If You Can Get It
Best Direction of a Play Nicholas Hytner, One Man, Two Guvnors Pam MacKinnon, Clybourne Park Mike Nichols, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman - Winner Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, Peter and the Starcatcher
Best Direction of a Musical Jeff Calhoun, Newsies - Allison's prediction Kathleen Marshall, Nice Work If You Can Get It Diane Paulus, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess John Tiffany, Once - Kari's prediction - Winner
Best Orchestrations William David Brohn and Christopher Jahnke, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Bill Elliott, Nice Work If You Can Get It Martin Lowe, Once - Winner Danny Troob, Newsies
This update is a little belated, but I've been busy being the quarter of a century adult that I'm supposed to be! Memorial day weekend was really great and relaxing, something that I definitely needed. So working (somewhat) backwards, on Monday all I did was lounge around and clean my room, which was fabulous! And now my bookshelf doesn't look like it exploded anymore. Then Monday after work I dropped off my laundry and went to the grocery store. See...adult.
Anyway, before that I mostly hung out a lot with Kari and her sister Katy who was visiting and I we had a blast! Since I got off work before Kari, I hung out with Katy on Friday while we waited for her to get off work. She wanted to see Mood fabrics so I took her there. Then we thought we'd try our hands at the Book of Mormon lottery and, turns out, Katy got her name pulled! So that was exciting for them since neither of them have seen the show. I've seen it twice at this point and while it's an amazing show, I wasn't all that broken up about not seeing it again. So after a quick bite, I left them at the theatre and headed back to my place.
On Saturday I walked over to Kari's with some overnight stuff in preparation for a sleepover! Ok, actually before that happened I was supposed to wake up super early and go stand in line with them for rush tickets to Once. Katy had been trying every day since she got to the city, getting there at 7:30 in the morning and was still too far back in line to get tickets. So on Saturday the plan was for them to go look at the line and then I would join them later (and bring coffee as my payment for being late hehe). Even though they got there at 7ish, it still seemed like the line was too long so they decided to forgo that idea for the moment. Instead, I ended up seeing something in my email about getting $5 student tickets to see Potted Potter so when I suggested that, they were game.
Ok, Potted Potter is a show I've been desperately wanting to see because, of course, it's about Harry Potter. It's a parody that these guys from the UK put together and it's advertised as all 7 books in 70 minutes plus a game of quidditch thrown in. I would have been able to get $30 discounted tickets through TDF, but even that seemed a little steep for what it seemed like this show was. $5, however, was the perfect price!
It was extremely funny. Definitely not $30 funny, but I'd say anywhere up to $15 funny. I think I laughed the entire time. It's similar to The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged.
This is their preview for the show:
Saturday night I spent the night at Kari's place and then Sunday night she and Katy spent the night at my place and we ended up ordering food and making colorful chocolate chip cookies (I still had food coloring left over from my birthday cake). All in all, a great weekend!
After graduation I had another fun event to look forward to: My birthday! I always get excited about my birthday, and this year was no exception. The fun part was I think I had more friends around for my birthday than I have in several years. In Oregon most of my buds went home for the summer, so not everyone was around. Last year I had a small group of my TC friends, which was nice. But this year, I not only had pretty much all of my TC friends, but I also had a pretty good selection of Willamette folks as well! It was more than I ever could have asked for :)
I ended up working on my birthday, but it was a Friday so you know what that means! BAGELS!!!! Only in this case it was not only Bagel Friday, it was Birthday Bagel Friday! Woo hoo! One of my co-workers took me out for lunch too, which was super nice.
Immediately after work I made my way to Columbia where we had a reservation at Amsterdam Cafe. Amsterdam Cafe is a (kind of) tapas restaurant near TC that I like to go to. I like their tapas menu and they have pretty good drinks so and it's pretty convenient to most of my friends, so I decided that would be a nice place to go and meet my friends. The plan was to have dinner and drinks and then go back to my place for cake (which was amazing, but I'll get to that in a second). We ended up talking and laughing so much that we didn't end up leaving the restaurant until about 11pm, so only Monica and Kari came back with me to my place, which was fine but kind of sad since they had both already seen the cake. So no one new got to see the cake in person, but we ate it and it was delicious.
What follows is a lot of pictures of my awesome birthday cake....I had a really hard time picking them. I took waaaayyyy more photos than one person ever needs of a single cake, but I was so excited by the theme of my cake that I got a little carried away.
The cake without the toppers
We stored it in the microwave overnight so the frosting wouldn't get messed up
That's right...I had a Harry Potter cake!!!!!!!!!!!
Harry is on a broom :)
With candles
Artsy candle shot
It was funfetti flavored cake
The next day, Saturday, Kari, Monica, and I decided to check out this dance parade that was happening near Union Square Park. Turns out, it was a lot of fun. I guess any dance group could sign up to dance down the parade route so you really had a variety. It started off with these different cultural dance groups, like flamenco for example. It then went into some ballroom and hip hop. There were also some cheerleading groups and even a Zumba class. Towards the end of the parade, however, the dancers did become a little more strange. I saw several dancers dressed as zombies and at the tail end of the parade were a lot of dancers in strange costumes waving their hands in the air and "feeling the music, man"
After the parade we met up with Jessie and Alyssa at Rockefeller Center and just toured around.
Can't pass up an opportunity to have my picture taken with Harry Potter
Then, the highlight of Saturday came. We were going to see Harvey starring Jim Parsons! Jim Parsons is one of the stars of The Big Bang Theory, one of my favorite shows. I knew the play itself would be very funny so I was really looking forward to it.
The show did not disappoint. It was very funny and extremely well cast. It's a very new show, previews just started on the 18th, meaning it hasn't even officially opened yet. Hence the lack of a good video to post. But I think it will do well.
After the show we decided to check out the stage door, and I was even able to get Jim Parsons' autograph!
That's right! I'm now officially a Master! And not only that but I'm now a 25 year old Master! Needless to say, it's been an eventful week. So we'll talk about graduation in this post and then I'll cover everything else in a separate post.
Graduation is actually made up of two ceremonies. There is the Teachers College ceremony where they called my name and I walked across a stage and shook the presidents' hand and all of that, and then there is the Columbia ceremony where all of the graduates (both grad and undergrad) all congregate and are recognized by school. It was a lot of fun and I'm really glad I could walk in the ceremony even though I finished all of my classes in December.
My dad was able to take a couple of videos of the ceremony, so I edited them together so if you watch that it's like you were there! Only better because it is only the important bits :)
Before donning the gown
The sign for my program
The TC ceremony was in the St John of the Divine church
Before the big ceremony at Columbia
They gave us apple shaped stress balls because we're Teachers College
It really was a sea of blue with all the graduates
