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?