Leaving Florida this time around feels a little different. It feels as welcoming as it does uninviting (at least by the end of this vacation). I flew into Florida on December 21st and I head back to New York tomorrow on January 22nd. That's four friggin' weeks! I spent more time in Florida during this break than I did last summer (due to summer session in New York and Musical Directing in Ohio and Sweden). I really love how the catholic school boy in me still considers this break to be "Christmas Vacation" and then I end up seeing Valentines decorations all over Florida before I leave. All in all, it was a very busy vacation with many wonderful experiences. And even though I won't be able to call Florida my home in a few months, I learned that there are parts of Florida that will always be with me (how many coming-of-age movies say that line?) And it's heartwarming to know that. In elementary school, we were often asked to write about what we did during the summer or winter vacations. And this senior year in college is no exception. Here's just the bullet points of how the past four weeks went down:
1. I spent a lot of time with some friends whom I never get to see, and that all happened primarily because of the Lovewell Songbook concert.
2. The Lovewell Songbook Concert! It was a maddening three days of rehearsals and jamming out with almost 80 Lovewell students, staff, alumni, parents, and friends. I got the chance to propose to Tyler onstage, wail out a blues song written in Ohio, and act like a zombie with Tobi, Jamie, and Carrie (just to name a few). These are people I care about immensely and because I work in Ohio over the summer, I never get to see the Fort Lauderdale crew. They're endlessly inspiring people.
3. Rocking out to the rough draft of the "Reporting Live" original cast recording! I ended up getting sick of my own music. But I did a lot of driving over the course of the past four weeks, which led to many listening sessions.
4. I drove about 2000 miles. This is not a joke.
5. Over a dozen movies in theaters. These films include, but are not limited to: The Chronicles of Narnia, The Fighter, Black Swan, True Grit, I Love You Phillip Morris, The Kings Speech, How Do You Know, Hubble 3D, Burlesque, Season of the Witch, Tron, and Blue Valentine. Some of these movies were horrendous (yet hilarious to watch regardless). And many of these were just awesome. The King's Speech, Blue Valentine, and Hubble 3D were all amazing movie going experiences.
6. Pegasus! I played the hell out of my baby grand piano. Thank god he is not staying in Florida.
7. New television shows. I started watching Dexter and flew through the first couple seasons (season 3 is still downloading...). I did a lot of catching up on Modern Family (a show that makes me laugh out loud, constantly). And then yesterday I finished watching the entire first season of Skins from BBC. It only took me two days.
8. Tela conditioning. I hope she's proud of me when we start up class again. I really tried...
9. Christmas. This included my family watching the Sondheim concert on DVD, eating way too much food, playing a racist edition of Scategories (in which I beat my dad for the first time in my life... by three points), and of course gifts that included some awesome new sheet music and biographies.
10. I saw Rock of Ages. It was okay.
11. Partying it up in South Beach! I had one hell of a night in Miami with Henry Mackalacka.
12. I made a Twitter account?
13. Pixar Documentary. It might have been the best night I had during this break. On a night that wasn't going especially well, I came home at around 1 a.m. to turn on the t.v. to see that a documentary about the creation of Pixar was starting. I watched it from start to finish, and it's an incredible story. Watching footage of Tim Allen and Tom Hanks recording dialogue for the first Toy Story was amazing. And to know how long it took those guys to get to where they are today, it created a nice ray of hope for someone who's graduating in May with little to no plans. And it's wonderful to see genuinely nice people work hard and think big in order to meet their goals. Why doesn't the rest of the world work like Pixar?
14. More bonding time with my dog!
15. Bombed at bowling.
16. Droid.
17. I got a brand new pair of glasses for the first time in god knows how long. It's been so long that I actually get dizzy when I wear them. But hopefully in time I'll adjust. And I really like the way they look.
18. This one might be overly sentimental, but it's important nonetheless. While I was in Florida I spent a lot of time reconnecting with people whom I had lost touch with over the course of the past couple years (and even the past couple months). As lovely as that is, I also learned something else that proved to be just as valuable. It made me appreciate the friends that I've made in New York. I called people in New York constantly and missed them quite a bit. It's just a nice reminder.
Last semester of college... and... GO!
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Reporting Live (Original Cast Recording) - Rough Draft Samples
I wrote a musical. It's called Reporting Live (not Recording Live, despite recent confusion). Here are some samples of about 9 songs from the recording. The recording is still being edited and will be completed by the end of January. The samples include "The Last Woman on Earth", "As Long As It Makes Her Happy", "Grab 'Em By the Balls", "Fly Away", "The March of the Vultures", "Swim Forever", "I Can't Stay Here", "An Element of Magic", and "Hold Me Closer". To listen to the music, just click on the title of this blog post. I'm kinda proud of this.
Favorite Theatre of 2010
I wish I had seen more theatre this year. And I said the same thing in 2009... and 2008... But I'm not going to dwell too much on it. Because even though I saw about a couple dozen shows this year (including festivals, collegiate, commercial, downtown, etc...) there was still a handful of shows that moved me, made me laugh, think, be emotional, and have a good time. And there was a group that inspired me. Here are just a few of the shows I saw in 2010 that definitely had a big impact on me in one way or another. This list is in no particular order.
