The Play's the Thing
Usually, Jesse and I only go to one or two plays/musicals a year. We always want to go to more-especially straight plays, since we really never see enough of them-but it's an expensive habit, even with discounts. This summer, though, was a boon for our theater-going selves. We managed to see a small handful of shows. (This is in addition to Porgy & Bess from this past January, and hopefully we'll get to see Jon's play in the fall-this is possibly our theateriest year ever.) Here's what we managed to see:
Bring It On: The Musical
We went so I could do a Q&A with Tom Kitt, who co-wrote the music along with Lin-Manuel Miranda (who recognized Jesse in the crowd and came over to say hello-nicest guy ever). I feel like Bring It On love is a Wesleyan thing-I saw it for the first time in the Wesleyan film series, and people were really into it. I was expecting the music to be all "Hey Mickey" pop tunes plus jock jams, so I was impressed that there's much more of a range of songs, from retro-sounding ones to big, Broadway tunes to hip-hop numbers (and the music does get way better when the go to the poorer school). But it was the cheerleading stunts that really put it over the top. It was hard to figure out where to look-the natural instinct is to keep an eye on the main character who's singing, but crazy flips and lifts are happening in the background and it's better just to watch them. It's a fun night out, and I hope Bayard can get his class to go.
Into the Woods
I feel almost guilty that I got to see this. Jesse and Nathaniel waited on the Shakespeare in the Park line starting at 4:30 am, and I just had to show up after work to go with them. I didn't have to sleep on the ground (like Jesse) or stay up for 25 hours in a row and achieve limitlessness (like Nathaniel). I did drive everyone home afterwards, which is a tiny, tiny contribution. Putting all that aside, I loved the show. I hadn’t really seen it since the PBS days as a kid (which I didn't recall all that sharply), and I'm not a Sondheim aficionado so the changes to the show didn't bother me-they didn't even really register as changes. I agree with the people that said the staging was confused. I don't think we really needed three different levels in the back; they seemed there just to be there. But I really dug the funky treehouse set, the weird puppets, and, especially, Amy Adams and Denis O'Hare (who I always think of as the guy who lived in the tugboat in Garden State). The girl who played Little Red Riding Hood was a little scene-stealer, too. The whole thing was perfectly funny, sweet, and sad.
Peter and the Starcatcher
This was a wild card, our annual, "Let's see what's at TKTS for our anniversary" show. I'm so happy those are the tickets we walked away with. First off, it fulfills our mission to see more non-musicals. There are a couple of songs in Peter, but it's definitely not a musical. And then it was just really sharply written and really, really funny. (That's a surprise, since the book it's based on was co-written by Ridley Pearson, who writes this "Kingdom Keepers" series about Disney World that Nathaniel says is largely terrible. But the other co-writer is Dave Barry, so I guess he does more of the heavy lifting.) Everything about the show is ingenious. They had one prop that was a length of rope, and they use it a million ways: it's the edge of a boxing ring in one scene, then it represents the ocean's water level in another. There was another part where most of the cast was dressed as mermaids, and I didn't pay attention to what was going on because I was too involved in looking at the mermaid costumes-one of them had a King Triton crown made out of disposable razors, another had a bra made of rubber duckies. We didn’t see Christian Borle, who won the Tony (and then I guess was all "Borle out!"), but Matthew Saldivar was amazing. I only wish we'd gone on Stache Day.
So I guess the theater has been good to us. It's a lucky thing we went this summer, too, because I'm not sure that the fall's crop of shows (Jon's play excepted) is that exciting to me. And by that, I mean you couldn't pay me a million dollars to go see Annie.
Bring It On: The Musical
We went so I could do a Q&A with Tom Kitt, who co-wrote the music along with Lin-Manuel Miranda (who recognized Jesse in the crowd and came over to say hello-nicest guy ever). I feel like Bring It On love is a Wesleyan thing-I saw it for the first time in the Wesleyan film series, and people were really into it. I was expecting the music to be all "Hey Mickey" pop tunes plus jock jams, so I was impressed that there's much more of a range of songs, from retro-sounding ones to big, Broadway tunes to hip-hop numbers (and the music does get way better when the go to the poorer school). But it was the cheerleading stunts that really put it over the top. It was hard to figure out where to look-the natural instinct is to keep an eye on the main character who's singing, but crazy flips and lifts are happening in the background and it's better just to watch them. It's a fun night out, and I hope Bayard can get his class to go.
Into the Woods
I feel almost guilty that I got to see this. Jesse and Nathaniel waited on the Shakespeare in the Park line starting at 4:30 am, and I just had to show up after work to go with them. I didn't have to sleep on the ground (like Jesse) or stay up for 25 hours in a row and achieve limitlessness (like Nathaniel). I did drive everyone home afterwards, which is a tiny, tiny contribution. Putting all that aside, I loved the show. I hadn’t really seen it since the PBS days as a kid (which I didn't recall all that sharply), and I'm not a Sondheim aficionado so the changes to the show didn't bother me-they didn't even really register as changes. I agree with the people that said the staging was confused. I don't think we really needed three different levels in the back; they seemed there just to be there. But I really dug the funky treehouse set, the weird puppets, and, especially, Amy Adams and Denis O'Hare (who I always think of as the guy who lived in the tugboat in Garden State). The girl who played Little Red Riding Hood was a little scene-stealer, too. The whole thing was perfectly funny, sweet, and sad.
Peter and the Starcatcher
This was a wild card, our annual, "Let's see what's at TKTS for our anniversary" show. I'm so happy those are the tickets we walked away with. First off, it fulfills our mission to see more non-musicals. There are a couple of songs in Peter, but it's definitely not a musical. And then it was just really sharply written and really, really funny. (That's a surprise, since the book it's based on was co-written by Ridley Pearson, who writes this "Kingdom Keepers" series about Disney World that Nathaniel says is largely terrible. But the other co-writer is Dave Barry, so I guess he does more of the heavy lifting.) Everything about the show is ingenious. They had one prop that was a length of rope, and they use it a million ways: it's the edge of a boxing ring in one scene, then it represents the ocean's water level in another. There was another part where most of the cast was dressed as mermaids, and I didn't pay attention to what was going on because I was too involved in looking at the mermaid costumes-one of them had a King Triton crown made out of disposable razors, another had a bra made of rubber duckies. We didn’t see Christian Borle, who won the Tony (and then I guess was all "Borle out!"), but Matthew Saldivar was amazing. I only wish we'd gone on Stache Day.
So I guess the theater has been good to us. It's a lucky thing we went this summer, too, because I'm not sure that the fall's crop of shows (Jon's play excepted) is that exciting to me. And by that, I mean you couldn't pay me a million dollars to go see Annie.