A Chorus Line

I decided to just get it over with and go watch this show. I've been sitting on the edge and kind of pushing back watching this. Well, since I'm running out of shows to watch, I had to go see it. Plus it's a classic and won the best musical and the Pulitzer prize and ran for 15 years on Broadway.

It was okay. I just feel that something's missing in this production (revival). When the cast performs as one (chorus line), it's quite good. However, when it starts focusing on individual characters during the show, it's kind of lacking. It doesn't have the umph that should be there. I had a hard time connecting with the characters in the show.

An understudy (Jessica Lea Patty) played Cassie's role tonight. I wanted to see Charlotte d'Ambroise since she was nominated in the Tonys for this role. Well, Jessica Lea Patty did not disappoint. She was one of the standouts in the cast.

The finale was pretty impressive though!

A Chorus Line at the Tonys

Xanadu

Yep, you read it correctly. Xanadu -- a place where nobody dare to go... Seriously, it is a musical and it is on Broadway.

I've read positive reviews of the show so I decided to go see it.

You might ask, how could I possibly enjoy a musical that's based on the worst movie musical ever made in history? LOL! Well, it's campy, it's cheesy but oh so much fun! I had such a GREAT time watching this show! It's that one show that you take with a tongue in cheek attitude. They made fun of the movie, themselves and musical theatre. I guess that's why a lot of people actually like it.

The movie came out in 1980 so I vaguely remember anything about the movie. Now, I gotta go see it since I think they had a lot of references to the movie.

Kerry Butler is wonderful as Kira/Clio. She perfectly channeled Olivia Newton-John in her performance. Wonderful comedic timing. Wonderful voice. When she sings, you just want to listen and you don't want her to stop singing. She's in roller skates and leg warmers almost all night long.

Cheyenne Jackson is such a hottie! Very good singing voice as well.

I think this show is really well cast. The band sounds amazing as well. It's one of those shows that it's either you don't like it or you absolutely LOVE it!

I can't get the song "Suddenly" out of my head. Yep, this is show is starting to become one of my guilty pleasures. ;)

Check out the synopsis from the show's website: http://xanaduonbroadway.com.

Show preview on broadwayworld.com (need a fast connection or click pause and let it load): Xanadu preview from Broadway World

Also check out this performance of Suddenly at Bryant Park. The girl is Kerry Butler but the guy is not Cheyenne Jackson.

Curtains

I saw Raul Esparza in Company last year and I really thought he was going to win the Tonys. Well, he lost to David Hyde Pierce. That's pretty much the reason why I wanted to see Curtains. I wanted to see David Hyde Pierce's performance.

I can see now why David Hyde Pierce won the award. Raul is an awesome singer. However, the award isn't for the best singer. It's an award for the Best Actor in a Musical. David Hyde Pierce is a really good actor!

The show itself was good. I went in there with low expectations since it didn't really get high reviews when it first opened a few months ago.

Really notable performances by Debra Monk and Karen Zeimbra.

You can find a synopsis of the show from their website at http://www.curtainsthemusical.com/.

Here's a clip from the show as well. This was during the Tony awards.

NYC Again

I'm back in NYC this week. I seriously cannot remember how many times I've been to NY this year alone.

Anyways, I'm hear for my Storage Area Networks class (yep, something geeky).

Weather's nice but the tourists are gone. Yay! shorter lines at TKTS -- where I go to get half priced theatre tickets on the day of performance. Almost all the shows, well, except for Wicked and Jersey Boys are up on the TKTS board so I've been able to watch the shows that I haven't seen before.

No running for me this week. I just don't have the time or feel like running when I'm traveling especially when I'm here in NY. Theatre comes first! ;) My miles on Nike+ this month are all going to be walking miles.

I'm back home on Saturday but flying to Las Vegas on Friday for 9 days to attend the SANS Security Conference there.

Avenue Q in SF

Everyone I know knows that I am a theatre snob. I have always preferred watching musicals on Broadway because the touring company is just not as good but I'm going to retract that statement. Arvin and I went to see Avenue Q here in SF today. I liked it a lot more than when I saw it on Broadway. The cast was amazing! Really notable performances by the touring cast. Well, most of them got to play it on Broadway before the tour.

This is my 16th show for this year. :)

I'm off to NY in a few weeks so I'm looking forward to seeing the shows that I haven't seen.

Cheers!

Traveling again (Houston)

I seem to have a lot more time to blog whenever I am traveling. Well, guess what? I have been traveling this week. The city of destination is Houston (again).

This is my third trip to Houston this year. The first time I ever came to Houston was in August last year and I swore that I would not go here in August. But oh well... Sometimes things do not necessarily go as planned.

My mom was commenting that I'm such a jet setter now. I do enjoy traveling. As long as I don't have to do it every week or spend most of my time on the road. I think this is my fifth trip this year. Don't think I'll ever top last year but we'll see. It's only August.

