On the corner of staring and shouting
...because I have to put this down somewhere and I don't feel like getting cramps in my hands.
This past Sunday, Morgan and I drove to Boston to see Moulin Rouge! The Musical. It knocked my socks off.
But first, some backstory:
I recall watching Les Mis in the summer of 2013.. and thinking that Enjolras was super cute. I recall looking him up online but at the time he had only been in some Broadway stuff and a handful of tv eps and rando movies. He was in Graceland on USA at the time, but for whatever reason I didn't have the opportunity to watch it. So that was that.
Fast forward to sometime in 2017? Morgan had sent me a link to a video of him singing "Popular" from Wicked, which is delightful. And then it linked to him singing "Defying Gravity"with Rachel Tucker and that was certainly wonderful. At that moment, I mentally cast him as Diarmuid in Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry (some of my favorite books ever) and didn't think too much about him for a while.
Then, in October of 2017 when Morgan and I had a happy little reunion weekend, for some reason we spent a long time watching his videos on youtube and I was hooked on Tveit.
I proceeded to watch all of Graceland (a glorious and sadly too short 3 seasons), Grease Live and then whatever other random movies he's in that I could find at the library. Oh and of course a re-watch of Les Mis was in order.
And it's been a raging passion ever since. He does concerts from time to time, which is just wonderful and next on the list- and has a couple of decent movies, but musical theater is really his forte.
Which brings us to April 2018.
I'm not sure what made me look at twitter that day.. I had been on a bit of a hiatus for a while cuz it was boring me.. but I did. And Aaron Tveit posted that he was going to be in the upcoming Moulin Rouge! The Musical in Boston in the summer.. and tickets were on sale.
I immediately messaged Morgan and we decided to go.. and buy tickets in the 2nd row. Which were not cheap but totally worth it.
And then we wait. For 5 months.
And fiiiiiiiinally it's August! Morgan got in at 12:30 AM on Saturday and we were off at 9AM Sunday! The drive seemed to take ages (just cuz I wanted to be there and I was terrified something would happen and we'd miss our show..) but eventually we made it. Got to the theater and found our seats- WHOA MAMA they were SOOOO close!
The set was gorgeous, the theater was lovely and the show. oh my gosh, the show. So much fun! I wasn't sure what to expect really- I had watched the movie.. once and don't remember loving or hating it. So in all honesty, I was there for Aaron Tveit, and love of theater. And it rocked. The music was off the hook- all kinds of crazy mix-ups of pop songs- but done in such a cool way. It's super hard to explain or process but it totally worked. And rocked.
Let me insert right here that I found it really hard to take my eyes off Aaron every time he was on stage- whether he was the main character at the moment or not. He's magnetic.
A few highlights- Karen Olivio as Satine was off the hook. She did a rendition of Katy Perry's "Firework" ( a song that's fine but never really thrilled me) that floored me. She brought down the house with that one. It was gorgeous. One of my fav other parts was when Christian and Satine did this crazy song wherein he kept singing snippets of love songs, and she kept replying with songs about love gone wrong and it was just super fast-paced and perfectly timed and I loved it too much.
They started Act II with a wild rendition of "Bad Romance", another song I don't much care about but it was really cool. And one of the best things about seeing live theater is that you can look wherever you want, not just where the camera sends you- and as a result pretty much every time my boy was on stage, my eyes were on him. And he did this great wink off to the side of the stage (about 5 feet away from us!) and both Morgan and I noticed and had a little gasp moment. haha
The costumes were gorgeous. Aaron was rockin this maroon scarf.
