Broadway!

[brak666]

lanchid and I spent the day in New York yesterday. We had tickets for the evening show of Legally Blonde. We attempted to get into town in time for the ticket lotto for the matinee of Wicked but unfortunately we just missed it. We did go in and look at the merchandise and lanchid bought me the Wicked Christmas tree ornament. Then we decided to locate the theater where Legally Blonde would be playing. We found it and started thinking about lunch. We also thought about maybe catching the matinee of The Drowsy Chaperone. I'd already seen it and lanchid wasn't really excited enough about it to pay full price. The performance was an hour later than Wicked, so they hadn't done their ticket lotto yet. So we crossed the street to where The Little Mermaid was playing and tried to see if we could get tikcets for that.

I may have mentioned before how very much I love Sherie Rene Scott. Well, she's playing Ursula. She's one of those people that I would pay just about anything to see. Factor in that The Little Mermaid is lanchid's favorite Disney movie and I don't think there was really any way we weren't going to see this. The performance was sold out, but we got ourselves in the cancellation line. And we got tickets! Absolutely awesome tickets! Eighth row, center stage tickets!!



There is a lot that I loved about this show. The music of course, is wonderful. They've added songs, but they all really do fit in with the old songs. Nothing feels tacked on. They've expanded on the story a bit, and given certain characters a bit more motivation than the movie did. The singing, of course, is wonderful from everyone. I was particularly pleased that they gave a bit more personality and a few songs to Prince Eric. He was sorely lacking in characterization in the movie. Also, King Triton was given a lot more to do. And can I just say HURRAY for that because the guy who's playing him, Norm Lewis is absolutely gorgeous and spends the entire show shirtless and covered with glitter. Oh yeah. And he can sing too. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that Heidi Blickenstaff from [Title of Show] was in it.

The costumes were amazing. They actually used heelies to very good effect for the underwater sequences, although I do think that as much as the rolling around made for a good simulation of swimming, that the shoes did prevent some of the dance numbers (especially Under the Sea) from being quite as high-energy as maybe they should've been. The Ursula costume was wonderful. The tentacles and the mermaid tails were all made out of this springy material that moved very naturally in response to the actors' movements.

Sherie Rene Scott was phenomenal as Ursula. You could tell she really enjoyed playing the role. And how could you not? Ursula is one of those awesome, campy villain roles that I'm sure actors just love to play.

I can't say enough how impressed I am with the underwater sequences. Especially the sequence where Prince Eric falls into the sea and Ariel rescues him. The guy comes down from the top of the stage (which with a combination of lighting and projected images is about as realistic depiction of being underwater as I think is possible) by a harness around his waist, miming being unconscious and under water (and seriously, I need to do a search on this guy for some shirtless pics because he must have the awesomest abs ever if he could do what he did). Then Ariel skates under him and pushes him up. And I have no idea how they have enough time to do this, but the scene changes from under water to on the beach where Ariel pulls him up from under the stage. I just don't see how the actor would've had time to unhook his harness and run downstairs and be under the stage to make his entrance on time, but it's clearly him in the under water sequence, and it's clearly him when they pull him out from under that stage. I'd love to see what goes on back stage during a performance of this show.

The Les Poissan (sp?) number was a bit weak. It came off a bit too "Be Our Guest" for me.

Also, Flotsam and Jetsam are SO doing it. In the movie, when the two eels twirl around each other, it's not really that sexy, but when you have two lithe and handsome young men with glittery make up and hands playing the parts, it adds a new dimension to things.

So after The Little Mermaid we were terribly hungry and we went to Planet Hollywood where we had a nice meal. We did a little shopping and went to Rockefeller Center for a quick look at the tree (oh my God was it crowded!) At one point we decided to duck through the NBC store. We went through the revolving door which was moving at a pretty good clip. lanchid went first, and while I was waiting for the next section, this woman runs in front of me and jumps into the door with lanchid. This would've been merely rude, but as she was also dragging behind her a four-year old child, it was incredibly dangerous. I could see immediately that the child was not going to get all the way inside before the door shut, and with horrified visions of crushed children (and missing Legally Blonde), I grabbed the handle and applied my not inconsiderable weight to the opposite direction, stopping the door. The woman looked more annoyed than anything else and I don't think she realized that I probably saved her kid from being bisected lengthwise by a revolving door.

After that near-disaster we grabbed a few pictures of the tree and then headed to the theater to see Legally Blonde. Let me just say for anyone who thinks that seeing the show on MTV was good enough, You're wrong! There is so much more going on that you don't get to see on TV. Not to mention that live theater just has an energy that can't be captured on camera. Everyone was so good. Christian Borle is the cutest thing ever. But what really blew us away was Orfeh as Paulette. There's a part in the show where she has a big finish to one of her songs and she sings full out. Well, there is no recording device invented that can capture the power of this woman's voice. It was so loud and powerful that they had to turn off her microphone. You could hear the exact moment when they did it and her voice just filled that theater. It was amazing.

After the show we headed home, stopping along the way for some food. It was a wonderful day. Usually when I get to the theater, I'm either by myself or going with someone who's not really as into it as I am. It was so nice to spend the day with someone who really loved it as much as I did.

Comments

[latxcvi.livejournal.com]

Happy Birthday!!!

[brak666.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[carolinecrane.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday!

I was just at the gym, watching Legally Blonde: The Musical on my iPod while I was on the elliptical, and thinking, "Oh, I hope I can get someone to go see this with me while I'm in NYC this summer." You're so right, it's much better when the person(s) you're with are theater junkies too.

[brak666.livejournal.com]

Let me know when you'll be in town. I might be willing to join you.

[carolinecrane.livejournal.com]

Will do! That would be fun.