Tonight Christy and I went to the dress rehearsal of the new Disney musical '101 Dalmations'.
Christy works in the box office of the Orpheum theatre, and therefore scored us an invite! Woot!
Was I expecting an earth-shattering work of staggering genius?
No.
Was I psyched to see a live show?
Hell yeah.
Also a plus, it starred Broadway A-Lister Rachel York as Cruella DeVille.
I love Rachel York.
She is quite fabulous.
See: The Kennedy Center Tony Award Winning production of 'Kiss Me Kate' on DVD (2006?)
Also see: The national tour of 'Camelot' a few years ago starring Michael York and James Barbour: King of All Baritones.
Also, also, see: The london cast recording of Stephen Sondheim's 'Putting it Together' starring Julie Andrews.
Snap.
The show, was fabulous.
It was obviously geared towards kids and family (lots of moral homilies: Family is important, you are pretty, be yourself, being gay is ok), but there were musical moments of pure joy.
The production was from the perspective of the dogs, so all of the 'humans' were wearing these foot and a half platform shoe things, to give a forced perspective that they were bigger than the dogs.
A good idea, yes. In theory. And most of the actors handled themselves pretty well...Unfortunately for a lot of them it was one heck of a challenge moving at all in those shoes.
Poor people!
There was another problem I had with the show......Don't read the following if you plan on seeing it and don't want the ending ruined...
I wasn't at all sure about the end where Cruella crashed her car, and as she shouted for help from the twisted burning wreckage which held her captive, her burgler henchmen made a joke and left her to her death.
She proceded to scream in horror as she was consumed by the leaping flames (slighty disturbing) which turned into an orgasm (more disturbing) after which she discovered that she liked the flames (a reference to her opening number 'hotter than hell') and that hell would be a great place to go cause it would be hot all the time.
*cringe*
I think it was supposed to reassure the children that despite the fact that 'bad people go to hell where they will be consumed by flames for all eternity', some of them like that sort of thing so it's ok? Maybe?
....Yeah. Not so sure about that bit.
Now to the good parts.
The actor playing Pongo was awesome. Super likeable and posessed of a wonderful voice.
The ensemble were great as well. All wonderfully talented and owning their parts and multiple accents, and doing it all with a great amount of heart.
My favourite parts were when Pongo and Mrs. Pongo (they made Perdita a seperate character, don't ask me why), called on all the dogs in England to help them find the stolen puppies. The ensemble appeared bit by bit behind a scrim/map of england until they had all raised their voices in a number which both imitated the sound of morse code and functioned as a round.
Pretty flippin' cool. Also very beautiful.
My other favourite part was when Pongo and Mrs. Pongo had to travel from London all the way to northern England to find the puppies and they did so in a song, during which they were joined along the way by dogs from all over England as they sang this really catchy tune about being brave and danced very handily across the stage in a way that inferred their travel.
Super cool. Again.
=D
All in all, a very cool night at the theatre.
Good times.
=D
Did the show have problems?
Sure.
Did it manage to entertain and bring joy?
Definately.
=D
I love musical theatre.
I love it so much.
When I was watching those actors dancing and smiling and entertaining on that stage I thought ot myself, "Would I mind doing a tour like this? A tour in a show that isn't perfect? Which is in fact kind of cheesy disney fare?"
No. I wouldn't.
All I could think as I watched those actors dancing and singing was, "Gosh. I wish that were me."
Dear God,
Why would you fill me with such a love for musical theatre, and give me such abundant joy in performing it if you meant for me to do something else?
Why would you send my heart onto the musical stage and then send my voice and my body into the world of opera?
Am I doing something wrong?
Should I be following my joy? Or my brain?
*sigh*
You know there is something wrong with the world when your goal in life is to make enough money to be able to settle down and do community theatre the rest of your life.
Tell me what to do God.
Because I'm missin' the joy right now.
Love,
~Rachel
PS. I hope everyone got the pun in the blog title! '101 pounds of fun' is not only a line from the song "Honey Bun" in the musical South Pacific, but is also a reference to the 101 dalmations! Get it?! Get it?! A 101 pounds of fun?! *nudge, nudge* Eh? Eh?
Cheers
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in at this petty pace
To continue the Shakespeare kick...
Watching 'Slings & Arrows', one of my favourite shows ever.
It's this brilliant Canadian show that went three seasons, about the 'New Burbage Shakespeare Festival' (based on the actual canadian 'Stratford festival').
The director of the festival dies and the actor he drove mad during a production of Hamlet many years before, returns and reluctantly convinced to take over as artistic director.