Anyways, I'm going home tomorrow and I really can't wait. I'm already so sick of the heat and humidity. It's just so hateful outside during the day. Quite ironic, eh since I grew up in the Philippines. Well, you know what they say, your blood thins out after a while and I have gotten so acclimatized to the weather in Northern California. The AC unit at home kicks on when it reaches 74F indoors. ;) Yep, I have gotten spoiled. I don't know what I'll do when I go home to the Philippines. The weather is almost the same as Houston.

I wish I could blog about interesting things during this trip. Unfortunately, it has been very BORING (yes in caps!). There's just nothing going on in this town this week. No ballgames. No concerts. No theatre. No symphony. Someone suggested that I go to NASA and check it out. I considered it however, I don't think I'm that interested looking at dead spaceships.

I think I've been to Houston way too many times over the past 2 years. I'm able to go around downtown without using a GPS in the car! I still can't find my way outside downtown but oh well. That's why the rental car has a GPS. heheheh....

I really am looking forward to going home. If I was in NYC, I would've loved being able to stay for the weekend. Oh well... few more weeks and I'm off to NYC.

Lion King meets Elle Woods

This is pretty hilarious. I almost fell off my chair when I saw this. The music is from Legally Blonde the musical.



I love the soundtrack for Legally Blonde the musical. Been listening to it non-stop for the past few days. I saw it when it was still in previews in San Francisco. I might watch it on Broadway next time I'm in New York. I never expected to like it since it'a another movie musical but it was very entertaining.

Yikes! 2 Months of No Blogs

Uhoh... I have been very remiss in my blogging duties for over 2 months. No, I'm not giving up blogging. It's actually pretty exhilarating writing down my thoughts plus I can't give up now, I've been blogging for over a year!

It's not like nothing much has been going on with me and I have nothing to write about. My excuse is, I've been pretty lazy. :)

Biscotti Calories

I just realized after eating the 3rd slice of Goldilocks Biscotti (biscotcho) that I ate in a matter of minutes whatever calories I've burned running for an hour (5 miles)! Yikes!

Oh well... You only get to live once...

Bumming Around

Why oh why do the days pass you by so quickly when you're on vacation? I cannot believe I'm already almost halfway through my vacation. Pleeeeeaaaassseeee, someone slow down the clock. I don't want to go back to work yet.

So, it's day number 8 of my 19 day vacation. Ever since we came back from LA, I have done absolutely nothing except bum around at home. Hehehehehe.... It feels great being able to say that.

I have tons of books in my to be read pile but I've only read one book so far. The Promise by Harlan Coben. It's a pretty good book. He sure knows how to keep you on the edge until the very end of the book. It's another one of those page turner books. I've started reading Deal Breaker still by Harlan Coben but I'm only into the first chapter of the book. I think I need to go to the bookstore and get one of those lovey dovey chick lit books that I dearly love.

I have about 6 weeks worth of Grey's Anatomy in my DVR. I've gone through several episodes but I still have about 2 more episodes to go. One of them is the season finale. It's been a pretty decent season so far.

Finally 24 season 6 is over. Well, this is the worst season. What can I say, 24 just sucked this year. It's a shame because season 5 was one of the best seasons that they had.

Aside from sleeping in till noon, I've been playing Puzzle Pirates. Check it out when you get a chance. My nick there is pretty obvious. It's an Ilonggo phrase which really is meant as a joke. :) I love the fact that I just need a mouse and sometimes 3 keys to play this game. Doesn't need a whole lot of thinking either so it's a good way to waste time.

Anyways... 11 more days of lazing around. I love it!

My "Wicked" Birthday Weekend

I couldn't think of a better way to spend my birthday aside from spending it with Arvin and watching my favorite Broadway show -- Wicked. So, when the cast was announced for the LA Production in November and I found out that it was going to be Eden Espinosa and Megan Hilty, I immediately got tickets to the show for my birthday.

Dropped Jack at the kennel last Thursday and then off we went to LA. We took the ultimate driving machine for a long drive as well on this trip. I drove part of the way. The car's too fast. I normally just go maybe around 75 mph to about 80ish max on the freeway. With this car, I think I went over 100 mph and was cruising along at an average 80 mph while watching out for the CHP -- I don't want to end up with a speeding ticket! The handling is awesome with this car. Clearly, it also has the power. Having a GPS navigation system in the car is great! We're not familiar with LA but we were able to go where we needed to go. It rerouted us based on the traffic conditions and when we took the wrong turn, it told us how to get back on track.

