Sequence 8

I was supposed to see this show with my dad when he came to visit, but unfortunately the timing didn't work out, so he sent me and Kari to see it Friday night instead.

Sequence 8 is a dance/acrobatics show done by a company called 7 Fingers.  They actually created all of the circus bits in Pippin. I have to admit, I was expecting the show to be very artsy contemporary dance with a few flips thrown in.  What it was in reality, was amazing!

There was definitely a lot of contemporary dance moments, but it was so well entwined with the extremely impressive acrobatics (and also quite a bit of humor!) that I watched practically the whole thing with my jaw on the floor. Some of the tricks these dancers perform are incredible. I can't even imagine how strong they must be.

If you think this video is impressive, it was about 100 times cooler to see in person.  Most of the best stunts are not shown but you definitely get a sense of the show.

Daddy/Daughter Adventures

Picking up dad from the airport!

My dad came out last week to see me!  He flew out just for a few days so we could visit and have an adventure in the city.  So here are a few of our adventures!

My dad ended up staying at the Hotel Edison in Times Square and I got to crash.  That meant 1) we got even more hang out time and 2) the two days I worked (I took a couple of days off as well) I was able to walk to work and didn't have to leave until about 9:15am.

When he got here on Sunday, I met him at the airport and then we took the LIRR back to the city, got all checked in, and found a spot for dinner. Dessert took place at The Rum House, the little bar attached to the hotel.  A certain sleepy dad then may have fallen asleep around 6pm.

I don't even remember what this drink was -
but it was delicious!

I worked on Monday, so dad had his own adventures with a trip to the Met Museum, a peek around Grand Central, and a lot of walking!  When I got out of work, I met him and a friend for a quick drink at this place called Parker and Quinn.  We then stayed at the same place for dinner.  It was delicious!

I had chicken and fries - dad had the steak

Flour-less chocolate cake for dessert

Hi!

Tuesday I took the day off of work.  After some breakfast at a diner on the upper west side and a quick trip to my apartment, we were off to our first show!

The Easter Bonnet Competition is one of the fundraisers for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. Various Broadway shows and organizations put together skits and also have to make a giant easter bonnet. The winners get crowned both for presentation and bonnet. There are also awards given out for the shows who raised the most money during this collection season.  I've seen clips on youtube before, but never actually gotten to go (due to the fact that it's always during the work day). This was a perfect opportunity to go and I loved it!  The skits were so much fun to watch and the whole event was basically one giant love-fest with the theatre community.

I couldn't pick just one video so here is an assortment of videos that Broadway Cares put up on their youtube page from the event.

Behind the Scenes:



The really awesome dance done by cast members of various touring shows:



The Lion King parody presentation by the cast of Avenue Q:



And finally, a montage to round things out:



That wasn't the end of our shows, however.  After the excitement of Easter Bonnets we met up with Kari to first have dinner and then go see On the Twentieth Century.  Of course I had to take my dad to Virgil's since he had never been.

Nachos - a Virgil's staple

Cool glass window on display at the theatre

On The Twentieth Century is a mad cap comedy musical about a bunch of people on a train.  Oh yeah and it starred Kristen Chenowith who is amazing.  The best way I can describe this show is that it was a really great production of a dumb show.  The plot was pretty ridiculous but the actors were amazing, the sets and costumes were great, and the overall production value was a lot of fun.  So all in all, I enjoyed it!

Here's a little taste of the show.



On Wednesday I took Dad to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.  I have to say, it's one of my favorite museums. I just love how interactive it is, plus it's really interesting to see all the props and costumes and other film items they have on display.

In the 70's room

Gotta love the shag on the wall

Dad doing some voiceover work

I think he's found his calling!

One of the interactive bits you can do is do some voiceover work from famous clips.  Dad did a clip from Some Like It Hot and I did My Fair Lady.  It was pretty silly!

After our museum adventures we wandered around Manhattan some more.  Dad wanted to see the food network building so we went to Chelsea Market and walked around. It's just a bunch of fun shops but in a very cool building.

Cool waterfall into a well

I love the lights down the hall of the building

After our wanderings it was time for one more show.  The Visit starring Chita Rivera.  It was really neat to see such a Broadway legend on stage.  This will also probably be her last show so it was great to get to see.

