Do you hear the people sing?

I saw Les Miserables yesterday with my friend Verena. To be honest I was planning on seeing it, because I am not a huge fan of the show. After all  the rave reviews and gushing Facebook statues I had to see what all fuss was about, so I broke down and bought a ticket.

I remember the first time I heard music from Les Mis, someone singing along to the Castle on the Cloud for in an audition a talent show when I was in grade 7 or 8. Previously  I was interested in seeing it, so I had rented the1998 film starring Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush thinking it was the musical, not realizing it was an straight book adaption.  Whoops, now I know that musical adaptations get A LOT of fanfare, so I don't know how I made that mistake! I finally saw it when the 25th Anniversary Special aired on PBS in 2011 or 2012 and was underwhelmed by the 25th Anniversary special. I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact a Jonas brother was playing Marius?;O) I still decided to give the movie with Hugh Jackman a chance.

With the movie I thought Hugh Jackman was great, and Helena Bonham Carter was fab as Mme Thenardier. I think that Amanda Seyfried (Who I adore) has too much vibration in her voice, I noticed it in Mamma Mia when she sings high notes. Again I didn't fall in love with Les Mis, but I liked the music, some of it is really catchy.(The title of my post is taking from song lyrics from the show for those not familiar)  Here is a pic of  me with Hugh Jackman in the background at the Princess of Wales stage door in 2011)





The production sucked me in with the first number Look Down. The ensemble was really strong, I had no issue with their numbers. This production definitely made me more of a fan, there is nothing like live theatre. I still wouldn't say it was one of my favourite shows, but I have a new appreciation for it. I would probably even see another production sometime.

When you start working on shows from the production side, you see other shows through from a conceptual lens. I think you catch mistakes more easily, either that or I have an eye for details, like one the street lights not being turned on etc. One of the characters goes off a bridge in to the Seine and I was expecting to see a trap door, and was surprised to see the bridge split apart and the projection screen behind served as the water. I thought it was interesting how they did it.I definitely wouldn't want to design the whole show on my own for costumes at this point anyway there are SO many!

One thing I am finding consistent with all the versions I haven't been bowled over by ANY of the females playing the leads with the exception of Madame Thenardier. In this production Fantine and Cosette were unremarkable, there vocals were far from stand out. Fantine's acting was fine, Cosette was a little much for me.  In the film I thought Anne Hathaway was okay her vocals in the finale were great. I wonder if it is because Idina Menzel and Lea Michele did such a great version of I Dreamed a dream on Glee that for me all pales in comparison? Plus Lea didn't that beautiful snippet of On My Own in Glee's pilot. (I have seen both Idina and Lea perform live by the way)

I was really looking forward to Canadian Idol Winner Melissa O'Neil's rendition of On My Own. I was disappointed. The pace of the song was really sped up, so it wasn't the melancholy ballad I am familiar with. I don't know if because it was sped up or because she was trying to sound emotional and not make it pretty a la Anne Hathaway but it sounded rough in a few places, and I was cringing in places. (Before I get crucified, yes I realize Anne plays Fantine not Eponine in the film and doesn't sing that song, but that was the technique she brought to her singing, in an interview she felt it was inauthentic if she tried to sound pretty) I thought Melissa's acting was great though. No complaints there. I had met Melissa back in 2008 when she was featured in Dirty Dancing. Here's a pic.

 

I have to admit I was truly blown away by Ramin Karimloo who was playing the lead Jean Val Jean. His vocals are incredible.He truly was the star of the show. He will be playing the lead in Broadway this spring I wonder if he can be nominated for a best actor Tony because it is a revival production not sure of the rules on that. He has my vote if he does get nominated. Ramin has also played Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, it is rather interesting that often actors who play Phantom also play Jean Val Jean. I may be a little pic of  Ramin fangirl now. He alone was worth going to see even if I didn't

I went to the stagedoor which is the same place I met Hugh. (My photographer Verena needs some practice ;O), it didn't go well) It is a really goofy pic .He was polite but you could sense Ramin was kind of a hurry, I don't blame him for not wanting to be out in the frigid whether. I will leave you with the pic of us.

Taking another bite out of the Big Apple.

So as I promised I owe a blog post about my trip to the world's theatre capitol NYC! This will be a long one so settle in (Hope was worth the wait!) It was almost 5 years since I was last in NYC. A visit was long over due. I went with my boyfriend N. to celebrate 5 years together. Ironically a few days after we started dating was the last time I was in NYC. In the vein of Meg Cabot,I try to keep my personal life private which is why I only refer to him as N. and you won't find any pics of him on here. 