Oh and at one point he says he's from Lima, OH. I think Morgan and I were the only ones who laughed about that- Ohio people are everywhere! Way to be a "generic American" lol
Other songs- Toward the end, Aaron and Karen did a duet of Adele's "Rollin in the Deep" (a song I actually like, LOL) and it was incredible. My boy really can sing. He was belting it out. ANd part of that song he was on our side of the stage, and I'm pretty sure we had an eye contact moment or two. <3
But really, the show-stopper was "Roxanne". I knew he was going to sing it based on some twitter chatter (and apparently if I had remembered the movie, it was there too- side note: just went back to watched the movie version on youtube- Aaron's was better- probably because it was live but DAYMN).. so I was waiting- it's really late in the show, which is probably a good thing because wow- that song did something to me. The raw emotion he exuded in that song slayed me. (Weirdly, I just spent way too much time reading other people's opinions of it and they didn't like it. They're lame)I loved it. I kinda forgot to breathe during that song. It was intense.
I cried a little at the end. Not like wrecked crying, but definitely having Feelings.
And then.. and then.. the show ended. It was wonderful. I didn't expect to fully love it, but I really did. It got so many weird reviews but people are lame or I'm easy to please but whatever, I had a great time. So we wandered out of the theatre, stopped for some merch and headed outside. We were trying to figure out of they did Stage Tour meet&greet type things and it said it was an alley behind the theater so go to the street corner and turn right. We get to the corner and it's all construction-y so there's scaffolding and stuff. We decide to cross the street and see if we can walk down on the other side. It's the LONGEST light ever- and a few random peeps crossed anyway but we were waiting for the crosswalk, just minding our biz being all chill, when I catch the convo happening behind us. I hear a voice saying "Usually I feel my first real connection to the audience when I sing "Shut Up and Dance"..." and I'm thinking yeah- I really love that song and that part was super fun and wait a sec- he just said When I sing...-- he was in the show?! I turn around to look- and there are 2 men standing there- wearing white shirts. My eyes kind of flit over the first guy with no real recognition, then it's like slow motion- I take in his general self, then the hair (his hair was GLORIOUS in this show), then the face and all I could say was "HOLY SHIT"- as I stared full at Aaron effing Tveit. He looked right at me, then kept chatting with his dude. meanwhile my brain is going about 2309835987454 mph trying to process this whole thing. I swatted at Morgan's arm and she turned around and noticed him too- and I'm thinking all kinds of insanity like It'sAaronTveitIdroveherefromBuffalotoseeyouandnowyouarerighthereandohshitwhatdoIsaywhatdoIdo and then it's like Can I ask him for a picture? No, that would be too rude, he's clearly trying to avoid the whole fan thing and I'm sure he's exhausted and OHMYFRICKINGGOSHITSAARONTVIET and so on.. so I said nothing and fumbled for my phone but didn't bother him and finally the longest light of all time changed (and still, somehow no one else was around for this whole exchange that probably took like 30 seconds but it felt like an eternity) and he keeps walking (very fast, maybe he was trying to run away from us) and we walked too (obvs we were waiting to cross the street) and Morg calls after him "You were great tonight"- he calls back over his shoulder "Thank you" and I said "No, thank you- you were wonderful" and then we're across the street, he's walking away and I kinda collapsed into the doorway of a Starbucks and started giggling/hyperventilating.
And that is the story of my meeting Aaron Tveit unexpectedly just after he slayed me with his performance.
I've long joked that if I met one of these actor gents I fancy so much that I would probably be unable to breathe- and apparently I was not wrong. I feel like if it had been at the stage door, I could have been more reasonable- like congratulated him on the show, gotten a nice cheezy pic and been thrilled out of my mind but able to hold composure for a bit at least until we walked safely around a corner instead of falling to pieces like that. Oh well, I can hope he got a good laugh about it. And I feel good about being reasonable people and not totally freaking out in front of him or invading his space or following him even though part of me desperately wanted to do all those things.
Also, side note about his comment about "Shut Up and Dance"- I already really liked that song and I enjoyed it in the show and now it's on my forever playlist because reasons. For myself, I felt a "connection" the second he walked on stage, but of course I get what he's saying about the general audience moment.
And I just found someone's bootleg of Roxanne and I'm dead all over again.
