NC Theater's Annie with Andrea McArdle as Miss Hannigan!

              Making another foray into Triangle-area regional theater, last night I saw NC Theatre’s production of Annie at the Progress Energy Center for Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh. This was in the same building where I saw Rent, but in a different theater.  There are like four theaters in this performing arts complex, and Annie was in the big one!  My ticket was only $30, and I was in the front row of the “balcony,” dead center.  I put quotes around the word balcony because I was under the impression that I would actually be in a balcony situated over orchestra seats, but it was really just an elevated tier behind the orchestra section, and it was pretty far back.  Nonetheless, I feel like it was still worth my $30. 

                I have a confession to make: Annie isn’t my favorite musical.  Now, I don’t hate Annie, but it’s never been on my list of must-see shows.  I’m not sure why, since I don’t have anything particular against it.  In fact, the only time I’ve ever actually seen it on stage was when I was in 7^th grade and my middle school did a production of Annie, Jr.  I’m pretty sure that doesn’t even count.  

However, I knew I had to see this when I saw the ad in the newspaper saying that Andrea McArdle would be playing Miss Hannigan.  Yes, that Andrea McArdle.  The original Annie.  Tony Award nominee.  The one mentioned in the [title of show] song “A Way Back to Then.”  Since I was born far too late to ever see Andrea McArdle as Annie, I knew this might be my only chance to see Andrea McArdle in Annie.  I’m so glad I did.  I was surprised by how much I liked it.  I’m not really sure what I was worried about.  I was most pleasantly surprised by the talent level of the children.  Many of the adult actors came from around the region and country (including a good few from NYC), but the children are all from the Triangle area.  I was delighted to see that they were really talented, especially the little one playing Molly.  I thought “Hard-Knock Life” was stellar, and I loved the choreography with the buckets.

I really only have two complaints about the show, and neither have to do with the acting or singing.  The first is that I don’t think Annie’s wig was red enough.  With several mentions to the red hair in the script, I don’t think it was a wise move to put her in a sort of muted auburn wig, which (at least from my seat far away) looked brown and not red at all.  As a natural redhead, I was disappointed.  Annie is one of the few Broadway musicals (including, of course, Redhead) in which redheads really get to be the star.  Live it up, folks!  It’s fun to be a redhead!  Don’t try to be subtle! 

The other complaint I have is the audience talking during the overture and the entr’acte.  I know that nothing is going on on-stage during these musical numbers, but they are actually part of the show, and I would like to listen without hearing murmuring from around the house.  I know that there were a lot of young children at this production, many of them probably seeing professional live theater (as opposed to children’s theater) for the first time.  However, this is a great learning opportunity about respect for the performing arts and how to behave properly at the theater.  A lot of kids think it’s really cool to do fancy things, so capitalize on that.  If we don’t teach children how to act at the theater when they’re young, we’re not allowing them to truly appreciate how wonderful and special the performing arts were.  I must give them credit, though: once the overture was over and the action started, they, as a whole, were quite well-behaved.  I just don’t want your children to grow up to be those people who made me stand up to let in a whole row of latecomers during the opening number of Rent.

                       All in all, the show was great.  The kids were great.  The adults were great.  Andrea McArdle was, of course, fabulous.  And as an encore, she sang “Tomorrow,” and then was joined by the young actress playing Annie, and then by the whole cast.  It was a fun treat for a theater geek like myself to see Andrea McArdle in the show that gave her her start.

An Evening with Idina Menzel, Marvin Hamlisch, and the National Symphony Orchestra

            Last weekend, I went to an amazing concert! It was “A Night with Idina Menzel and Marvin Hamlisch,” at such a wonderful, unique venue, Wolftrap.  For those of you unfamiliar with Wolftrap, it’s our nation’s only national park for the performing arts.  It’s an outdoor venue with amazing acoustics and welcomes a variety of shows every summer.  It’s really a staple of the greater DC area performing arts scene.  My parents and I scored lawn seats for only $20 apiece.  Sure, the lawn isn’t exactly up close and personal like the people who shell out the big bucks for real seats, but it has its benefits.  For one thing, the picnicking.  I told my mom to pack a picnic which would make all the other people there jealous.  Boy, did she ever!  While everyone else was chowing down on their Subway sandwiches and potato salad, we were feasting on an amazing picnic of homemade fried chicken, fresh mozzarella cheese, an array of fresh fruits, pita bread and hummus, and drinking some quality wine.  Good job, Mom!  As much as I’m sure you want to hear more about the picnic, on to the concert!

                It was so hot out, and they kept having to re-tune the piano because of the humidity.  The first part of the show was Marvin Hamlisch conducting the National Symphony Orchestra (my dad pretended to be outraged that they weren’t wearing tuxedos, saying that was wimpy to wear short sleeves just because it was 100 degrees outside) in an homage to great Broadway shows for women, including the overtures from Gypsy and Annie, Get Your Gun.  It was fabulous.  Listening to the National Symphony Orchestra play these songs really gave me some perspective on the recent controversy regarding the Broadway production of West Side Story cutting several violins and replacing them with a synthesizer, in order to cut costs.  I know that things are tight these days for everyone (trust me on this one), but I think that a full orchestra is so integral to the Broadway musical.  It’s part of what makes musicals special, and when shows scrimp on things like the orchestra, it shows.  I’m no musical expert, but I want all the instruments there, not a synthesizer.