 On Monday December 9 we spent the night in Toronto the day before we left, because my mom gave us a life experience package at the former Skydome hotel (Now called the Renaissance Hotel and the skydome is now called the Roger's centre) The room was pretty lush, two flat screen TVs. Our package included champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, breakfast for two, and tickets from a selection of local attractions. It was fabulous. Here's a pic of the room.

 

For the attraction we decided to go tour the Steam Whistle Brewery. It was fun getting tipsy at noon ...something to try once. There were samples before and after the tour, plus everyone got a freshly bottled of beer right of the assembly line, time stamped and everything. It was awesome, I really like the beer too. We ended up being lumped in with the George Brown College school tour, the instructor was treating us as if we were his students, he wouldn't let us fall behind. The brewery is located in part of an old railway roundhouse. Here's a pic from the tour:

 

After the tour I went back to the Chickery, because I still wanted to meet Chef David Adjey. I had something different this time and was much happier with the food. Chef Adjey was pretty cool, he said they were trying to reboot his former  show The Opener on A&E. He promised us extra sides, but never delivered Naturally I got a picture with him

 

At 6:40 that night we caught the overnight bus to NYC. It was a bargain at 100 USD round trip for the both of us. We were all prepared for the trip and had the laptop to watch movies etc. We had even been considerate and got a splitter so we could both listen with our headphones and to not disrupt our fellow travellers. I was disappointed to see that others weren't so considerate and were just playing youtube videos on their phones with out headphones, or listening to music really loudly even with headphones.

We arrived in NYC shortly after 6 am, first thing I hailed a cab like the New Yorker I am at heart. Our destination was to the Dominque Ansel Bakery home/inventor of the cronut. For those living under a rock ;O) the cronut is pastry that is a donut/croissant hybrid. In the summer people line up at 4 in the morning for  them. When we arrived we were second and third in line. This guy Robert was ahead of us in his sleeping bag. He is professional line sitter, so people pay him to wait in line for him. Someone for example was paying him $40 to acquire a $5 pastry for them, and he does things 4 or 5 times a week. ! The longest he ever waited for something was 18 hours. It wasn't all that cold but eventually the staff came out and gave us complimentary hot chocolates and madelines while we waited for the bakery to open at 8. While we were waiting this girl who stated she was a stripper, wanted to get warmed up in Robert's super large sleeping bag, she came over and was all "Hey boo", he let her sit beside him, but made sure she knew she still had to go to the back of the line with her friends. She was inexplicably in nothing but sweats even though her friends had her coat. She was definitely drunk if not high.

When the bakery opened Robert let me go in first which means I got to hold the golden loaf, I thought that was pretty sweet of him, he'd never been first before. The cronut has a new flavour every month, and has the texture of a flaky croissant, but friend like a donut. In December it was orange and champagne with gold dust sprinkled on top. It was worth every penny let me tell you!  I get a kick out of the fact I got one with out a problem, but Emma Roberts niece of Julia Roberts got bumped to the back of the line this summer when she tried to queue jump! Anyway here is a pic of the queue and the cronut

After the cronut we made our way to American Museum of Natural History (For those who have seen the movie Night at the Museum, that is where it is set. Personally I like to see my animals live not stuffed, but I acquiesced as this was one one really touristy thing N. wanted to do on his first trip to the big apple. especially since they had a butterfly exhibit that was pretty cool going on. The butterflies liked my right boob, that seemed to be the only place they were landing (Pervs ;O) )

 

Kind of a funny story, there is store back home that has these gemstone bracelets with initials on them, I have never been able to find a K. When I saw the exact bracelets at the museum gift shop I figured I would have no problem finding my initial if not my name. No dice, are you kidding me? One of the biggest cities in the world and I can't find a K? I did get one that says I <3 N. though. A cute little souvenir.

We made our way to try White Castle for lunch, as I had never been to one before. I was underwhelmed, and don't get what Harold and Kumar went to all that trouble for. I asked N. which one of us was Harold and who was Kumar, he replied you're the Indian, you're Kumar. (As one of my co-workers points out wrong Indian I am feathers not dots.) White Castle burgers are itty bitty, but still calorie laden! That is one thign about the US calories are listed everywhere UGH! I don't need to know some venti drinks from Starbucks are 500 calories!

