| "I'm alive, and the world shines for me today!" |
[Sep. 4th, 2008|11:23 am] |
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| |  optimistic | ] |
Allo! I have another batch o' NYC pics to share with you this morning, all from yesterday...first of all, I should mention that the Blue Hill Troupe new-member cocktail party thing on Tues night went quite well, yay! :D I was actually really proud of myself for having the guts to make myself go to it at all, because God knows I am generally too nervous and socially avoidant to go to parties with ALL complete strangers I don't know, ack...but it turned out to be rather fun. It was in this super-swanky apartment on the Upper West Side (belonging to two of the troupe members, of course), and it was just two hours of people standing around, mingling and schmoozing. We had to sign up for audition times (or interview times, in the case of the "Backstagers" - vs. "Frontstagers," which is what I am applying for) next week, so I am now signed up for next Tues at 7:10 pm. (Wish me luck! And if you say "break a leg" I'll kill ya, haha...the last thing I need right now is more broken bones. ;) )
Anyway, once I'd done that, and grabbed a cup of water (and later on, some white wine that certainly helped me relax a bit), I stood in the midst of all these people and had a strong urge to just discreetly duck out and leave unnoticed. Thankfully a nice old guy (with a British accent!) came up to me and introduced himself, and then another woman, etc...everyone had to wear these color-coded nametags (with your name and "FS" or "BS" for front and backstage), and we newbies were instructed to meet as many of the folks with the asterisks on their tags as possible, as they were on the membership committee. (BHT is largely run by committees, apparently.) And our audition is gonna be in front of a panel of like 9 (!!) people from the membership committee, eep! There's no dance audition though, and no line readings even, just singing and some sightreading (which I pray isn't too difficult)...
Everyone was incredibly nice and welcoming, and answered all my questions (and wanted to hear about Michigan, my G&S experiences, how I broke my foot, etc.)...I explained I'd found them via the website, but that although I don't have an official BHT "sponsor," I do at least know Jeff Dine - our UMGASS lighting designer back in MI, who does shows with them as well (he's a New Yorker, and would fly into MI just to light our shows and then return)! So everyone seemed to know Jeff, anyway...I also met a lot of my fellow newbie-auditioners (all female, hmm), who were nice as well. I even came across a fellow ex-Michigander (albeit from Lansing), and someone who knew some of my UMGASS friends from the G&S mailing list online, Savoynet! The G&S world really is its own small subculture. BHT seemed like an even mix of G&S diehards and people who really could care less about G&S, but love the group and doing theatre. The G&S types were happy to hear I was one of them. ;) (And I pointed out I broke my foot doing a Mikado, even!) Everyone even sang "Hail, poetry" together (from "The Pirates of Penzance") at one point, which I happily joined in on since of course I know it.
After having met everyone and heard so much about the group (they even donate ALL of their net proceeds to charity, btw, how awesome is that?!), now I reeeally wanna get in, argh...but, I gotta try not to get my hopes up *too* much, as usual. And now I really gotta prep for that audition!! (Including deciding definitively on a song! They said no G&S, btw.) At least if I don't get in I can always try again in the future, or do backstage stuff, but still, I really hope I do. They even perform their spring G&S shows at the theatre in the Museo del Barrio, which is like mere blocks away from my apt! (They also do a fall non-G&S musical elsewhere; this fall is "Into the Woods," which is already cast and everything. Plus they do a winter concert around Februaryish...) Apparently a lot of them are also involved with the Village Light Opera, which I may also audition for sometime. They had their auditions already recently for "The Mikado," but having just done Mikado I'm a little Mikado'd out right now!
