Musicals, Music and random stuff
Its been a busy couple of months with reports (blech - someone remind me why I want to be a teacher again when report time comes around), a couple of weekends away for concerts and shows and random other stuff that's been popping up regularly. But I had to comment on a bunch of stuff...
1) Jesus Christ Superstar - I love when revivals play with their source material well and can re-contextualise a musical so that it completely changes the design but the story is still told well. The touring arena production did this brilliantly using the occupy movement, Banksy inspired art design and Guantanomo Bay to tell the story of Jesus. And the cast was awesome my inner 15 year old squeed far too much over seeing a Melanie Chisolm live finally - Sporty was always my favourite Spice Girl - and better yet she was good as Mary. I loved seeing Tom Parsons as Peter, considering the last thing I saw him in was Avenue Q about 5 years ago it was a happy suprise that he was playing that role over here. Most of all though Tim Minchin was just amazing as Judas, it's the first time i've seen him live and it was well worth the wait even if he wasn't doing his own material. Ben Foster really impressed me as Jesus as well but lets face it it was always going to be about Tim for me.
2) Adelaide - Next up was Adelaide Cabaret Festival and seeing Idina Menzel live. The first time I heard Idina Menzel it was the Rent soundtrack playing on cassette in my friends Rox's car driving around Sydney so I'm glad she met us down there for a crazy weekend of wineries, wandering around and fangirling. First off Idina Menzel was incredible. Her set list was pretty much just songs from my favourite musicals, including No Day but Today and Take Me or Leave Me from Rent; The Wizard and I, Defy Gravity and a section of For Good from Wicked; keeping with the Oz theme she did Somewhere over the Rainbow; then did a couple of Marvin Hamlisch songs which included At The Ballet and What I Did For Love both of which I adore. Then she finished with a song from If/When which is what she will be going back to Broadway for and is written by the team behind Next to Normal and if the first song is an indication I can't wait to hear the rest of the show. Oh and her mash-up of Cole Porter's Love For Sale with Sting's Roxanne (her hooker medley) was awesome. Anyway she was fabulous - she interacted with the audience well, her voice was gorgeous, and her interaction with the Adelaide Symphony and their very hot conductor was hilarious.
3) Wine (I'm an Alumnus!) - So after drinking far too much amazing wine in the Barossa we came back home to 10 bottles (and four more which we well get from Sydney later). After getting chatting with the staff at my favourite winery ever they let us try the not for tasting wines which included Shiraz from the oldest vines in the Southern Hemisphere and OMG it was good. Then there was an Alumni winter deal from CSU that was cheap and a good mix of white and red. We now have more wine than I know what to do with in the house. But its all good wine and i'm sure it won't go to waste.
4) There are tv shows making me ranty but I feel like that is for a bigger post... in short fuck the skins producers, fuck the warehouse 13 producers and fuck needlessly giving loved characters cancer when you don't have time to do the stories justice.
5) Fannish roadtrips - Before the movie Serenity came out there were screenings for fans in various parts of the country. The Sydney one sold out so me and 3 friends ended up taking half days at work driving to Canberra (3 and a half hours away) seeing the movie and driving home before going to work the next day. This has apparently become tradition. After finding out the local cinema won't be showing Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing Heidi and I will be driving to Canberra Thursday night and coming back on Sunday. I don't know if making it a long weekend shows that we're less crazy than I used to be... Still lots of other things will be done including seeing the Turner paintings from the Tate and probably getting to the War Memorial and the National Museum plus all the shoppinng we can only get in cities.
1) Jesus Christ Superstar - I love when revivals play with their source material well and can re-contextualise a musical so that it completely changes the design but the story is still told well. The touring arena production did this brilliantly using the occupy movement, Banksy inspired art design and Guantanomo Bay to tell the story of Jesus. And the cast was awesome my inner 15 year old squeed far too much over seeing a Melanie Chisolm live finally - Sporty was always my favourite Spice Girl - and better yet she was good as Mary. I loved seeing Tom Parsons as Peter, considering the last thing I saw him in was Avenue Q about 5 years ago it was a happy suprise that he was playing that role over here. Most of all though Tim Minchin was just amazing as Judas, it's the first time i've seen him live and it was well worth the wait even if he wasn't doing his own material. Ben Foster really impressed me as Jesus as well but lets face it it was always going to be about Tim for me.
2) Adelaide - Next up was Adelaide Cabaret Festival and seeing Idina Menzel live. The first time I heard Idina Menzel it was the Rent soundtrack playing on cassette in my friends Rox's car driving around Sydney so I'm glad she met us down there for a crazy weekend of wineries, wandering around and fangirling. First off Idina Menzel was incredible. Her set list was pretty much just songs from my favourite musicals, including No Day but Today and Take Me or Leave Me from Rent; The Wizard and I, Defy Gravity and a section of For Good from Wicked; keeping with the Oz theme she did Somewhere over the Rainbow; then did a couple of Marvin Hamlisch songs which included At The Ballet and What I Did For Love both of which I adore. Then she finished with a song from If/When which is what she will be going back to Broadway for and is written by the team behind Next to Normal and if the first song is an indication I can't wait to hear the rest of the show. Oh and her mash-up of Cole Porter's Love For Sale with Sting's Roxanne (her hooker medley) was awesome. Anyway she was fabulous - she interacted with the audience well, her voice was gorgeous, and her interaction with the Adelaide Symphony and their very hot conductor was hilarious.
3) Wine (I'm an Alumnus!) - So after drinking far too much amazing wine in the Barossa we came back home to 10 bottles (and four more which we well get from Sydney later). After getting chatting with the staff at my favourite winery ever they let us try the not for tasting wines which included Shiraz from the oldest vines in the Southern Hemisphere and OMG it was good. Then there was an Alumni winter deal from CSU that was cheap and a good mix of white and red. We now have more wine than I know what to do with in the house. But its all good wine and i'm sure it won't go to waste.
4) There are tv shows making me ranty but I feel like that is for a bigger post... in short fuck the skins producers, fuck the warehouse 13 producers and fuck needlessly giving loved characters cancer when you don't have time to do the stories justice.
5) Fannish roadtrips - Before the movie Serenity came out there were screenings for fans in various parts of the country. The Sydney one sold out so me and 3 friends ended up taking half days at work driving to Canberra (3 and a half hours away) seeing the movie and driving home before going to work the next day. This has apparently become tradition. After finding out the local cinema won't be showing Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing Heidi and I will be driving to Canberra Thursday night and coming back on Sunday. I don't know if making it a long weekend shows that we're less crazy than I used to be... Still lots of other things will be done including seeing the Turner paintings from the Tate and probably getting to the War Memorial and the National Museum plus all the shoppinng we can only get in cities.