                After a short break, it was time for Idina Menzel!  It was amazing.  I watched the whole thing through my dad’s binoculars.  Idina was a total trooper singing in the heat, and she sounded amazing!  She sang some awesome things, opening with Andrew Lippa’s “Life of the Party” (with an anecdote about how she doesn’t actually like parties), and also including “I’m Not that Girl,” an awesome mashup of Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale” and Sting’s “Roxanne,” introducing it as a song about prostitution, a wonderful arrangement of “No Day But Today,” and some original songs, including some she sings to her son.  Since it was too hot to sing all these songs back to back to back, she took time between songs to tell interesting and funny anecdotes from her life and career.  She told some great ones about meeting Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, having to sing “Tomorrow” from Annie at every family gathering as a child, and about how they told her she wasn’t allowed to use “four letter words” at this gig, so that meant she could still say “ass.”  She’s hilarious, and I really loved getting this glimpse into her life and personality. 

                One of my favorite moments of the show was when she sang “Poker Face,” the arrangement from Glee.  She introduced it by saying “this song has some interesting words in it, like muffin.”  I think it may be the first time that “Poker Face” has ever been done with a full orchestra of the caliber of the National Symphony Orchestra.  It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m so glad that I was there for it.

When she said, “this is my last song of the night,” and then began to sing a wonderful arrangement of “Tomorrow,” I turned to my mom and exclaimed “NO!  The program says she is going to sing ‘Defying Gravity’!”  I was shocked!  How could she tease me like that?  It would be one thing if it wasn’t in the program, but I was promised some “Defying Gravity!”

                However, there was an encore.  Thank God.  She came out, and Marvin Hamlisch noted that there was a certain composer she hadn’t yet done any songs from.  So, the two did “What I Did for Love” from A Chorus Line, and it was lovely.  Afterward, Mr. Hamlisch was like, “You know, there is still one song you haven’t sung yet…” and the crowd went wild.  I turned to my mom and said “I told you!”  And Idina sang, of course, “Defying Gravity,” noting that she’s going to be 85 in Vegas singing that song and mimicked her 85-year-old self doing the motions from the song.  She absolutely slayed it, and it was the perfect cherry on the top of a fabulous evening which I will never forget!
Wolftrap Website

The Sheet Music Controversy from the POV of Someone Who Never Needs Sheet Music

I have a confession to make: I can’t sing.  I can’t even carry a tune.  I don’t know what “key change” means, I can’t tell you an A-flat from a C-sharp.  My brain just doesn’t think musically.  Perhaps that’s why I love musical theater so much: the things they can do are things I simply cannot.  Nonetheless, I have opinions about the whole sheet-music controversy you may have heard about.  If you haven’t, go Jason Robert Brown's Blog to read up on it!  Just like Jeff says in [title of show], that he fully has opinions about shows he’s never seen, I’ve never in my life needed sheet music, but I have an opinion.

                I first want to say that I’m totally on Jason Robert Brown’s side in this, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see the merit in other arguments.  I’m totally broke (as you know), and I’m a huge proponent of libraries.  The libraries in the counties I’m in now don’t have CDs, but when I lived in Massachusetts, I would check out CDs all the time.  This is a shocking confession: I burned a few of those CDs onto my iTunes.  I didn’t pay for all the music which lives in my iPod at this very moment.  I realize that a lot of people get music in less-than-legal ways and don’t really care, but it bothers me a little that I have music I didn’t pay for.  I’m saying this to show that I totally understand why someone would want to get free sheet music because the budget is tight and they need the music because it’s what fuels their soul.  I try to pay for music as much as humanly possible, and I don’t download it illegally.  I share with friends occasionally.  It’s tricky because while I believe that it’s not necessarily right, it’s also one of those things where we convince ourselves that it’s just a little thing, it’s not a big deal.  It’s not like we’re robbing a store or mugging someone.  We have ourselves (me included) convinced that these are just small misdeeds and that no one is really getting hurt.  I buy a lot of my CDs used.  The artist doesn’t get any money for that, but I paid for the CD.  It’s a big huge gray area.

                I think sheet music is a little different.  I’m not sure why, but it is.  I think Jason Robert Brown makes a good point in saying that he works very hard on each song, and that’s how he gets his money.  Songwriters, unlike recording artists, don’t have promotional merchandise, touring gigs, and album sales.  Many, especially new songwriters, make their money from the sale of sheet music.  And it’s not like they cost an arm and a leg.  And there is a way to share without stealing.  If I have a copy of Joe Iconis’s “Blue Hair,” and you want to use it for an audition, I will totally lend it to you, and then you can return it to me.  Easy as that.  Friends in the business, especially those who are broke and going out on a zillion auditions should definitely share with one another, and I don’t think that songwriters will disagree with me.  However, there is a right way and a wrong way to share.  Lend things to one another, but make sure that the person who owns that sheet music bought it.  I would love to hear from people on this issue, especially since I don’t have any personal experience getting sheet music.