Yesterday I had initially planned to try to get student tix for the matinee of "Spring Awakening" with Mark ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) zorpo, but SA recently changed their sched and don't have a Wed matinee anymore...so we decided to try the lotto for "In The Heights" instead. :) Didn't win it (doh!), but we wandered over to "Xanadu" the next block over at the Helen Hayes, and managed to get two student tix for their matinee!! I wasn't sure if we'd be able to, because the Xanadu student ticket policy is that you have to not only be a student but also under 25...and I'm 29...they even state that you have to show proof of age. Well, thankfully the box office guy wasn't being too strict, and/or I looked sufficiently young, cuz he let me get tix for Mark and I, huzzah! $27, and they were in row E too (on the right side, but we got to move over to the right center aisle cuz there were empty seats), suh-weet!! :)
"Xanadu" is one of the shows I'd been DYING to see the most, ever since I heard they were making it into a B'way musical, even...so I'm soo glad I FINALLY got to see it!! And lemme tell ya, it did not disappoint; I'm a big fan of the awesomely bad movie, and the show is even campier (and tongue-in-cheek), plus with all the fabulous ELO music - some of which I'd even forgotten about! The small cast is fantastic too - Whoopi Goldberg, who's been filling in for Jackie Hoffman lately as one of the evil muses (until this Sunday, anyway), was out for the matinee (not that Mark or I really cared), but her replacement was Annie Golden...who, I realized with a shock after she'd been onstage a little while, was Jeannie in the movie of "Hair"!! So cool to see her in person, all these years later...and she was excellent, so Whoopi was not missed! Tony Roberts was also great, and Mary Testa is hilarious, but naturally Kerry Butler ("they call me Kiiiiraa!") and Cheyenne Jackson were the real highlight, and both of them incredible (and HOT, lol)!! Kerry's hilariously, intentionally exaggerated bad Aussie accent had me in stitches...and there were so many kickass little one-liners and in-jokes (including a reference to Patti LuPone in "Gypsy" next door at the St. James!)...Hermes' "Bitch, I don't know your life!" was a favorite.
I totally wanna see it again now :D (especially since Kerry's contracted to do it till January sometime, I think?), and I need to own the movie on dvd already...they have a making-of-Xanadu-the-show book that I wanna get, too, and of course the show's soundtrack! I love the show t-shirts and such too, they're all rainbows...speaking of which, when the show reached its final number (the title song, natch!!), I turned to Mark and whispered, "Wow, this is the gayest show ever." :) Seriously. The one disco ball had turned to like fifty disco balls, and the entire cast roller-skated out in glittering tight black outfits and legwarmers, hot guys and all, and everyone was singing and dancing to "Xanadu," and I suddenly felt like I was at a Pride fest....LOVED it!! :D (Several of the guys sitting in the onstage audience seats set off my gaydar too, yay.) Anyway, it out-gays "Mamma Mia" by far, even! ;)
( Piccies from my afternoon at 'Xanadu'!!! )
Last night I also got to have my dinner with Betsy Book ("bsquared" from Xena Palace, and of old Whoosh! fame), as previously mentioned...we went to the Candle Cafe on the Upper East Side, another place I've been wanting/meaning to check out for YEARS (they're quite famous in vegetarian circles, with their own cookbooks and such, and another branch called Candle 79 that's even fancier and more expensive). Betsy bought me dinner, because she is awesome like that!! :) And she's every bit as friendly and wonderful in person as everyone's been telling me, so yay. We had a yummy veg dinner and some good conversation, it was a nice "welcome to NYC" experience! And I highly recommend their Tuscan Parmesan Seitan sandwich or whatever it's called; I don't even usually like seitan, really, but this was highly flavorful, with soy cheese and tomato sauce on a potato-onion roll, mmm, so good!! My "Amazon Mania" acai-blueberry-banana-apple juice smoothie rocked, too. I wish CC delivered beyond just their 15-block radius, hmm...not that I could really afford it, cuz they are expensive.
( Pics from the Candle Cafe! )
And that's it for my recent adventures! Stay tuned...
Some Xanadu-ness to leave ya with:
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calm
hot
sleepy
surprised
okay
anxious
curious
busy
annoyed
