pomp and circumstance

May 19, 2012. The date so many of us seniors are dreading because it means out of our comfortable dorms, comfortable meal plans, comfortable bars, and into the real world.



This may not come as a surprise to anybody who knows me, but I don’t really care about any of that. Real world -- bring it. I’ve been ready to start working full-time since I was in middle school. College was just a four-year program that got in the way.



What I AM dreading, however, is losing my student privileges. So many discounts that are available only to those who are enrolled in a higher-education learning institution. So for those who may think like me:


TDF Membership



Happy Graduation. 

Satin Dolls Present: The Bachelor

I've ironically been so busy with Satin Dolls that I didn't get to post anything about our upcoming final concert. Now it's too late, since it was last night, but I can post a few photos!

Alex Sadinsky singing "House of the Rising Sun"

Julia Greenberg singing "Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" 

Me singing "To Make You Feel My Love"

A picture of the seniors at our final rehearsal. Our eyes look possessed because we spent the last half hour crying. 

More to come soon!

i've waited for (ironically) the last five years to write this

Last week I got to go see a production of The Last Five Years at The Crossroads Theater in New Brunswick. Sound familiar? I've mentioned it before. It's one of my favorite musicals and believe it or not, I've NEVER been able to catch a production of it. Until now.

And it was great. Different than I'd envisioned it, but that's one of the wonderful things about the show. It tells the story of the relationship between a man and a woman, but in opposite perspectives: the woman starts at the divorce and the man starts on the first date. It leaves plenty of room for the director and the cast to play around and feel the pacing of the show.

With this particular production, I felt that some scenes weren't as clear as they could be. The director had the man and women interact in some scenes, which confused the audience, since each of the two are technically in different points of their lives. Only in one scene, their wedding, are they ever supposed to be seen together.

Another twist that caught my attention were the casting choices. The role of the woman, Cathy, is described as an  Irish Catholic from middle-of-nowhere USA. I'd always known Cathy to be played by fair-skinned, red-headed women. When the show began, however, I was surprised to see a darker-skinned actress on stage. The performance Wendy Fox (who played Cathy) gave, though incredible, was unlike any version of Cathy I had ever seen. As the show unraveled, I realized that there was no reason why Cathy couldn't believably be another race. The actress had so much soul and support to her voice (she sang the score flawlessly), I could immediately see why she was the obvious casting choice.

The male lead, played by Nicholas Belton, also placed a medium-sized question mark over my head. Though it was obvious that Belton had the vocal, singing, and acting chops to play this role forward and backward, his effeminate tendencies often pulled focus from the story. This is a particularly difficult topic for me since I'm so vocal about gay rights. Many of my friends are gay (especially in the theatre community) and I strongly believe there should NEVER be any discrimination against any person, EVER. (See aforementioned casting of Wendy Fox as Cathy.) However, when an actor cannot believably convince the audience of his sexual orientation, especially in a love story, there is a conflict of interest. It happens on stages all the time. Gay men playing straight, straight men playing gay. They go too far, or not far enough, in finding the right sexuality for their character.

We see this in pop culture all the time.
Eric Stonestreet in Modern Family.
Neil Patrick Harris in How I Met Your Mother.
Matthew Bomer in White Collar.
Christian Borle in Smash.
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote.
Darren Criss in Glee.
Adam Pally in Happy Ending's.
T. R. Knight in Gray's Anatomy.
Zachary Quinto in Startrek.
Tom Hanks in Philadelphia.
Sean Penn and James Franco in Milk.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain.

This barely covers a few male actors who have done the crossover perfectly. It's not impossible, but it does require a special talent. It doesn't matter how low your grand plié can go or how high you can belt that F#, if I can't believe all you want to do is grab a beer and watch the game with the bros, your performance is lacking.


The Last Five Year; Written and Composed by Jason Robert Brown; Directed by Leah C. Gardiner; Crossroads Theatre Company; 7 Livingston Ave, New Brunswick, NJ; (732) 545-8100.

yet another openin', yet another show

Speaking of NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT...

We opened last night! While everyone was off enjoying the red carpet and the show, I was in the office reporting about all the great things that were happening on our Facebook and Twitter pages. A busy busy night (I was in the office past midnight!) but certainly well-worth the experience.