Please oh please oh please make a cast recording and record him singing Roxanne live because it's raw and insane and ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
/ded
This past Sunday, Morgan and I drove to Boston to see Moulin Rouge! The Musical. It knocked my socks off.
But first, some backstory:
I recall watching Les Mis in the summer of 2013.. and thinking that Enjolras was super cute. I recall looking him up online but at the time he had only been in some Broadway stuff and a handful of tv eps and rando movies. He was in Graceland on USA at the time, but for whatever reason I didn't have the opportunity to watch it. So that was that.
Fast forward to sometime in 2017? Morgan had sent me a link to a video of him singing "Popular" from Wicked, which is delightful. And then it linked to him singing "Defying Gravity"with Rachel Tucker and that was certainly wonderful. At that moment, I mentally cast him as Diarmuid in Guy Gavriel Kay's The Fionavar Tapestry (some of my favorite books ever) and didn't think too much about him for a while.
Then, in October of 2017 when Morgan and I had a happy little reunion weekend, for some reason we spent a long time watching his videos on youtube and I was hooked on Tveit.
I proceeded to watch all of Graceland (a glorious and sadly too short 3 seasons), Grease Live and then whatever other random movies he's in that I could find at the library. Oh and of course a re-watch of Les Mis was in order.
And it's been a raging passion ever since. He does concerts from time to time, which is just wonderful and next on the list- and has a couple of decent movies, but musical theater is really his forte.
Which brings us to April 2018.
I'm not sure what made me look at twitter that day.. I had been on a bit of a hiatus for a while cuz it was boring me.. but I did. And Aaron Tveit posted that he was going to be in the upcoming Moulin Rouge! The Musical in Boston in the summer.. and tickets were on sale.
I immediately messaged Morgan and we decided to go.. and buy tickets in the 2nd row. Which were not cheap but totally worth it.
And then we wait. For 5 months.
And fiiiiiiiinally it's August! Morgan got in at 12:30 AM on Saturday and we were off at 9AM Sunday! The drive seemed to take ages (just cuz I wanted to be there and I was terrified something would happen and we'd miss our show..) but eventually we made it. Got to the theater and found our seats- WHOA MAMA they were SOOOO close!
The set was gorgeous, the theater was lovely and the show. oh my gosh, the show. So much fun! I wasn't sure what to expect really- I had watched the movie.. once and don't remember loving or hating it. So in all honesty, I was there for Aaron Tveit, and love of theater. And it rocked. The music was off the hook- all kinds of crazy mix-ups of pop songs- but done in such a cool way. It's super hard to explain or process but it totally worked. And rocked.
Let me insert right here that I found it really hard to take my eyes off Aaron every time he was on stage- whether he was the main character at the moment or not. He's magnetic.
A few highlights- Karen Olivio as Satine was off the hook. She did a rendition of Katy Perry's "Firework" ( a song that's fine but never really thrilled me) that floored me. She brought down the house with that one. It was gorgeous. One of my fav other parts was when Christian and Satine did this crazy song wherein he kept singing snippets of love songs, and she kept replying with songs about love gone wrong and it was just super fast-paced and perfectly timed and I loved it too much.
They started Act II with a wild rendition of "Bad Romance", another song I don't much care about but it was really cool. And one of the best things about seeing live theater is that you can look wherever you want, not just where the camera sends you- and as a result pretty much every time my boy was on stage, my eyes were on him. And he did this great wink off to the side of the stage (about 5 feet away from us!) and both Morgan and I noticed and had a little gasp moment. haha
The costumes were gorgeous. Aaron was rockin this maroon scarf.