1. Trails (by Christy Hall, Jeff Thomson, and Jordan Mann) I didn't see many shows this year at the New York Music Theatre Festival, but this one was a standout nonetheless. Pushing three hours in length, the musical about two long lost best friends pioneering across the Appalachian Trail was a beautifully moving folk/pop musical that let cheesy music and sentimental text prove how some emotional cliches can work, extremely well.
2. Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play (by... Sarah Ruhl) This was epic in every sense of the word. Again, another 3 hour production, Passion Play had an extremely complicated conversation with the audience about religion in relation to politics and human nature. Hefty stuff. Beautifully designed in an enormous church in Brooklyn with a stellar cast that played multiple characters over the course of three hours. It's easy to question religion based on the facts. But when you attach that to the emotional burden of Ruhl's characters, it's an unforgettable experience.
3. This Must Be the Place (by Gemma Kaneko) The lovely Miss Kaneko created a piece that talked about Americana and the joy and euphoria of exploration through gorgeous folk music and poetic language. I'm a sucker for stories of pioneering towards the westward expansion, but I think it's hard for anyone to resist how charming this show was (and ending the show with the song "Home is Wherever I'm With You" was just pitch perfect in every way).
4. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (By Alex Timbres and Michael Friedman) While I didn't get to see the show after it moved uptown, I saw this bad-ass punk rock musical while it was at the Public and was completely blown away. I love nonfiction musical theatre. And this was the most distorted nonfiction musical theatre can get. Not only was it absurdly hilarious, outrageously designed (in the best way possible; the moment you stepped into the theatre, you knew you were in for a wild ride), and politically fascinating, but it was one fuck of a good time.
5. American Idiot (By Green Day and Michael Mayer) While on this train of rock shows, I had to mention the explosive rock opera that is taking place right now at the St. James theater. With visuals and music that overwhelm the senses, the imagination is expanded and soars as you watch three young men battle with suburbia, not to mention hookers, heroine, and homelessness that ultimately leads them to the realization of their own self-righteousness. There's a reason why the show opens with the line, "I jerked off to oblivion last night." It's not just meant for laughs, as funny as it may be. With numerous television sets, a suspended car, aerial acrobatics, architecture that transforms in an instant, and a cellist playing in a moving ladder, it's unlike anything you've ever seen. Or anything I've ever seen.
6. Brief Encounter (By Noel Coward) Is it safe to say that the most romantic play I've seen in a long time is also one of the most devastating, and ultimately uplifting? Brief Encounter shows Laura and Alec, two already married individuals, who meet under unexpected circumstances. The story of Laura and Alec is seductive, heartbreaking, and surprisingly inspirational. Almost as if it was saying, "Look at us. Look at what we could have had. Look at what you could have." Thus the wondrous experience that exists in Brief Encounter. If you thought waving goodbye from the train station and passionately kissing in the ocean were romantic, I hope you took a trip to Studio 54 this past fall.
7. Anyone Can Whistle (By Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents) I need to stop writing about this show. Three incredible performances from Sutton Foster, Raul Esparza, and Donna Murphy. Encores! City Center pulled off a magical production/concert reading of this absurd, and experimental, musical. Watching the actors make sense of a deliberately nonsensical score was thrilling (not to mention the massive symphony playing behind them). A crooked mayoress, a fake miracle, an asylum of nutjobs gone loose, a nurse in disguise, multiple mistaken identities all added up to the idea of living in each moment as yourself, and that is the only person you should ever try to be.
8. The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden (By Thornton Wilder) It's a seemingly simple story. The Kirby family is taking a road trip to visit the oldest daughter. That's all we know, and that the daughter experienced a recent problem. However, by the end of the play, an emotional catharsis erupted in the theatre that celebrated the joys of family, connections, relationships, and emotional support for the people you love. The production left many audience members in tears, and left myself spending much time reflecting how grateful I am for my own family. Will Detlefsen's direction utilized the White Box theater in a way I've never seen before, using experimental staging, design, and media that aesthetically made an enormously impactful theatrical experience. Even with some heartache and struggle, it truly was a happy journey. A beautiful one.
9. A Little Night Music (By Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler) Again, this was discussed in my last blog post, but it was one of the best things I saw last year. I saw two theater legends giving perfect performances in a celebrated masterpiece of musical theater, (and when I saw it, I knew nothing about the show). Bernadette Peters is, to me, the greatest musical theatre actor living or dead. With a career like none other, she has an acting and vocal range that is incomparable and yet always adds who she is as a person into the role. This being her first broadway show since the passing of her husband was a big deal, and I am eternally grateful to have been a part of it, even if it was just by being one of the hundreds of people in the audience for one night.