And speaking of opening nights - we had three of our shows open this week. Talk about stress city. Not to mention finals, projects, the Satin Dolls concert... Spring Weekend? Social life? I really wouldn't know what those things are. But again-- well-worth it. Right?

nice work and i DID get it!

'S wonderful! 'S marvelous! 'S my first time in an official Broadway playbill!

the flipside of stunt casting

I got sick with the flu last weekend. Not only did I have to spend my entire Easter recess in bed, but even worse, I had to give up free tickets I had to see Sister Act, currently starring Raven-Symoné  (little Olivia from The Cosby Show!).

I'll admit, Sister Act has been running for a while and I haven't made much of an effort to see it. Now that they put a big name in the show, I'm a little bit more interested. Some people scoff and pity shows that feature celebrities, but here's the fact: it's called stunt casting and it works.

Stunt Cast: to place a well-known celebrity into a [sometimes struggling] Broadway production. According to this article I found on Gawker, "the stunt casting cheapens the medium, reducing it to just an excuse to see your favorite star live and saying things." The sad truth is that there's a lot of amazing theatre out there, but unless you're going to see the show and a big famous star like George Clooney in the lead, chances are people aren't willing to pay much money or attention.

I've noticed this a lot recently, for example in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. It's a fun show, with catchy music and amazing choreography, but I'd be willing to bet at least 3 out of every 5 audience members are more excited about watching Harry Potter, Nick Jonas, and that Glee boy on stage.

Of course there are plenty of young male actors who would be great in that role, but producers know that in order to sell tickets, you need to push a big name. That may sound sad, but I've come to realize that some pieces of theatre are wonderful, and just need a chance to get noticed. Maybe that's why supermodel Christie Brinkley just announced she's joining the cast of Chicago.... again.

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) surprising everyone with his high kicks and stage dives.

OH, and as an ironic final touch to my sad anecdote. Raven-Symoné? Who I was so excited to see in Sister Act? She also caught the flu that weekend. So I wouldn't have gotten to see her anyway. Too bad for all those people who spent $$$ to see her.

ain't it the fine life

On March 29, 2012, I did something that if you would have told me I would be doing 6 months ago, I would have told you you were crazy.

I attended the opening night of Newsies on Broadway.

There are a lot of reasons why this was a shutup-ohmygod-noyoudidnt moment for me. The most obvious being that it was my first opening night and the energy in the theatre was unlike anything I've ever experienced. The people, the performances, the reactions-- spectacular.

The second reason is a bit more personal. In middle school, my best friend and I told ourselves that as soon as we became rich and/or famous enough to produce a musical, we were going to do Newsies on Broadway.

Clearly, somebody beat us to it, but it didn't stop the process from being any less thrilling.

hipster theatre pictures

Don’t judge me, but I absolutely love this site.

http://hipstertheatrepictures.tumblr.com/

Inspirational quotes, hipster photography, theatre... what’s not to love?

These are some of my favorites:

Ok, fine, judge me. You’re probably right anyway.

now playing

One of my first posts on this blog was a response to all the Broadway shows that closed in January. "At least 20 shows are confirmed to open within the next few weeks/months," I said. "Those numbers aren't so bad, right?"


Right. In fact, they're overwhelming. The past few weeks have been nonstop with the amount of opening nights we've had and will have in the very near future. 


So to help keep up with these changes, here's a list of all the Broadway shows now playing. (As a fun fact, I crossed off the one's I've already seen. Not gonna lie, that number is slacking.) 


NOW PLAYING:

Anything Goes

The Best Man

*The Book of Mormon
Anthing Goes

Chicago

*Clybourne Park

The Columnist

*Death of a Salesman

Don’t Dress For Dinner

End of the Rainbow

Evita

*The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess

Ghost the Musical

*Godspell

Harvey

*How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

*Jersey Boys

*Jesus Christ Superstar

*Leap of Faith

*The Lion King

The Lyons

Magic/Bird

*Mamma Mia!

*Mary Poppins

Memphis

*Newsies

*Nice Work If You Can Get It

Once

One Man, Two Guvnors

*Other Desert Cities

*Peter and the Starcatcher

*The Phantom of the Opera

Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Rock of Ages

*Seminar

Sister Act

Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark

A Streetcar Named Desire

Venus in Fur

*War Horse

*Wicked

*The shows with stars next to them are the ones that the company I'm working with, Serino/Coyne, represents. I thank my lucky *s each night. 

shout out to jeremy lin!