Not only is the writing of this show brilliantly witty (the same people who wrote 'The Drowsey Chaperone' for all you musical theatre buffs out there), but the acting is first rate.
Paul Gross is a revelation as Geoffrey Tennant (the crazy actor/artistic director).
To see what I mean, watch the below video.
I couldn't find just the clip of him explaining the beginning of 'The Tempest', so what you're getting is the first part of episode one...which includes the scene I want you all to see.
The Theatre is an empty box, and it is our task to fill it with fury, with ecstasy, and with revolution....
Watching 'Slings & Arrows', one of my favourite shows ever.
It's this brilliant Canadian show that went three seasons, about the 'New Burbage Shakespeare Festival' (based on the actual canadian 'Stratford festival').
The director of the festival dies and the actor he drove mad during a production of Hamlet many years before, returns and reluctantly convinced to take over as artistic director.
Not only is the writing of this show brilliantly witty (the same people who wrote 'The Drowsey Chaperone' for all you musical theatre buffs out there), but the acting is first rate.
Paul Gross is a revelation as Geoffrey Tennant (the crazy actor/artistic director).
To see what I mean, watch the below video.
I couldn't find just the clip of him explaining the beginning of 'The Tempest', so what you're getting is the first part of episode one...which includes the scene I want you all to see.
The Theatre is an empty box, and it is our task to fill it with fury, with ecstasy, and with revolution....
Saturday, October 10, 2009
The Frozen North
Hello, my name is Rachel; and I am frozen.
Working football kiosks is insanity.
Seriously, insanity.
You stand outside early in the morning while it's still dark, you put up these big metal crazy tents, and then stand around for hours upon hours while crazy people come up to you and go, "Do you have any gloves? Cause it's cold!"
Really?
You just now figured that out?
The snow on the ground this morning didn't give you a clue that you might want to wear gloves?
The thermometer reading 26 degrees farenheit didn't give you a heads up that there might be a slight chill in the air?
*oy*
Seriously people.
I was wearing layers.
Layers under my layers.
..Under my layers.
I was a human kosie.
And I was still freezing!
There was much conjecture today about the young man we saw entering the stadium around 8am (kick off at 11am), with no shirt on.
That's right.
No shirt.
Times like that I cannot contain myself from shouting, "What would your mother say?!?!?!!!"
I tell you what she'd say.
She'd say, "What the heck is wrong with you? There's snow on the ground. Go put on a shirt. And a coat."
*rolls eyes*
I have no comprehension of football fans.
Generally working the kiosk isn't too bad though.
We totally didn't have enough registers at our kiosk though. We only had one, and we were the kiosk in front of the main gate (ie. super-busy-kiosk-of-death) And I was the only one trained to chashier at the kiosk register. We were also way understaffed and the two poor girls helping me were running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
*oy again*
So we were unbelievable busy the whole time, I think there were probably two minutes during the whole time when I wasn't bent over the register running credit cards, etc.
Most people are pretty good about stuff, you know, really understanding about the fact that my hands are frozen and that I'm working with this little plastic credit card paper runner thing (it's one of the super old school ones) which takes a long time to work, etc.
But there are always some people who are like,
"Can I skip to the front of the line and pay with cash?!"
"No, the register has this woman's purchase in right now."
"But I have cash."
"It'll just be a minute."
"Can she ring me up?"
"No. She doesn't know how to run the register."
"Can you just take the cash?"
"NO!"
"But cash is king!" (someone actually said this.)
"I'm sorry sir. It will be a minute."
Meanwhile the poor woman who is at the register is like, "I'm signing as fast as I can!"
*oy*
Or this conversation which I had about 10 times with older customers, usually when there are about 20 people in line behind them. Some of them yelling the afformentioned stuff about cash.
"Did you write my total on this slip?"
"Oh, not yet. We staple it to a duplicate reciept and the total's on there too so..."
"Well, what is the total?"
"$12.99"
"Do you mind if I write it in?"
"No, you can go ahead."
"Because I don't want to sign my name to this and find you charged me $500.00 later." (um, thanks?)
"Ok. That's fine. I'm sorry. We're just in such a rush that we dont' always get the total on before we hand it to you."
*this is the part where they look at us with great annoyance as if to say, "I could care less how rushed you are, peon!"*
"Ok. Here's your purchase. Sorry about that."
"Yeah, whatever."
*arrrrrggghhhh....*
Don't be snippy with me!! I've been standing in the cold for 3hrs! You've been here for 3minutes!! Give me a break!! I'm sorry I didn't write your total on the physical slip to which your reciept is stapled, stating your total anyway! I have a hard time understanding the redundancy to which you are clinging!
