Sunday in the Park with George

Sunday in the Park with George was the last show I watched on this trip.

The story is a fictionalized story of George Seurat, a painter and his painting called A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

The show is simply beautiful. I loved it. I'm familiar with the score since I picked up a copy of the London cast recording when I was going through my Sondheim phase sometime last year. It was a matter of me trying to fill in the blanks with what I know about the story based on listening to the recording. The songs are beautiful. This is actually my favorite out of all the Sondheim musicals.

The cast was very talented. The principal characters (Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell) were the ones who sang on the Original London Cast Recording so I was thrilled about it.

The show made extensive use of CGI animation for its set which I thought was pretty cool. It was tastefully done and worked very well.

Here's a video of It's Hot up Here (Act II). This is probably from the original production. This isn't from the Broadway revival that I saw.



I'm really pleased with the shows that I have seen on this trip. I really don't have anything else that I want to watch right now that I haven't seen yet on Broadway. I guess I will just have to wait until new shows open up before making my way back to New York. ;)

Wicked

Yes you read it right. Wicked. hehehehe.....

This was my Thursday show. My friend, Karen and I decided to do our usual Carmila is in town routine -- Wicked lottery and then if we don't win, we head to TKTS to get me a ticket to whatever is available and then we go out to dinner.

This time we skipped TKTS since we actually won the lottery! Woooohooooo!!!! After trying for the gazillionth time, my name finally got picked! We got front row seats for $26.25. Yay! I tell you once you have sat up close in the show, you don't want to sit elsewhere. I honestly cannot tell you how the show looks from a afar. The farthest I've sat on this show is the 14th row and I have no intentions of sitting further than that.

It's my 8th time watching Wicked. If you have not figured it out yet, let me spell it out to you. Yes, I am obsessed with Wicked. I am a member of the Wicked Addicts club and I have gone through the 12 step program but it never works. hehehe... I just love this show.

The Broadway production is in a pretty good shape right now. The cast is pretty good although my favorite duo is still Eden Espinosa and Megan Hilty. It's the first time watching the show that I actually liked Glinda more than Elphaba. The actress playing Glinda (Annaleigh Ashford) was very young but she was pretty good. She added her own nuances to the character which I liked a lot.

Annaleigh's version of Popular:


In case you are wondering, yes I intend to watch the show again in the future. ;)

Young Frankenstein

Wednesday was a 2 show day for me. I had tickets to Young Frankenstein (oh excuse me.. Frahn-ken-steen) Wednesday night.

I don't recall ever seeing the movie so I didn't really know anything about the show. Its got mixed reviews but I really didn't care. I like forming my own opinions (well, most of the time).

The show was fun. Lots of jokes. Definitely has lost of talent. Roger Bart was great. It was a plus seeing Megan Mullally live -- she's Karen in Will & Grace. I had no idea that she could sing!

The songs were forgettable. Nothing really that struck my fancy and I'm not too compelled to get the cast recording for it although it was still worth seeing. I had lots of laughs during the show and I enjoyed the show and the performances which is what matters the most to me whenever I watch any of the shows.

The Little Mermaid

I had one heck of a travel day last Tuesday and when I was at the office on Wednesday, after a while, I was getting cross-eyed looking at the documents that I needed to go through so I asked my boss if I can leave early and he said yes.

I went to catch the matinée performance of The Little Mermaid. I just went to the box office and asked if they had any available tickets. I managed to get 9th row center orchestra seats. Yup, great seats! This is the reason why I love going to theater by myself. I get really good seats. Yeah, I know, I am spoiled. ;)

I loooooovvvvveee The Little Mermaid! It's now my favorite Disney musical. The set is spectacular. Lots of Disney magic. Definitely high production value. The cast is pretty good. Sierra Boggess is the little mermaid in the flesh! She looks like the little mermaid and her voice is amazing. I love the Broadway Cast Recording better than the animated movie soundtrack. I got suckered into buying the CD of the musical at the theater since I could not get enough of her singing and I could not wait for it to be released on iTunes.

Check out this video of "Part of Your World".



Definitely a must see. For me it's a must see again show. ;)

New York in February

Yes I am in New York again that's why I have time to blog. ;)

I've been here since Tuesday night after one heck of a day traveling.

I left SF Monday night to take a red eye flight to Washington, DC for a site walk through of our data center. I only stayed for a few hours in that area before heading back to the airport to catch my 3:39pm flight to NY. I was at the airport since 1:30 pm and we didn't take off till past 8pm that night. Once I got to La Guardia airport in NY, the line for the taxi was so long that it took an hour an a half before I was able to get in on a cab and take me to the airport. Thanks to the crappy weather in NY -- it was snowing.

I've seen 3 shows so far -- The Little Mermaid, Young Frankenstein and Wicked (yes Wicked!). I still have to watch Sunday in the Park with George. I'll blog separately regarding these show.

Crappy weather but gotta love going to NY at this time of the year for getting tickets to Broadway shows. You can get tickets to just about any show! I love it! I just love it althought I am running out of shows to watch so I guess I do have to go back home on Saturday morning.