So last night, we went to see Wicked on my birthday. After the show, I was telling Arvin that I really really want to see Wicked from the front row. You can only sit there is you win the Wicked lottery -- you put in your name 2 hrs before the start of each show and they draw the winners. If you get picked, you can get up to 2 tickets for $25 each. Anyways, I think he knew how much I wanted to see the show from the front row so he agreed to go try the lottery today. We went and played the lottery for the matinee performance. Arvin's name got picked!!!! So we were able to get tickets for the front row today! I keep on telling him that he's my lucky charm. I've tried the Wicked lottery in New York so many times already and I have never won. He kept on telling me that I picked well. He gave me my heart's desire -- to watch Wicked from the front row and the big plus was Eden and Megan were the ones performing!

I'm going to focus more on today's show since I got to see it from the front row. Our seats were almost dead center on the front row. You had to look up a bit from were were were sitting since we were so close to the stage but it wasn't such a big deal. I can't explain how awesome it is to watch your favorite show with your favorite performers from the front row. I absolutely LOVED it! The cast in LA is so much better than the cast on Broadway. I really liked this cast a lot. They're all so talented. Eden was amazing! I absolutely love seeing her perform. She has the best facial expressions and she absolutely rocks when she's on stage. She knows how to suck you into the story and makes you feel how she feels when she's performing. I've seen so many shows and not a lot of performers can actually do that. Seeing her fly in Defying Gravity from where I was sitting was just breathtaking. That scene never fails to give me goosebumps. Megan was wonderful as well. She really knows how to work the crowd and her comedic timing is awesome. Eden and Megan are still my favorite duo in Wicked. I've seen the show so many times but I still got really teary eyed when they sang For Good. I could see how sad they both were while singing that song and they were even crying so what can I say, I got carried away.

As of today, I've seen Wicked 7 times and I have seen 15 shows this year (Wicked 3x). I'm probably going to skip Wicked for a while even if I end up in NY again soon. I'm not too thrilled with the current Broadway cast-- they pale in comparison with the LA cast. We'll see once the cast changes if there is a compelling reason for me to go watch the new cast. It's too bad I don't really get to go to LA for business. I would love to see the show again as long as Eden and Megan are still in it.

I'll never forget this birthday weekend. I really couldn't ask for anything more. It really meant a lot to me being able to see my favorite show with my favorite performers from the front row with Arvin.

I'm Officially Off for 19 Days!

Yessirreeee..... I am off work for 19 days! I don't go back to work till June 4th. :)

I never had the chance to actually take any time off last year so a lot of my vacation days got carried over to this year. I was only planning to take off maybe about a week but I've been feeling so tired and I just wanted to get away from it all for a while.

What to do? What to do? Well, you just have to come back and read about what I've actually been doing. I'm sure it'll involve a lot of sleeping. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz :)

NY Trip 4 Show Quota

I was in NY last week and I went to see 4 shows. If a lot of the theatres weren't dark (no shows) on Monday's, I probably would've seen 5 shows. Oh well, I shouldn't be complaining when I got to see 4 shows right?

Tuesday (5/8/2007): Les Miserables

The only reason I actually went to see this show was because Lea Salonga is in it and currently playing the fole of Fantine. She's in it for something like 15 minutes in Act 1 then comes back in maybe the last 5 minutes of the show in Act 2.

This was the first time that I've actually seen Les Mis. I know most of the songs (Surprise! Surprise!) in the show. The cast was pretty good. I really don't understand all the hype and when people start raving about it and telling me that is is such a great show and it's their favorite show-- well, I've come into a conclusion that people say that because it is such a popular show and a lot of people have heard about it. It is such a depressing show about the French revolution and almost everyone dies in the end. Not really my type of show. Well, I guess you won't see me blogging about it again in the near future unless one of my favorites actresses/actors are in it and I'd watch it for the sake of seeing them perform. If ever I go watch it again and non of my favorite actors/actresses are in it, that means, I went to watch it while I'm on Vicodin or Valium.

Wednesday (5/9/2007): Wicked

Did you think I'd ever go to NY and not watch Wicked? Well, it depends... I didn't get to see it during my last trip. Anyways, one of our vendors gave me free tickets to the show. Who am I to refuse them? What can I say, I'm weak. ;)

Julia Murney is now playing the role of Elphaba. She's a really good actress. I love how she delivers her lines. Very good singer as well. I liked how she portrayed the role. However, I still prefer Eden's singing. Eden's a more powerful singer than Julia. Don't get me wrong. Julia's a good singer however when she pushes her voice like in the money song Defying Gravity, her voice starts cracking.

As for Glinda. It's currently played by Kendra Kassenbaum (sp?). I really didn't care much for her portrayal of Glinda. I thought it was weak. Well, I may be a little bit biased because I so love Megan Hilty as Glinda. I thought Kendra's delivery of her lines were kind of rushed and a lot of the humor in the best lines got lost.

I still think the show is worth seeing with the current cast. If it's your first time seeing the show, you'd still be wowed with it. I think the problem with me is I've seen it with a better cast so I would be comparing the cast with the ones that I've seen in the past.