Project Runway haven Mood Designer Fabrics is just around the corner from White Castle so of course I had to go, didn't buy anything but a "Thank You, Mood" t-shirt. I was hoping to meet Swatch the dog or run into Tim Gunn, but no such luck. Still it was cool to see three floors of fabric, imagine what I could do for my upcoming show, if you let me loose in there with an unlimited budget.... sigh. Anyway here is a pic of me at Mood and the burger.

  

Then it was off to try and get my first celeb autograph of the trip. James Bond actor Daniel Craig and his wife Rachel Weisz (Runaway Jury, The Mummy) were doing a play Betrayal together, but we couldn't get tickets - not that we wanted to see a play about infidelity on our anniversary trip anyway. I am a HUGE Rachel fan, so I was super excited to stage door. We knew the show ended around 3:30 so we went and hung out. Sadly she never came out, and Daniel was only signing playbills, he politely informed me so I couldn't get Skyfall signed as a Christmas present for someone, he was polite about it, and I sorta got a pic with him. 

 

As it was after three by this point we were finally able to check in to our hotel. We got a bargain, but as they say you get what you pay for. The  Carter Hotel is located in Times Square, and was $129 USD, I checked the hotel the day before and they the same room for $109, I asked if they could do an adjustment for us, but they wouldn't. I was assured though by the front desk clerk that he would put us in the nicest room he had available though. I knew that this wasn't a luxury hotel so I had low expectations, but I didn't expect there to be a sticker from someone else's tee on the comforter, and I expected the bathroom to have a bath, not be a tiled room with a curtain and a grate in the floor. After moving rooms to one that had a fabulous view of a brick wall, but at least we had brand new out of the package clean blankets. I should have known when I girl Vicky I volunteer usher with knew it by reputation and I saw that there was a wikipedia page about our hotel. A lot of sketchy things happened there, murders, suicides, I just figured it would be a bit of colour, but it had gotten good reviews lately. I wouldn't stay there again though.  I did like that the front desk still had mailslots for each room behind it, that was cool. Our closet even had a fire escape plan in it from when it was the Dixie Hotel. Here's pics of the bathroom, our first and second room and the fire escape plan.

After freshening up we went for dinner at Sardi's. I had made 6pm reservation for us the week before so we could have a nice leisurely dinner before going to see a play at 8. I had to send my food back though because the chicken was over cooked, the second time it was fine. I swear I had a run of bad luck with restaurants over cooking my food. It was still neat to go there and we could see the whole restaurant from our corner table. Here's a pic of our view and a close up of a drawing of former Wicked and 9-5 performer Steph J Block. 

I knew I couldn't convince N. to see a musical, as he isn't a fan so I didn't see one this trip, as much as I would have liked to have seen Matilda or First Date. We agreed on seeing Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Patrick Stewart in No Man's Land by Harold Pinter. For those who don't know Ian McKellan plays Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies and Magneto in X-men, Teabing in The DaVinci Code. Patrick Stewart plays Professor Charles Xavier in X-men but trekkies would know him as Captain Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek:The Next Generation. Billy Crudup from Stage Beauty and Almost Famous was also in the play too.

When we were in line to pick up our tickets, a familiar face walked by. I had an rubbernecking"oh hi, your Edward Norton" moment. (He was in Fight Club and the "good" Hulk movie). He was seeing the play, I tried to get a pic with him, but he didn't co-operate, but I can't blame him he was just a regular guy out on the town. I seem to have met/seen a lot of comic book actors in the past:Mark Ruffalo (Hulk in the Avengers), Gwenyth Paltrow (Pepper Potts in Iron Man and The Avengers), Colin Ferrell (Bullseye from Daredevil) and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine in the X-men movies) Ironically I have never actually read one of the comics, but come across as a total comic book nerd having seen a lot of the movies ;O) . I digress, the play itself didn't hold my attention, that fact that I was up since 4 am had absolutely nothing to do with my dozing off at all really. An expensive nap to say the least. *hangs head in shame* The stage door was great though even if they were only signing playbills, mine was signed by all of the cast. They were super polite about not signing X-men/LOTR stuff too. Ian posed for a pic with me, he was sweet. Here's a pic of my playbill (The Canadian in me feels so wrong typing that it's programme!) and one of me and Ian McKellan, a pic of Billy Crudup and Patrick Stewart.

On the way back to the hotel we checked out the stores that were open late in Times Square. I totally wanted to ride the ferris wheel in the Toys'R'us but it wasn't running. Each car had it's own theme Barbie, My Little Pony etc. Here's a pic and that was day one.