Also today, we had a big group of very drunk college students who just wanted to buy a bunch of the giant foam cowboy hats and football helmets.
They were all putting them on and running around going, "Wooooohoooooo!" while we were ringing them up....Which is kind of difficult when your customer is running around 'woohoo'ing. lol.
Then when they finally ran off the next guy in line was like, "Well they're having a good time."
So I said, "Too bad they won't remember what a good time they had."
And a guy standing further back in line goes, "Tomorrow probably wont' be such a good time either..."
LOL.
Oh my.
In any case, the morning was relatively alright. I'm still numb. But I made money. And that's a good thing. Also, I had two really great girls at my kiosk who were friendly and great help.
(credit cards take even LONGER without two people doing it!)
Sooooo, to sum up:
Money is good.
Minnesota is cold.
Older football fans can be snippy.
Young football fans don't dress appropriately.
And I did a good job today.
And now, I am going to buy the stuff for homemade pizza.
Because that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh uh-huh.
Cheers
Working football kiosks is insanity.
Seriously, insanity.
You stand outside early in the morning while it's still dark, you put up these big metal crazy tents, and then stand around for hours upon hours while crazy people come up to you and go, "Do you have any gloves? Cause it's cold!"
Really?
You just now figured that out?
The snow on the ground this morning didn't give you a clue that you might want to wear gloves?
The thermometer reading 26 degrees farenheit didn't give you a heads up that there might be a slight chill in the air?
*oy*
Seriously people.
I was wearing layers.
Layers under my layers.
..Under my layers.
I was a human kosie.
And I was still freezing!
There was much conjecture today about the young man we saw entering the stadium around 8am (kick off at 11am), with no shirt on.
That's right.
No shirt.
Times like that I cannot contain myself from shouting, "What would your mother say?!?!?!!!"
I tell you what she'd say.
She'd say, "What the heck is wrong with you? There's snow on the ground. Go put on a shirt. And a coat."
*rolls eyes*
I have no comprehension of football fans.
Generally working the kiosk isn't too bad though.
We totally didn't have enough registers at our kiosk though. We only had one, and we were the kiosk in front of the main gate (ie. super-busy-kiosk-of-death) And I was the only one trained to chashier at the kiosk register. We were also way understaffed and the two poor girls helping me were running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
*oy again*
So we were unbelievable busy the whole time, I think there were probably two minutes during the whole time when I wasn't bent over the register running credit cards, etc.
Most people are pretty good about stuff, you know, really understanding about the fact that my hands are frozen and that I'm working with this little plastic credit card paper runner thing (it's one of the super old school ones) which takes a long time to work, etc.
But there are always some people who are like,
"Can I skip to the front of the line and pay with cash?!"
"No, the register has this woman's purchase in right now."
"But I have cash."
"It'll just be a minute."
"Can she ring me up?"
"No. She doesn't know how to run the register."
"Can you just take the cash?"
"NO!"
"But cash is king!" (someone actually said this.)
"I'm sorry sir. It will be a minute."
Meanwhile the poor woman who is at the register is like, "I'm signing as fast as I can!"
*oy*
Or this conversation which I had about 10 times with older customers, usually when there are about 20 people in line behind them. Some of them yelling the afformentioned stuff about cash.
"Did you write my total on this slip?"
"Oh, not yet. We staple it to a duplicate reciept and the total's on there too so..."
"Well, what is the total?"
"$12.99"
"Do you mind if I write it in?"
"No, you can go ahead."
"Because I don't want to sign my name to this and find you charged me $500.00 later." (um, thanks?)
"Ok. That's fine. I'm sorry. We're just in such a rush that we dont' always get the total on before we hand it to you."
*this is the part where they look at us with great annoyance as if to say, "I could care less how rushed you are, peon!"*
"Ok. Here's your purchase. Sorry about that."
"Yeah, whatever."
*arrrrrggghhhh....*
Don't be snippy with me!! I've been standing in the cold for 3hrs! You've been here for 3minutes!! Give me a break!! I'm sorry I didn't write your total on the physical slip to which your reciept is stapled, stating your total anyway! I have a hard time understanding the redundancy to which you are clinging!
Also today, we had a big group of very drunk college students who just wanted to buy a bunch of the giant foam cowboy hats and football helmets.
They were all putting them on and running around going, "Wooooohoooooo!" while we were ringing them up....Which is kind of difficult when your customer is running around 'woohoo'ing. lol.