By now you should know that I don't follow sports, so this post has little to do with Jeremy Lin.

I do, however, follow multi-cultural issues. Last night I attended a round-table panel at Fordham entitled "RepresentAsian: The Changing Face of Theatre". It was moderated by playwright David Henry Hwang and featured a slew of recognizable names such as Oskar Eustis, Douglas Carter Beane, Tara Rubin, and Bartlett Sher. 

The conversation lasted about three hours, and surprisingly, it never got boring. I wanted so badly to raise my hand and ask a question (or text/tweet a question- they embrace technology in 2012!), but I was finding it difficult to formulate my comments into reasonable prompts. 

What I really wanted to bring up was my own sense of mis-representation in the theatre. Statistically, I fit into the 2% of Latinos seen on stage. However, because of the fairness of my skin, it would be difficult to feel as if my "race" were something I were being discriminated for. Without getting too detailed, I've always felt this way- trapped between two worlds.

Incidentally (and completely unrelated-ly) I met Andréa Burns this weekend. I've always been a huge fan of hers for two reasons. Firstly, because we share the same name, except she is brave/smart enough to put an accent on her name to make sure people don't try to mis-pronounce it. I would do that now, but I do too much of my work on the computer, and always having to put in that accent character would be more frustrating than helpful.

The second reason why I love Andréa Burns is because of how easily she can slip in and out of her Latina-ness. I remember having once seen an ah-mah-zing video where she sang "I'm Not Afraid of Anything" (from Songs for a New World) and "No Me Diga" (from In The Heights) back to back to show the contrast between her accented voice and her very straight musical theatre tone. I looked for it online now and couldn't find it anywhere, so you'll have to remain content with watching her sing a song from Beauty and the Beast in that princess style of hers.

Anyway, given that long tangent, the point of my story is this: race and culture do not define a person. It's the talent that actually matters. On stage, on the basketball court, in the science lab.. it's a universal principle that matters. So NBA, don't overlook a talent like Jeremy Lin. Casting directors, don't ignore the Asian population. And world, don't ignore me.


(To apologize for this slightly-longer-than-usual post, I will include a picture of Jeremy Lin doing something that looks hard. So you can't say I tricked you with this title.)

theatre... or theater...?

You may have noticed that I like to use the word "theatre". As in "-re". No, I'm not British. I'm not even Canadian! But for some reason, this form of the spelling has sunk into my vernacular and I can't escape it.

Here's a quote I found on Grammarist.com that I like. And since I just discovered how to Print Screen on a Mac, I will include a photo of it here.

Some people are very much against the spelling of "theatre". They think it's pretentious or exotic. I don't think we need to over-think it that much. Just go with the flow. If someone uses "theatre", respond with "theatre". If they say "theater", then the answer is "theater". There ya have it. A lesson in vocabulary AND social etiquette.
The Eleven O'Clock Number: getting the bang for your buck, one theatre post at a time.

blacklight theatre

I was going to write an entry about this form of theatre that I experienced in Prague, but I really don't know what to say. I know critics should state their opinions truthfully, whether they thought the production was good or bad, but I'm not even sure I know how I felt about it.

And also, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. So mums the word on this one.

high on a hill lived a lonely goatherd

One of the things I was most excited to see in Prague was the puppet theatre. To me, it was quintessential. I'd heard about it my entire life and read all I could in travel books before arriving to the city. When we got to the national theatre box office, we had a nice long chat about Czech theatre. My disappointment came, abruptly, when I asked about puppet theatre and the box office attendant scoffed. He informed me that it was merely for tourists and gift shops to make money off. I didn't want to believe him, but as I walked around the city, I quickly realized that 1) we saw no puppet theatres and 2) none of the puppet store owners knew anything about theatre.

I guess I'll have to trek over to the Alps on my next visit.

a penny? a nickel? a dime?!

When was the last time you payed for something with a single coin? I think the last time I did was in the elementary school cafeteria, where a pretzel rod cost a dime.