 

Day two was not as eventful and a lot shorter, because our bus left at 6:40, and by this point my feet were killing me because I decided to just pack a pair of high heel boots  that I thought were broken in enough. We were out of the hotel asap, and had breakfast at this cute cafe, again calories were posted. We also stopped by the Cake Boss Cafe too and had a cannoli. For those who don't know Cake Boss is a reality show on TLC where this Bakery out of Hoboken, New Jersey makes amazing inventive cakes. Here's a pic of me and the cafe along with the pastry

We made our way up Fifth Avenue and Rockefeller Centre. Being the tourists we are we took a pic in front of the big tree. Of course we had to stop at the Nintendo store around the corner. Afterwards we went to Dylan's Candy Bar. This store is owned by designer Ralph Lauren's daughter Dylan. They have mini chocolate bars, with your name on it, but I couldn't find my name, they didn't even have my mom's name Cynthia or any variation, rather surprising.  It is three floors of candy, N. was disappointed by the selection of sugar-free candy, as we know a lot of diabetics. The store was also featured on Project Runway for an unconventional challenge where they had to make couture out of candy. Here's a pic of the storefront.

 

Next stop was the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side. There was a Marc Chagall exhibit on that I was excited to see. While living in Europe 9 years ago I became quite an art aficionado. I found the paintings very dark especially compared to the ceiling he did of the Opera Garnier in Paris. That was my first introduction to Chagall's work. I thought he was French, but he was actually a Russian Jew. A bit of trivia his paintings about the pogrom of Russian Jews inspired the title of the musical "Fiddler on the Roof. " The museum also had an exhibition on Art Spiegelman who basically invented the graphic novel with his work Maus. It was okay, we had other things we wanted to do so we didn't see the whole museum.

 It was almost a theme day when we went to Katz's deli in the East Villiage.I say it is a theme because it is a Jewish deli. Katz's just happens to be where the famous faking scene from the movie  When Harry Met Sally was filmed. They operate on a ticket system which you are handed when you walk in, they write down everything you have on it, and you need it to leave. Let me tell you although expensive the pastrami on rye was orgasmic (As was the cheesecake)

 

When planning our trip I had finally worn N. down and he had agreed to go to the Life Cafe for breakfast (I really wanted huevos rancheros). When I went to look up their hours of operation to my horror I discovered that it had closed in 2012 :o( At least I got the chance to have them once before it closed.( I have the geeky pic from my last trip to prove it) Walking around the East Village was nice, even though each step was painful. N. though it was the heart and soul of the city. After that we made our way to Macy's to see the store windows then to the bus. The store windows were cool and it was neat the people could interact  with them. Here's a pic

The bus was late getting there. The ride back was a lot better, less packed so we had four seats all to ourselves and a table, with no loud people around us.  There was a long wait at customs because these passengers on a previous bus had 20 bags among three people, and every bag was being thoroughly inspected.  The bus driver was pretty nice to us though he dropped us of at Union Station instead of Bay and Dundas, so it was easier for us to get home. Overall it was whirlwind trip, but a lot of fun. My cats were definitely happy to see me, they'd never been left that long before.

Taking on big responsibilty behind the seams

The New York blog is coming I promise! First I have some exciting news to share. For the past 5 or 6 years I have been involved with local theatre groups, first with just front of house stuff ushering etc. In the past couple years, I have gotten more involved with the production side of things working with costumes. I have previously blogged about my various hallowe'en costumes over the past few years and how that connects with my love of theatre so this shouldn't come as a surprise.

During the course of my time assisting on 6 different shows I have altered  a $600 shirt (among other various alterations), made puppets (Both amphibian and human), built corsets, skirts, pants, Disney inspired Princess dresses, sewed buttons and trim, built an octopus costume from a vintage coat to name a few projects. I plan to one day have a blog relating some of my successes and failures, some of my more interesting stories from behind the seams. A couple of times I have been credited as a costume assistant. I had my own little bio in programme of the last show I worked on. I have taken a bit of a break because it can be intense working on a show, even with out all of the responsibility on your shoulders especially when there are 200 costumes required.

I have wanted to work on this one show since last spring. I have the broadway soundtrack and saw it a few years ago. I figured it would be a good show to cut my teeth on for designing a show on my own, because it is a small cast of 9 and only takes place over a single day with very little costume changes. Believe it or not that makes a HUGE difference, for example if you have a cast of 20 and the play takes place over the course of 3 days that instantly triples your costume count to 60, a different outfit for each day etc, plus whatever else might be required.

Last week when I saw that auditions were being held for the show I emailed the director expressing my interest in doing costumes and she put me in touch with the producer. (I had worked with the director before when she was an actress in the last show) I didn't hear anything back for a few days after I replied to an initial email saying they would like to meet and discuss things. Yesterday I got an email asking if I could meet them this morning, of course I said YES (but avoiding saying with bells on).