The set was really interesting as well

The Visit is a very weird macabre musical based on an old German play.  Basically, the richest woman in the world returns to the town where she grew up. The town is desolate and pleads with her to help save them. She offers them a lot of money, but in exchange they must kill the man who was her lover and wronged her when she was 17.  The whole thing was very strange but I also thought it was wonderful.  I liked how they used the color yellow throughout and there was a coffin on stage that they sat on and moved around on.  It's a really hard show to explain because of how weird it was, but I'm really glad I got to see it!

Here's Chita singing one of her numbers.



Then early Thursday morning Dad caught a flight back to the opposite coast.  I think we had quite the  adventure in such a short amount of time. Thanks for coming to see me Dad!! ^_^

Simon Amstell

This one is just a tad delayed but a couple weeks ago I saw Simon Amstell perform his standup show. I went with Kari and a bunch of my coworkers and we had a fantastic time!  Simon Amstell is a British comedian who isn't super well known in the US, but I really enjoy his stand up.

I don't think there is anything from this particular tour on the internet, but here is Simon doing some standup from a couple years ago when I also saw him in New York!

Gigi

Last night I saw yet another show in previews, that actually opened today!  I saw the new musical Gigi starring Vanessa Hudgens.

It was such a cute show!  The costumes were fantastic, the acting was fun, the singing was great, and Vanessa Hudgens was adorable!  I had never seen the movie that it is based on, so I quickly watched it Sunday night before I saw the show on Tuesday and I'm really glad I did.  It was enjoyable on its own, but I liked having the backdrop of the movie to compare it to.  They made a few changes here and there but nothing that didn't seem like a change for the better.

For comparison, here's the original movie trailer.



And here's a cute overview of the show where you can really see how amazing the costumes were.



And here's a cute video of Vanessa talking about the show and the cast singing "The Night They Invented Champagne"

Something Rotten

Last night I saw yet another show that was in previews, Something Rotten.  It was so much fun!

I didn't know a lot about this show going in, but it's basically takes place during Shakespeare's glory days and is about his competition who wants to create the next big thing...which it turns out is a musical!  The show is ridiculously silly and includes so many musical theatre references that I couldn't stop laughing.  I hope it does well!

Here's the trailer for it, it's a silly fun one.



And then here's some preview songs from the rehearsal.  It was 100 times better seeing the numbers with all the costumes and sets though!

Musical Weekend - It Shoulda Been You & Finding Neverland

Kari's sister and twin-in-law were visiting over the weekend!  And they kindly let me tag along with all of their show plans.  So I went to 2 musicals this weekend!  What fun!

First up - It Shoulda Been You

I didn't know a lot about this show going into it, but I was pleasantly surprised!  I wanted to see it because David Burtka is in it and he was just as excellent as I was expecting! The basic premise is this couple are getting married but the parents aren't super excited for it.  It actually started out, not bad exactly, but just not super new or exciting.  It was very predictable.  But then...there was a twist that I won't give away and the show got 10 times better!

The worst thing about seeing a show is that there aren't any good preview yet.  But here's a press event where Tyne Daly sings a funny song. She plays the mother of the bride.



Saturday morning I gave Kari and her family a break from me and Seth and I decided to get some culture and we ended up at The Museum of the City of New York.  It's a museum devoted to the history of NYC.  It was actually pretty fascinating to know more about where I live!

The stair wells had cool quotes in them

They had a video narrated by Stanley Tucci that went through 400 years of history.  There was a cool activism room which talked about activism throughout the eras. So everything from the dutch riots in the beginning of the city's history all the way through to Occupy Wall Street and the People's Climate March.

From the section on women's suffrage

From the section on the garment workers' strike

From the gay rights movement section

There was also a section on the gilded age of NY. They had all kinds of fancy jewelry and paintings on display.

The museum was great fun and interesting.  Then, after the museum but before the show, there were silly shenanigans!

It was soon time for Finding Neverland!  I was so looking forward to this. Matthew Morrison stars, and there was even Melanie Moore from So You Think You Can Dance!  Oh and Kelsey Grammer.

