Billy Elliot in the blizzard!

               Generally, most Broadway shows are dark on Mondays.  However, on holiday weeks, most theaters rearrange their schedules.  New Year’s Eve in NYC is so crazy that most shows cancelled NYE shows and added them on the 27^th, a Monday.  Some shows even added a matinee.  That’s how my friend Cliff and I ended up at a rare Monday matinee of Billy Elliot.

                Thanks to the best blizzard ever, many people couldn’t make it into the city for shows, so we got amazing seats from TKTS in the 10^th row of the Imperial Theatre.  Snow rules!

                I saw Billy Elliot twice before, on tour.  My seats were in the balcony, in the very last row of a 2,500-seat theater.  This experience was way better, and proved to me that my disdain for the balcony of large theaters is well-founded.  Sure, I may have paid $60 less for that ticket, but I decided that I’ll always be willing to pay the extra money for an awesome seat.

                Throughout the performance, I couldn’t help but notice the things that were different between the Broadway production and the national touring production.  The most obvious thing was, of course, the size of the theater.  The Imperial was so much more intimate than a tour setting (although, I must say, the Imperial Theatre has ridiculously small seats!), which made me feel so much more connected to the show.  Additionally, since the set for the touring production has to be designed to move on a fairly frequent basis, a lot of it would slide it from the sides, whereas in the Broadway production, many of the set pieces rise and lower from below the stage.  I absolutely loved it on a slightly smaller stage, in a more intimate setting.

                The most important thing was that I could really see the characters – I could see their faces, I could tell who was talking, and I could see plenty of details which I missed from the balcony of the Durham Performing Arts Center.  I had no idea that the ballet girls held little birds, I couldn’t tell what Tony gave Billy to put in his suitcase… all those nuances were lost on me in that huge theater.  I’m so glad I got to see it in the type of venue for which it was created.  Don’t get me wrong, I think national tours are so amazing, and it’s so important to bring Broadway-quality shows to all of America.  I love seeing tours, and I love the Durham Performing Arts Center.  There’s just something about Broadway that is magical.

                The show was so wonderful, and I enjoyed it immensely, even knowing the show as well as I do, having seen it twice before.  My friend Cliff is quite familiar with the film, so he was telling me what he wished made it into the show from the film.  It’s been years since I’ve seen the movie, so I wasn’t as concerned about that, although I am always fascinated in how adaptations vary from their source material.  Even knowing the film as well as he did, Cliff really enjoyed the musical – I knew he would.  The music is so catchy (I was singing “Solidarity Forever” for hours!), and the acting was phenomenal.  There were a few actors out, probably due to a combination of snow and the holiday.  At first I was a little bummed that Emily Skinner wasn’t there for that performance, but her understudy (Liz Pearce) was amazing.  I was glad I got to see Gregory Jbara and Will Chase, and Jacob Clemente was a great Billy.  My favorite character, of course, is Michael, and I’m so glad I got to see his big number from row K, instead of from miles away.  I'd still rather sit in the balcony than nowhere at all, but I've come to the conclusion that I'm an orchestra-seats kind of girl.

                So, all in all, the tour is fantastic, but Broadway is magical!

The blizzard just got all sexypants

                 Okay, confession time: when I saw that Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson was going to close, I was on the brink of tears thinking that I would never be able to see it.  Cut to yesterday, just barely beating the snow into NYC, sitting in the orchestra at the matinee of that very show.

                Oh.  My.  God.  It was so freaking amazing.  I’m so ridiculously glad that I got the chance to come to NYC with one of my very best friends to see some of the best of Broadway.  This was only the fourth show I’ve actually seen on Broadway (the first three being Ragtime, Rent, and Hair).

                So, why was I so stoked by this show?  For one, the Broadway experience alone is unreal.  I loved going to the stage door and meeting the stars (including Ben Walker!).  Sitting in the orchestra in the intimate Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre among theater fans of all sorts was perfect.  The other thing which got me ridiculously stoked was the show itself.  I know it got plenty of awesome buzz, but I was desperate to see it for myself.  I was slightly worried because emo is so the opposite of my usual taste in music, but the songs in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson are transcendent of categories, and are so damn catchy!

                Right when I walked in to the theatre, I was in awe.  The lighting design was spectacular, and there was a large animal hanging from the mezzanine!  I was immediately brought into the show by the red lights everywhere and the fact that there was no curtain, so I could take in the awesome set before the show began.

                I was a tad bit disappointed in the audience.  The show is so intelligently written and is woven with pop culture references.  Yet, I felt like sometimes I was the only one laughing.  For example, there’s a point in which Andrew Jackson tells Black Fox not to go chasing waterfalls, and to “stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to.”  I, of course, cracked up at the reference to the TLC song, but I didn’t hear many other chuckles from around the theater. 
            During the show, I couldn't help but love how the actors committed to every comedy bit, from extremely realistic deaths at the hands of invisible arrows to knowing exactly how long to hold a pause until it becomes funny again.  I thought their timing was impeccable and even though the characters are pretty out there, the commitment to each character made them real.