Oh and at one point he says he's from Lima, OH. I think Morgan and I were the only ones who laughed about that- Ohio people are everywhere! Way to be a "generic American" lol
Other songs- Toward the end, Aaron and Karen did a duet of Adele's "Rollin in the Deep" (a song I actually like, LOL) and it was incredible. My boy really can sing. He was belting it out. ANd part of that song he was on our side of the stage, and I'm pretty sure we had an eye contact moment or two. <3
But really, the show-stopper was "Roxanne". I knew he was going to sing it based on some twitter chatter (and apparently if I had remembered the movie, it was there too- side note: just went back to watched the movie version on youtube- Aaron's was better- probably because it was live but DAYMN).. so I was waiting- it's really late in the show, which is probably a good thing because wow- that song did something to me. The raw emotion he exuded in that song slayed me. (Weirdly, I just spent way too much time reading other people's opinions of it and they didn't like it. They're lame)I loved it. I kinda forgot to breathe during that song. It was intense.
I cried a little at the end. Not like wrecked crying, but definitely having Feelings.
And then.. and then.. the show ended. It was wonderful. I didn't expect to fully love it, but I really did. It got so many weird reviews but people are lame or I'm easy to please but whatever, I had a great time. So we wandered out of the theatre, stopped for some merch and headed outside. We were trying to figure out of they did Stage Tour meet&greet type things and it said it was an alley behind the theater so go to the street corner and turn right. We get to the corner and it's all construction-y so there's scaffolding and stuff. We decide to cross the street and see if we can walk down on the other side. It's the LONGEST light ever- and a few random peeps crossed anyway but we were waiting for the crosswalk, just minding our biz being all chill, when I catch the convo happening behind us. I hear a voice saying "Usually I feel my first real connection to the audience when I sing "Shut Up and Dance"..." and I'm thinking yeah- I really love that song and that part was super fun and wait a sec- he just said When I sing...-- he was in the show?! I turn around to look- and there are 2 men standing there- wearing white shirts. My eyes kind of flit over the first guy with no real recognition, then it's like slow motion- I take in his general self, then the hair (his hair was GLORIOUS in this show), then the face and all I could say was "HOLY SHIT"- as I stared full at Aaron effing Tveit. He looked right at me, then kept chatting with his dude. meanwhile my brain is going about 2309835987454 mph trying to process this whole thing. I swatted at Morgan's arm and she turned around and noticed him too- and I'm thinking all kinds of insanity like It'sAaronTveitIdroveherefromBuffalotoseeyouandnowyouarerighthereandohshitwhatdoIsaywhatdoIdo and then it's like Can I ask him for a picture? No, that would be too rude, he's clearly trying to avoid the whole fan thing and I'm sure he's exhausted and OHMYFRICKINGGOSHITSAARONTVIET and so on.. so I said nothing and fumbled for my phone but didn't bother him and finally the longest light of all time changed (and still, somehow no one else was around for this whole exchange that probably took like 30 seconds but it felt like an eternity) and he keeps walking (very fast, maybe he was trying to run away from us) and we walked too (obvs we were waiting to cross the street) and Morg calls after him "You were great tonight"- he calls back over his shoulder "Thank you" and I said "No, thank you- you were wonderful" and then we're across the street, he's walking away and I kinda collapsed into the doorway of a Starbucks and started giggling/hyperventilating.
And that is the story of my meeting Aaron Tveit unexpectedly just after he slayed me with his performance.
I've long joked that if I met one of these actor gents I fancy so much that I would probably be unable to breathe- and apparently I was not wrong. I feel like if it had been at the stage door, I could have been more reasonable- like congratulated him on the show, gotten a nice cheezy pic and been thrilled out of my mind but able to hold composure for a bit at least until we walked safely around a corner instead of falling to pieces like that. Oh well, I can hope he got a good laugh about it. And I feel good about being reasonable people and not totally freaking out in front of him or invading his space or following him even though part of me desperately wanted to do all those things.
Also, side note about his comment about "Shut Up and Dance"- I already really liked that song and I enjoyed it in the show and now it's on my forever playlist because reasons. For myself, I felt a "connection" the second he walked on stage, but of course I get what he's saying about the general audience moment.
And I just found someone's bootleg of Roxanne and I'm dead all over again.
Please oh please oh please make a cast recording and record him singing Roxanne live because it's raw and insane and ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
/ded