                Lastly, there’s a great website from which you can purchase sheet music from a lot of great songwriters. New Musical Theatre

                Here’s what I would totally sing at every audition if I could carry a tune:

My Foray into Regional Theater: Rent

               Last night, I saw Rent at the Progress Energy Center for Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh, NC.  The show was funded by Broadway Series South, which pays to have national tours of shows come to the Triangle area, so I thought it had potential to be pretty good.  I’ll be honest, though: I was skeptical.  I’m in general a skeptic (or, as some more honest friends let me know, a snob), and the only place I’ve seen regional theater is in Washington, DC, where I grew up.  Washington is a great theater town, perhaps more so than people realize, so I’m used to really good stuff.  Now, I love Raleigh.  I chose to live in Raleigh.  If I wanted to be elsewhere, I would.  I used to live in Boston, I could easily have chosen to stay in DC with my parents, but I picked Raleigh because I love North Carolina and I love this city.  That being said, Raleigh isn’t known for its theater.  It gets some good names here, but no producer is about to bring a pre-Broadway show here for an out-of-town tryout.  This kind of gets you in my mind-set for what I was thinking going into this production of Rent.  I was hopeful, yet cautious.

                Turns out, I really enjoyed it.  I’ve seen Rent twice before: on Broadway shortly before it closed (I told my mom I would just die if I didn’t see it, so it was a college graduation present), and a youth production in Greensboro, NC starring my friend Brandon.  Like many musical theater nuts of my generation, I know literally every word of this show by heart.  Let me first say the things I didn’t like and get them out of the way.  Don’t worry, it’s a relatively short list.  At the beginning of the show, I thought it was too quiet.  When the notes to “Rent” start playing and Mark starts singing “How do you document real life...” I want to literally feel the music in my bones.  I’m not a fan of loudness in general, it hurts my ears and I startle easily, but Rent is a rock musical – it’s supposed to be loud!  Turn up the volume, folks!  By the end of the “I’ll Cover You” reprise, I felt like the volume had reached an appropriate level.  The only other thing I didn’t like had nothing to do with the production but, like other shows, has to do with the etiquette of other theater patrons.  Almost my entire row showed up during the opening number, and I was on the end, so I had to stand and let about 10 people pass me, all while trying to not miss a moment.  The lady in front of me had her Blackberry on her lap and it had a red light which blinked every few seconds.  The girls behind me were chatting during the show until I gave them the Ellen Degeneres “Don’t you know that’s irritating?” backwards glare.  Seriously, folks: etiquette.  It is not that hard to put your phone in your pocket and wait until intermission to discuss things with your friends.  Also, when Collins and Angel kissed, I heard these girls giggling because Angel is really a boy.  Oh my goodness, get over it!

                Okay, now I want to say what I liked.  Some numbers really stood out.  “La Vie Boheme,” a favorite of mine, was so well-done that for those minutes, I didn’t even notice the blinking Blackberry light.  I loved “Take Me or Leave Me,” and I thought the actress who played JoAnn had a phenomenal voice and blew the lid off that song.  Sometimes, as a theater junkie, especially having seen shows multiple times, we forget the power that shows can have on first-timers.  The lady in front of me (yes, the one with the Blackberry, but it’s okay) was clearly very moved by “Seasons of Love,” as she was clapping along in pure delight.  I just think it’s so wonderful to see the impact theater has on people.  That’s when it occurred to me why regional theater (and community theater and high school theater and so on) is so vital to the arts.  If there were just Broadway, think of how many people wouldn’t have access to some of the most amazing things ever written.  Let’s face it, not everybody is as into theater as I am (something I still can’t quite wrap my head around), but that doesn’t mean it can’t affect them.  I’d bet that a lot of people in that theater couldn’t tell you details of Jonathan Larson’s life, couldn’t name for you all of the principles in the original Broadway cast of Rent, and haven’t read Anthony Rapp’s memoir twice.  But the power of Larson’s show reached them because of this wonderful production of Rent.

                I know I’m going on a long time here, but I also wanted to say that seeing this was very budget-friendly.  I got a seat in the balcony (it’s only a 600-seat theater, so the seat was actually great), which cost me, all in all about $35.  I arrived early so I could find street parking and avoid the $7 charge to park in a lot.  And, most importantly, I had a great night at the theater with one of my favorite shows.  I’m becoming less of a cynic, and from now on I’ll be way more open-minded when it comes to regional theater in Raleigh.  It’s good.  I think the Triangle would be a great place for an out-of-town tryout, just in case any producers are reading this and they’re wanting to do something different with their show.

Broadway Series South presents Rent