                We scoped out the theater before the performance, and located the stage door (which the Jacobs shares with two other theaters).  At the stage door, the cast was so gracious and kind enough to sign playbills and take pictures in the bitter cold.  We were wondering where all the women were, but we think at least one couldn’t come out because she remained on stage face-down after the curtain call, the victim of an invisible arrow.  She was probably still on stage, right?

Seeing Young Frankenstein with my favorite theater companion

                So, I’ve decided to admit it to myself: I still hate the balcony.  But, what I’ve realized is that I love theater more than I hate the balcony.  It sounds silly, but it’s the truth.  Sure, I’d so much rather be in the front row than the back row; I’d also rather be in the back row than not in the theater at all.

                I promise this is going somewhere.  I sat in the back row again.  I got student rush tickets for a Saturday matinee (of course) of Young Frankenstein at the Durham Performing Arts Center.  My date for the show was my wonderful father, who was in town for a father/daughter extravaganza weekend.  I used my student ID to buy the $12 tickets, and my dad bought the beverages.  My dad was my theater companion throughout my childhood and adolescence, so it was great to be back at the theater, just me and him.

                So, even though we were in the very back row, the show was super.  My father and I both enjoyed it very much.  It turns out that we were the perfect theatergoing team for Young Frankenstein because the show has such an array of pop culture references, we were able to fill each other in.  He would turn to me and whisper “Jimmy Stewart,” and I would turn to him and whisper “Fergie.”  And while it was appropriate for my father and I to attend together, there were some especially young folks in the seats in front of us (parents and two kids, both younger than eight), and I think the subject matter was a little mature for them.  I cringed when Elizabeth says “tits” about 87 times in a row, hoping that the children wouldn’t be scarred for life.  Well, they seemed to handle it fine, and stayed for the entire show (and were quite well-behaved!), but I think I would advise parents not to bring kids younger than middle school to Young Frankenstein.

                I haven’t seen the movie, and was almost entirely unfamiliar with the show.  I knew that “Puttin’ on the Ritz” was in it, but that was the extent of my knowledge.  My dad had seen the movie.   I felt that the show was classic and contemporary, and my dad said that it was a great adaptation of the film.  His quote was “you know the lines, but you still laugh.”  That’s the best kind of humor – when it never gets old.

                I really wish I could have seen the show when it was in New York, but I’m so glad I got the chance to see it here (even from the balcony).  I hope it gets revived sometime on Broadway, because I don’t think it really got the appreciation it deserved the first time around.

                And, I’m working on learning to love the balcony.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

Walter Cronkite is Dead, and I’m an Old Matinee Lady at 24

                Where are all the young people?

                Let me back up a little bit.  Last weekend, I went to the Signature Theatre (winner of the 2009 regional theater Tony Award!!) in my hometown of Arlington, Virginia to see the world premiere production of Walter Cronkite is Dead, written and directed by Joe Calarco.  I went to a Saturday matinee with my parents.  I have a confession to make: I was the youngest person in the theater by about 30 years.  Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but there weren’t very many people there in the under-50 set, much less in their mid-twenties like me.

                Am I an anomaly that I like to go to matinees?  Are all the twenty-somethings going to the evening performances?  This isn’t the first time that I’ve noticed the age of those around me at a matinee.  I really hope that young adults aren’t avoiding the theater completely.  I’d love to hear input from frequent matinee-ers like myself and people who work in box offices around the country – is it just that young people aren’t going to matinees, or are they skipping the theater altogether?

                Yes, I realize that I haven’t actually talked about the play yet.  Thanks for your patience.  Well, the play was good.  There was a lady two rows behind me who, judging by the volume of her laughter, thought it was the best thing she’d ever seen.  While it wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen, I really enjoyed it, and it was certainly a worthwhile theater experience. 

The basic premise is that two women are stuck in an airport.  It’s just a two-actor play, a concept with which I recently had a wonderful experience.  It’s hard to write, act, direct, etc. for just two actors, and my respect for those who tackle two-actor pieces is growing exponentially.  Despite understanding how difficult it is, I totally see why people do it – the potential for powerful theater is great. 

I thought the direction of the play was its best feature – the way the script was conveyed on stage was impeccable.  Could that be because the director was also the playwright?  Perhaps.  Who knows?  I was a little taken about by how realistic the portrayal of the southern woman tourist was.  Perhaps since I’ve lived in North Carolina for almost a year now, I’ve stopped noticing the eccentric quirks of that certain breed of Southern woman, opting to only see the delightful qualities – but I must say, it was dead-on.

So, all in all, it was a good experience.  But seriously, twenty-somethings: go to matinees every once in awhile!  You’ll like it, I promise.