LOTR night
Wow! Last night was so much fun! We (my sweet hubs and I) went to see Lord of the Rings onstage at the Princess of Wales theatre with 
mvt,
avt_tor,
sposter, our friend Peter Johnson, my sister Elizabeth and her husband Steve, and my cousin Melanie and her husband Jerry (sorry, if any of you have a LiveJournal userid, I don't know it).
Let me say that second row centre stage is an interesting experience!! We were covered in 'ashes' from the Balrog scene and 'petals' from the wedding scene (I am the worst pack rat you ever saw, so naturally I kept them), and you can probably still smell smoke on my clothes from the fog machine and pyrotechnics. Fortunately, we were out of range for most of the expectorations, but I could sure see them. Lavish costumes, beautiful sets, some really fine choreography and lighting, I give full marks to the stage crew for all their hard work behind the scenes!! Wicked props to the actors playing the orcs! They were AMAZING!! How much practice does it take to A) be able to leap around on stage on 3-foot tall stilts or crutches B) in full makeup and costume C) during a carefully orchestrated fight scene D) WHILE THE STAGE IS ROTATING AND RAISING AND LOWERING IN SEGMENTS?!? HOLY COW!!!!!!
I only caught one or two tiny errors in timing during the fight scenes, and Gandalf flubbed a line, but the performances were very good, in my opinion. Bruce wants me to add that we should all be watching Alexandra Bonnet's career, because she did a great job as Galadriel. Surprise surprise, I actually recognized one of the actors! Michael Therriault, who plays Gollum, played the role of Leo Bloom in The Producers, which I saw with mom at the ex-Elgin theatre. He won a Dora award for Best Actor in a Musical for that role, and so it was no surprise to me that he received the loudest applause for Gollum.
The show had to cut out a LOT of the secondary stories, but it managed to hit most of the main ideas, and it had Frodo's return to the Shire covered fairly well, a part sadly missing from the movies.
mvt,
avt_tor,
sposter, our friend Peter Johnson, my sister Elizabeth and her husband Steve, and my cousin Melanie and her husband Jerry (sorry, if any of you have a LiveJournal userid, I don't know it).
Let me say that second row centre stage is an interesting experience!! We were covered in 'ashes' from the Balrog scene and 'petals' from the wedding scene (I am the worst pack rat you ever saw, so naturally I kept them), and you can probably still smell smoke on my clothes from the fog machine and pyrotechnics. Fortunately, we were out of range for most of the expectorations, but I could sure see them. Lavish costumes, beautiful sets, some really fine choreography and lighting, I give full marks to the stage crew for all their hard work behind the scenes!! Wicked props to the actors playing the orcs! They were AMAZING!! How much practice does it take to A) be able to leap around on stage on 3-foot tall stilts or crutches B) in full makeup and costume C) during a carefully orchestrated fight scene D) WHILE THE STAGE IS ROTATING AND RAISING AND LOWERING IN SEGMENTS?!? HOLY COW!!!!!!
I only caught one or two tiny errors in timing during the fight scenes, and Gandalf flubbed a line, but the performances were very good, in my opinion. Bruce wants me to add that we should all be watching Alexandra Bonnet's career, because she did a great job as Galadriel. Surprise surprise, I actually recognized one of the actors! Michael Therriault, who plays Gollum, played the role of Leo Bloom in The Producers, which I saw with mom at the ex-Elgin theatre. He won a Dora award for Best Actor in a Musical for that role, and so it was no surprise to me that he received the loudest applause for Gollum.
The show had to cut out a LOT of the secondary stories, but it managed to hit most of the main ideas, and it had Frodo's return to the Shire covered fairly well, a part sadly missing from the movies.