On Broadway

I am so sad that RENT is coming to an end this year (in 137,173 minutes to be exact) on Broadway! I told my hubby that I really wanted to see it before it cosed on Broadway, he said "we'll see what we can do." I've been a RENThead since 2000 when my drama buddies introduced me to the wonders of the Original Broadway Cast (OBC) recording. I vowed not to go see it until I had seen it on Broadway, cuz that's the way you do it! I cheated a little by watching the movie. But that's just not the same. I really hope I can go! I also want to take my hubby to see Phantom (which I have never seen it either), because he asked his mom to take him for his 13th birthday and she told him that she wouldn't pay for something that would bore him, he has never forgiven her for it lol. He has not seen The Lion King either, and even my brothers have seen it and thought is was "Super sweet!" I want my Broadway experience, and soon... I really hope it can happen. On a lighter note, I am going to go see Wicked in LA next month! I am super stoked about that! Me and my mama (who is my show buddy) are going on March 18th at the Pantages Theatre (where I saw the Lion King). So exciting! This is what I wrote about it for a speech class (I am doing an informative speech about Wicked because I am using it as a listening event for the class as well).

I have always been a fan of musicals. I started listening to them in the form of Disney movies (The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and the writer Steven Schwartz’ Pocahontas) compulsively and memorizing the lyrics and moves so I could “perform” them on the playground with my friends. In middle school, I was really introduced to stage acting with William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (which has a campy musical retelling in the 2001 movie “Get Over It” starring Kirsten Dunst – I also watched this compulsively). In High School, I worked my way up the social ladder that was our drama department; starting as a backstage hand, or cockroach, then understudy, then finally getting on stage my senior year. All the years of being involved exposed me to many shows through our director, but mostly through the other students. I was introduced to RENT, which star’s Wicked’s OBC Elphaba, Idina Menzel, when I was a sophomore in 2000. I fell in love with her big voice, I even used one of her songs as an audition piece (no one told me that using RENT for auditions is a big no no in the biz until it was too late, no wonder I never made lead). I picked up Gregory Maguire’s novel shortly after it hit the shelves and was torn in my feelings about it since I had read all of the original OZ books, by Frank L. Baum as a child, it won me over eventually. One of my students when I was an intern in 2003 begged the musical director to send her sheet music to “Popular” after seeing it with her parents the previous month in New York, he surprisingly obliged and I have it in my music portfolio. She performed it for her 8^th grade Musical Review. Last spring, my roommate took our mutual best friend with her to New York (oh was I mad, but I couldn’t afford to go with them because I was getting married a few months later) and they saw Wicked. They were kind enough to bring me back the soundtrack and a poster from New York. I have been listening to it since and can’t wait to see it with my mom next month! My mom (who lives in LA) is taking me as a 24^th birthday present, we love going to Broadway shows together. We have seen Beauty and the Beast, Swing!, Mamma Mia!, and The Lion King together all in LA.