Today I arrived with a headful of ideas as having sketches would be a little presumptuous. I left being welcomed aboard with a script in my hand. The director is really cool she is visual and wants a lot of input from me, which is nice, it sounds like I will have a lot of creative freedom. The seat could even be influenced by my colour palette! This is such a big responsibility, that I am both excited and scared about! *Deep calming breath* I  hope I do it justice. I am just a self-taught sewer with a love of theatre, fashion and clothing, but I have learned a lot in the past couple years.  I am just really honoured and grateful that I have been entrusted with this and I've got this opportunity. This is my chance to shine and to prove to myself and everyone that I can do this! I will have my Tim Gunn moment and make it work!

A new year and a whole new world!

Hello 2014 hope it is finding my readers well, and that Santa was good to you! This year has been interesting thus far and started off with a bang. On January 2nd I damaged the grill and licence plate holder of my car, that is a $218 mistake, it will be fixed tomorrow. Stupidly I wasn't paying as much attention as I should and didn't break in time, insurance isn't involved, but I am okay which is the main thing.

I still owe a blog post from my December trip to New York City, but for now we'll focus on the first show I have seen of 2014. Yesterday I went to see the musical adaptation of Disney's Aladdin. This will probably come as a shock, especially because I am a HUGE Disney fan, but I have never actually seen a Disney musical  before (No Lion King, Beauty and the Beast or Mary Poppins, nothing, even though they have all played in Toronto within the last few years) I think I have been hesitant, because I tend to be purist, and I know they tend to change stuff, the movies are masterpieces and if it's not broke, don't fix it.

I think it was the chance to see Aladdin, before Broadway audiences that really pushed me to see it before it leaves (Today is actually the last performance). When I was in NYC I saw the theatre marquis of where it is transferring to. I was curious to see what they would do with the Genie and how they would do the magic carpet for the number A Whole New World.

My first mistake was deciding to go to a matinee, because there were a lot of children. The kids were tearing up and down the aisle loudly during intermission and one child had to be taken out because they were bawling loudly. I was way up in the mezzanine and the little girl two rows ahead of me kept on moving around during the first act blocking my view. Grrr. I also had to bitch out of the usher's because she was letting people go back to their seats in the middle of a musical number a big no no. Everyone knows you have to wait until after the song or during a scene change, because it disrupts the other patrons. I have to admit, one of my most unpleasant theatre going experiences EVER. On to the show: minor spoilers ahead.

Parts of the show were great. I absolutely loved the sets, they were beautiful especially the palace sets and the costumes sparkled all the way in the back row.  I don't know why all the reviews seem to skewered the sets, especially with the cave of wonder's scene, when Aladdin becomes trapped.  I wasn't even put off by the fact that the part of Abu the monkey was cut out and replaced by three friends of Aladdin, and that Iago the parrot was just human henchman of Jafar's.  Or even that they cut out the subplot of having Jafar conspiring to marry Jasmine so he can be Sultan. I think enough of the original story remained, a lot of lines were taken verbatim.

One of the highlights for me was seeing Jonathan Freeman play Jafar, he actually voiced him in the original movie! How cool is that? I didn't stage door after though. I loved Adam Jacobs who played Aladdin, he came across as sweet and charming and had a great voice. Vocally I found the casting of Courtney Reed as Princess Jasmine questionable, her acting was fine. I think she really only had three big numbers in the whole show and I found her really weak during the show's iconic number A Whole New World. (Weak to the point where I was wincing) Sadly the majesty of that song's staging wasn't enough to distract me from her singing. I loved the starlit background and the carpet that really did seam to fly through the air as the ensemble danced around almost invisible with glowing planets.

I don't know what I am missing, but everyone is apparently loving the James Munroe Iglehart portrayal of the Genie. Granted Robin William's left some big shoes to fill, and it isn't Iglehart's fault. I blame the book writers for taking the character in a different direction at the risk of sounding racist more black then Jewish. I found him over the top. I didn't like the way they had him break the fourth wall and sing snippets of the composers other works from Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, it takes me out of the story and typically that is not what you want for your audience.

Overall the show was okay, I don't regret going. It makes me glad I didn't go see my favourite Disney movie show of all time The Little Mermaid when it was on Broadway, if this is what I can expect from the adaptations. I will stick to the original going forward, but I might make an exception for The Lion King when it is back in Toronto later this summer.