Thursday: 110 in the Shade

This has got to be my favorite show on this trip. It's a limited engagement show and I really wanted to watch it since I wanted to see Audra McDonald perform.

It's not difficult to figure out why Audra has won 4 Tonys. She is just amazing. When she sings, she makes you feel what she feels. I love the sound of her voice. You could really hear in her style of singing that she's a classically trained singer. Her voice is so beautiful and so clear.

The show's story is about a spinster who is looking for companionship and love. It is based on an old movie. I think the movie is called The Rainmaker.

Friday: LoveMusik

I really should avoid musica revues. They're just not my thing. This show is more of a musical revue of the works of Kurt Weil (composer) and the relationship between him and his wife. The performers were wonderful however, the book was weak. In several areas, it just dragged on and on. This is the second time I've seen Michael Cerveris. The first time was in Sweeney Todd. In that show, he was talking with an English accent. I had a hard time understanding him. In this show, he was talking with a German accent and it was soooo hard to understand what he was saying. Note to self, only go watch Michael Cerveris if he is talking with an American accent.

The story was forgettable, the songs were also forgettable but I still don't regret watching it. The only thing I regretted is that my time was so limited that I should've gone and watched something else that I would've liked a lot better. But then again, the problem is, I've seen so many shows that I really am running out of shows to watch on Broadway. They don't make shows as fast as I am watching them! ;)

It's been a while

Oh wow... It's been 2 months since my last blog. I didn't realize it until I actually saw the date of my last blog.

Anyways, I've really been busy. Lots of things going on and so little time.

Let's see, let me go through a quick recap of what has happened in the past 2 months.

* Bought my dream car -- yep, the ultimate driving machine! :)
* Been to Houston twice already. At least the weather was still nice when I went there.
* I'm at the New York JFK airport right now waiting for my flight back to SF.
* As of last night, I've officially seen 13 shows this year (and it's only May)! ;) I saw 4 shows this week. Will be blogging about those too.
* My priority date is finally current for my GC so hopefully my travel documents arrive pretty soon so that I can go home in time for Peace's wedding.
* I've finally decided to take close to 3 weeks off from work starting on Wednesday.
* I've ran 330 miles (528 kilometers) since I got my Nike+ gadget.
* I've signed up to run the SF half marathon (13.1 miles/21 kilometers) in July.
* I won the lottery and got an entry to run the Nike Women's half marathon in October. Yup, I want that Tiffany necklace that they give out to runners.
*I finally got talked into using a mac at work by my boss. So, I'm using a MacBook Pro (15 in). So far, I've been pleased with it. The battery life kind of sucks though. Can't get me through the SF-NY/NY-SF trip or even the SF-HOU/HOU-SF trip.
* I have not been reading much lately so my to be read pile at home is growing. Yeah, I still get the books but I'm not reading them as fast as I get them.
* I've seen Wicked 5 times already. Well, it'll be the 6th time on my birthday next week.

Arvin's doing well. Jack's getting bigger. He now thinks he's the homeowner. Such a spoiled dog! The tank is doing well too.

-Carmila

Wisdom No More

I had all of my wisdom teeth pulled out yesterday. Yes, ouch! Not exactly a fun thing to be doing on a Thursday afternoon but they had to come out.

Normally, do I not have any anxiety issues, however I told my dentist that if she was going to pull all of them out, I was going to freak out. She gave me a prescription for Ativan and told me to take 2 an hour before I went there or I might chicken out and not get there at all. Arvin took me the the dentist. When I got there, my dentist asked me if I felt like I had been drinking Margaritas all morning long. I told her, I didn't even feel a bit woozy after 2 Ativans and asked her if she could put me on the laughing gas because I really did not want to care at all!

This was the first time that I have actually been on the laughing gas. I've never taken any illegal drugs all my life so I think yesterday was the closest feeling that I would ever have to being "HIGH". The feeling was very weird you felt like you were floating. Had this warm fuzzy feeling and I really didn't feel much or care about anything. In the beginning, I was actually fighting it not wanting to relinquish "full" control to being under the nitrous oxide. I am a control freak so it was not easy give up that type of control. I was pretty conscious during the entire procedure except when it was time for the last teeth to come out. I remember telling my dentist that I feel sleepy. Anyways, I felt so relaxed that I was even joking that if Arvin took me to the BMW dealership, I would probably sign anything. I also said that if I went shopping right then and there, I would buy everything in sight. hehehehehe....

I was out for 22 hours after I left my dentist's office, thanks to the Ativan, Nitrous Oxide and Vicodin. Woke up, drank a shake and my meds and went back to sleep. I'm barely lucid right now. Just took my drugs again and waiting for it to kick in. Anyways, whatever happens in the next couple of days, really would not care much. Plus, I'm of no use, I not longer have any widom left..... ;)