I never in my life thought I could pay with a COIN to see a Mozart opera in the opera house where Mozart himself conducted.

But I did. In Prague. It was beautiful. My seat was less than spectacular, but hey, you get what you pay for. And considering the amazing experience that it was - it was a bargain.

if you can make it there...

Every now and then when I’m on my way to work I stop and take a second to stand in the middle of Times Square. I look at the lights, the billboards, the giant video screens. I look at the red TKTS steps and all the tourists who came all over the world just to see a Broadway show. Those tourists look back at me, and wonder why some crazy shivering chick is standing on the street staring at them. I smile, breathe, take one last glance around and continue with my day as usual.



If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere, but why go anywhere else when you have New York City?

GUYS. I'M FAMOUS.

I was perusing through BroadwayWorld the other day and I stumbled into.. oh, hey! That's me!

Ok, so it's a lot of pictures. And I'm not in the foreground. And it's not much of me. But it's a little bit of my face. Next thing you know, it'll be all of my face, and before you can say "jazz hands", I'll be running the whole site!

Until then.. please contact my agent for any autographs or appearances. No pushing, please.

so... what is an eleven o'clock number..?

I bet you're sitting at your computer reading this blog and thinking to yourself "Yea, eleven o'clock number sounds cute. But what does it mean?" Ok, maybe you weren't. But I bet now you are.

According to Wikipedia (which every student knows is the web's most reliable source), an eleven o'clock number is "a theatrical term for a big, show-stopping song that occurs late in the second act of a two-act musical." Think finale, but without all the ensemble that comes in to close the show.

In the spirit of TONY season (100 days!), here's the eleven o'clock number from last year's awards, featuring Neil Patrick Harris. Yes, Neil Patrick Harris. He raps. Why are you still reading this? Watch!

(If you enjoyed that and are still feeling confused/theatrically daring/TONY inspired, here's a video of Angela Lansbury [Mrs. Potts, anyone?], Betty Buckley, and Larry Kramer) explaining and performing what an eleven o'clock number is.)

tony has a first name,it’s o-s-c-a-r

No matter how much I try to fight them, award shows have a way of pulling me in and forcing me to sit on my couch for three hours as I continuously check Twitter to hear the live commentary from across the city/country/world. My favorite Twitter-Oscar happening of the night? @AngiesRightLeg. Just the fact that it exists... Talk about social media being their first.

I would like to point out that amongst the Big Four nominees (Best Actor/tress, Best Supporting Actor/tress) there were many Tony awards to be counted. I was going to make a detailed list, or a fun chart, but alas, time flies when you’re having fun studying for midterms.

Countdown to the TONYS: 104 days.
Countdown to the TONY nominations announcement: 63 days. (That’s somewhat more tangible.)

Sorry if the title of this post is still stuck in your head. Here’s something to get it out/enforce it/cheer you up.

miranda sings

In "Writing for Online Media" this week we discussed fake vlogs, such as lonelygirl15, an interactive web-based video series which gained worldwide media attention when it was outed as fictional.

My musical theater mind went immediately to Miranda Sings. Colleen Ballinger, a performance student from California, created the character of Miranda in response to many of her classmates who were, according to Colleen, "cocky girls who thought they were really talented, and they weren't".

Thankfully, audiences quickly learned to separate the two girls from one another, and Colleen was able to profit from a series of cabaret concerts across the world.

Something tells me that we'll be seeing a lot more of her in the near future. 

what are YOU doing this Thursday?

Shameless plug!

The Fordham Satin Dolls are singing at the RHA Talent Showcase on Thursday 2/23 at 7pm in McGinley Second Floor Lounge. It’ll be a great night of performances you won’t want to miss. What else are you going to do? Stay at home and listen to the radio?

(Can you spot me?)


http://www.twitter.com/FUSatinDolls
http://www.facebook.com/FUSatinDolls


UPDATE:


WE WON!!! THE SATIN DOLLS WON!! Thank you so much to everybody who came, supported, and voted for our performance! We sang "Can't Hurry Love" and a 90s Boyband Medley featuring "I Knew I Loved You", "I Want It That Way" and "Tearing Up My Heart". We danced, we goofed around, and we had an overall good time- which is what really matters. Well, that and the $600 we won! Whoohoo! Satin ribbons for everybody!