And in case you were wondering (which I know you were), I tried to make a list of my least favorite theatre in 2010. But instead I'm just going to list the following:
1. The Addam's Family (by Andrew Lippa, Rick Elice, and Marshall Brickman) Thank you Jerry Zaks for two and a half laugh-free hours. Watching the cast desperately try to get a laugh from the audience was depressing. It got to the point where the actors were laughing throughout the show, even at jokes that weren't funny to begin with. Nathan Lane even said to one of his co-stars who was laughing uncontrolably, "Do you want to sit out there? I'm the one who needs help!" And Andrew Lippa's score couldn't have sounded more... well... like a wave of predictable chords that washes into one ear and out the other.
And I'll just leave it at that. I've realized that I saw a lot of good theatre in 2010, now that I've finished writing this blog post. And there's a lot of really exciting stuff happening in the upcoming year. Some of the shows that I'm definitely looking forward to include "The Book of Mormon", "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark", "Arcadia", "War Hourse", and many others.
I mean... just LOOK at the poster for "The Book of Mormon". How could I not be excited?
1. Trails (by Christy Hall, Jeff Thomson, and Jordan Mann) I didn't see many shows this year at the New York Music Theatre Festival, but this one was a standout nonetheless. Pushing three hours in length, the musical about two long lost best friends pioneering across the Appalachian Trail was a beautifully moving folk/pop musical that let cheesy music and sentimental text prove how some emotional cliches can work, extremely well.
3. This Must Be the Place (by Gemma Kaneko) The lovely Miss Kaneko created a piece that talked about Americana and the joy and euphoria of exploration through gorgeous folk music and poetic language. I'm a sucker for stories of pioneering towards the westward expansion, but I think it's hard for anyone to resist how charming this show was (and ending the show with the song "Home is Wherever I'm With You" was just pitch perfect in every way).
5. American Idiot (By Green Day and Michael Mayer) While on this train of rock shows, I had to mention the explosive rock opera that is taking place right now at the St. James theater. With visuals and music that overwhelm the senses, the imagination is expanded and soars as you watch three young men battle with suburbia, not to mention hookers, heroine, and homelessness that ultimately leads them to the realization of their own self-righteousness. There's a reason why the show opens with the line, "I jerked off to oblivion last night." It's not just meant for laughs, as funny as it may be. With numerous television sets, a suspended car, aerial acrobatics, architecture that transforms in an instant, and a cellist playing in a moving ladder, it's unlike anything you've ever seen. Or anything I've ever seen.
6. Brief Encounter (By Noel Coward) Is it safe to say that the most romantic play I've seen in a long time is also one of the most devastating, and ultimately uplifting? Brief Encounter shows Laura and Alec, two already married individuals, who meet under unexpected circumstances. The story of Laura and Alec is seductive, heartbreaking, and surprisingly inspirational. Almost as if it was saying, "Look at us. Look at what we could have had. Look at what you could have." Thus the wondrous experience that exists in Brief Encounter. If you thought waving goodbye from the train station and passionately kissing in the ocean were romantic, I hope you took a trip to Studio 54 this past fall.
7. Anyone Can Whistle (By Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents) I need to stop writing about this show. Three incredible performances from Sutton Foster, Raul Esparza, and Donna Murphy. Encores! City Center pulled off a magical production/concert reading of this absurd, and experimental, musical. Watching the actors make sense of a deliberately nonsensical score was thrilling (not to mention the massive symphony playing behind them). A crooked mayoress, a fake miracle, an asylum of nutjobs gone loose, a nurse in disguise, multiple mistaken identities all added up to the idea of living in each moment as yourself, and that is the only person you should ever try to be.
8. The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden (By Thornton Wilder) It's a seemingly simple story. The Kirby family is taking a road trip to visit the oldest daughter. That's all we know, and that the daughter experienced a recent problem. However, by the end of the play, an emotional catharsis erupted in the theatre that celebrated the joys of family, connections, relationships, and emotional support for the people you love. The production left many audience members in tears, and left myself spending much time reflecting how grateful I am for my own family. Will Detlefsen's direction utilized the White Box theater in a way I've never seen before, using experimental staging, design, and media that aesthetically made an enormously impactful theatrical experience. Even with some heartache and struggle, it truly was a happy journey. A beautiful one.
And in case you were wondering (which I know you were), I tried to make a list of my least favorite theatre in 2010. But instead I'm just going to list the following:
1. The Addam's Family (by Andrew Lippa, Rick Elice, and Marshall Brickman) Thank you Jerry Zaks for two and a half laugh-free hours. Watching the cast desperately try to get a laugh from the audience was depressing. It got to the point where the actors were laughing throughout the show, even at jokes that weren't funny to begin with. Nathan Lane even said to one of his co-stars who was laughing uncontrolably, "Do you want to sit out there? I'm the one who needs help!" And Andrew Lippa's score couldn't have sounded more... well... like a wave of predictable chords that washes into one ear and out the other.
And I'll just leave it at that. I've realized that I saw a lot of good theatre in 2010, now that I've finished writing this blog post. And there's a lot of really exciting stuff happening in the upcoming year. Some of the shows that I'm definitely looking forward to include "The Book of Mormon", "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark", "Arcadia", "War Hourse", and many others.
I mean... just LOOK at the poster for "The Book of Mormon". How could I not be excited?
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