The story is based on the movie of the same name.  I loved the movie, and I also loved the musical.  It had such big booming numbers and you could tell they went all out on the set design.  I loved the combination of traditional big broadway numbers and the less conventional dance routines.  There was humor, there was good singing, and there was definitely emotion.  I definitely teared up towards the end.  I'm sure this is one I'll be seeing again!

This show is also still in previews, but here's a fun video of them in rehearsal.



I also really love this rendition of the Finding Neverland song sung by Matthew Morrison.

Hedwig...yes again!

Last night I saw Hedwig for the 3rd time!  At least I keep seeing it with different people each time.  It's such a fun rocking show that I've very much enjoyed it each time.  I went with more friends this time and it was fun as two of them hadn't seen it before so I got to be excited for them as well.  This time I saw it with John Cameron Mitchell, who wrote the show and originated the role of Hedwig in both the off broadway production and the movie.  So that was pretty interesting in that you really were watching the creator of this character.  The other interesting thing was that he had hurt his knee early on in his run so was wearing a knee brace and it was cool to see how he changed the show around to incorporate his limited mobility.  There were a lot of crate jokes (Hedwig kept asking for a crate to put her foot up on).  And there was a fantastic joke where Hedwig joked that we were seeing the original cast.

Hamilton

Today I won tickets to see a new musical that's playing at The Public Theater!  Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a musical called Hamilton which is about, as the name might suggest, the life of Alexander Hamilton.

It's completing a sold out run at The Public Theater and then it will make it's way to Broadway.  Kari has been really wanting to see it and the only way to get tickets right now is to try for the lottery.  So she's been trying for at least 2 weeks and I've been joining her when I can, but we haven't had any luck.  So I didn't have high hopes for today but surprisingly enough, my name got pulled!

The show was really great.  I honestly didn't know what to expect. I mean how interesting can the life of Alexander Hamilton really be?  But the story of the show was actually very interesting and Lin-Manuel Miranda put an intriguing spin on the whole thing.



After the show we hung around in the lobby and got to meet the cast as they came out!  They were all really nice. One of the cast members I was most excited to meet was Jonathan Groff who was on Glee and some other shows (as well as one of the voices in Frozen!).  He was also really nice which I always appreciate.

All in all, a very good day!

The outside of the Public Theater

Statue of Alexander Hamilton during his famous duel

Us with Lin-Manuel Miranda (the writer and star of the show)

Us with Jonathan Groff

Signed playbill with multiple cast autographs

Radio City Rockettes - The Spring Edition

Kari and I went to go see Radio City Music Hall's Spring Spectacular. Which is basically their Christmas show without the Christmas part.  Instead...there was a random Easter theme that didn't make a whole lot of sense, especially since the show will be running for at least a month past when Easter actually falls.

I was so excited to see the show because I knew there would be a lot good dancing, and it starred Laura Benanti and Derek Hough.  Laura Benanti I just think is a talented and funny actress and Derek Hough is one of the pro dancers on Dancing with the Stars!

The show itself had good moments and terrible moments.  All of the dancing was great and the numbers with the Rockettes in particular were fantastic.  But it definitely had a weird plot.  The plot is basically the main guy (Derek Hough) is given a mission from God (the voice of Whoopie Goldberg) that in order to get his wings (It's assumed he's an angel but never made perfectly clear) he must help this old NYC tour guide keep his job.  So he and the tour guide give a whirlwind tour of NYC to Laura Benanti's character who wants to fire the tour guide and turn him into a virtual app.  Also the Easter bunny randomly shows up throughout.

One of the other fun parts was they gave us light up bracelets to wear during which lit up in different colors depending on the part of the show.  It was a lot of fun!

So in conclusion, the show was super cheesy and the plot was weird.  But I had a good time and watching the Rockettes dance is always super fun.

I think my two favorite songs were the opening where they did a dance to Taylor Swift's Welcome to New York and then in the middle of the show when they did this fabulous tap number to Singing in the Rain.

Here's the official preview for the show.



And here's the singing in the rain number that someone recorded.

Saratoga Springs Adventures

Kari and I went up to Saratoga Springs over the weekend to see Ashley in a play!

It was called The Complete History of America (Abridged).  I thought it was really funny and Ashley was great.



We also got delicious cookies and milk at this place called Plum Dandy.  It was so cute!!