Then when they finally ran off the next guy in line was like, "Well they're having a good time."
So I said, "Too bad they won't remember what a good time they had."
And a guy standing further back in line goes, "Tomorrow probably wont' be such a good time either..."
LOL.
Oh my.
In any case, the morning was relatively alright. I'm still numb. But I made money. And that's a good thing. Also, I had two really great girls at my kiosk who were friendly and great help.
(credit cards take even LONGER without two people doing it!)
Sooooo, to sum up:
Money is good.
Minnesota is cold.
Older football fans can be snippy.
Young football fans don't dress appropriately.
And I did a good job today.
And now, I am going to buy the stuff for homemade pizza.
Because that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh uh-huh.
Cheers
Thursday, October 8, 2009
A rogue and peasant slave am I
What up all?
I'm sort of on a Shakespeare kick right now.
Maybe it's because I'm preparing my monologue for the Ohio Light Opera young artists application.
I chose the monologue from 'A Winters Tale' that I prepared for Irene Ryan competition a few years ago.
It pretty much rocks.
Not gonna lie.
It's all those things that actors love; it's intense and angry, sad and passionate...
*love*
I've just added a series of Royal Shakespeare company workshops to my Netflix queue, and that's gonna be SO MUCH FUN to watch!
Also, I'm pretty excited because I've got tickets to see the satellite broadcast of 'Alls Well That Ends Well' from the National Theatre in London, courtesy of the Guthrie theatre.
WOOT!
Helen Mirren? Hecks yeah.
In any case, loving my current Shakespeare obsession (happens every few months). =D
Get ready for more updates in this vein.
Cheers!
I'm sort of on a Shakespeare kick right now.
Maybe it's because I'm preparing my monologue for the Ohio Light Opera young artists application.
I chose the monologue from 'A Winters Tale' that I prepared for Irene Ryan competition a few years ago.
It pretty much rocks.
Not gonna lie.
It's all those things that actors love; it's intense and angry, sad and passionate...
*love*
I've just added a series of Royal Shakespeare company workshops to my Netflix queue, and that's gonna be SO MUCH FUN to watch!
Also, I'm pretty excited because I've got tickets to see the satellite broadcast of 'Alls Well That Ends Well' from the National Theatre in London, courtesy of the Guthrie theatre.
WOOT!
Helen Mirren? Hecks yeah.
In any case, loving my current Shakespeare obsession (happens every few months). =D
Get ready for more updates in this vein.
Cheers!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Missing the sun, the trees, and the grass....
"We who live in the cities see but a little farther than across the street. We spend our days looking at the work of our own and our neighbors' hands. Small wonder of our lives have so little of God in them, when we come in touch with so little that God has made."
~ 'The Shepherd of the Hills' by Harold Bell Wright
I wanna go home....
~ 'The Shepherd of the Hills' by Harold Bell Wright
I wanna go home....
Monday, October 5, 2009
Day by daaaaaaaaaay!
Taking things day by day.
No time to think about things right now.
Just doing this and that, moving from homework, to studying, to practicing, to practicing, to studying, to work, to recording, to practicing, to studying.....
No time to breath.
No time to think.
I am, however, dreaming about Christmas break at night.
Thanksgiving lovers are going to hate me for this but....
I AM READY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe it has something to do with the Alaska-like darkness that has descended upon Minneapolis in the past week and a half......
If we're gonna skip fall then we need to move right on to CHRISTMAS JOY!!!!!!
I wantz mah tree an I wantz it nowz......................
=D
No time to think about things right now.
Just doing this and that, moving from homework, to studying, to practicing, to practicing, to studying, to work, to recording, to practicing, to studying.....
No time to breath.
No time to think.
I am, however, dreaming about Christmas break at night.
Thanksgiving lovers are going to hate me for this but....
I AM READY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe it has something to do with the Alaska-like darkness that has descended upon Minneapolis in the past week and a half......
If we're gonna skip fall then we need to move right on to CHRISTMAS JOY!!!!!!
I wantz mah tree an I wantz it nowz......................
=D
Monday, September 28, 2009
H1N1; take me now.
Still feeling inadequate at, well, everything.
Still would rather be home.
Still would rather be doing straight theatre.
*looks up*
God?!
WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!
...could you please be a little clearer? Because you're being pretty discouraging about my chosen career right now. Especially since it's a career I've always been a little tenative about anyway.
*sigh*
I'm weary with my former toil,
here I will sit and rest awhile.
I'm weary with my former toil,
here I will sit and rest awhile.
Under the shadow I will be,
of Jesus Christ the apple tree...
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