A Little Rambling

If you've never seen Sports Night, this is Dana, right after she sees the Lion King for the first time (after going only very begrudgingly). That's about my reaction. (It is noteworthy that Isaac Jaffe, the producer she's talking to, is the original Rafiki in the Disney movie.) Phindile Mkhize was Rafiki, and definitely the highlight of the experience for me. I want to know how to sing like that without dying. (audio on that video is not particularly great, but oh well.) The costumes were incredible, too. Mom got us aisle seats, so when the Circle of Life started, I was brushed by an enormous elephant, and then wildebeests and some long, curly-horned singing rams. At the beginning of the 2nd act, the singers behind my shoulder scared me to death, as I didn't see them. It was GREAT! I've always loved the music of the Lion King, and hearing it live and with even more of the African traditions built in was breathtaking. There were two drummers up on the walls,...

Arrrrrgh it's that point in the semester again. The point where all those big projects are almost due, but not quite due, so motivation to get them done ahead of schedule is at a minimum. I work best months ahead of time or under the strenuous pressure of, "oh crap it's due tomorrow." However, I know that I like to savor my weekend days by lounging and munching and napping, not typing up projects, and so here I sit... ...clearly not making headway. Instead, I shall say that if you are in Tucson, or have the means to conveniently get to Tucson, you should go see UofA's production of "The Secret Garden." I drove down yesterday to see the understudy performance, and wow. If the understudies are all that good, the actual cast (overstudies?) must be great. I will staunchly defend my opinion that it probably can't be as good without Ryan as Archibald Craven, but I may or may not be a little bit biased. I had tears in my eyes for about half the sho...

If you remember back a few weeks, I told you about my friends and I enjoying a night spent reading Much Ado About Nothing aloud as a group. Well, last night, we decided to continue the Shakespearean tradition, alternating now to a tragedy - Hamlet . the group The set-up was a little more advanced. We still sat in a circle and had our ice cream, but in addition to the various hard copies of the play, the script was projected onto the wall for easier reading. There was also a stage, complete with photo backgrounds projected onto the wall for each scene. Despite the show not being, in it's nature, comedic, there was still riotous laughter through most of the evening. The accents continued being silly, there were costumes and swords, and a lot of impromptu singing. There may be video evidence to share with you at a later date. :) enter Drew as the leader of the players I have decided that, were I ever to have a little brother, I would want him to be like Drew's. When I arri...

Good morrow, dear reader! By my troth, yesternight were but little fun if I could say how much. I shall refrain from silence, though, as a lack of words maketh a poor blog. At the insistence of one Sir Real the Dreamy , those most ubiquitous knights I name my friends gathered for a reading of the Bard's Much Ado About Nothing . The reading was replete with extravagant accents, most notably a French messenger and various Russian personages. Upon the opening of each act, we drew names to determine our characters, and I was o'erjoyed to be both Benedick and Beatrice at some time or another. Whilst round the room we sat, noses buried in our books, bowls of ice cream melting in our midst, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. In faith, Much Ado is by far my favorite of Shakespeare's comedic plays, and to hear it thus read caused my heart much gladness. Marry, it is the source of several of my most loved quotations. I do but wish I could adequately emulate the grandiose style of...

I love fairy tales, and last night almost was one. I got to dress up pretty, be with my girlfriends, enjoy dinner and a show, and then go out dancing until the clock struck midnight. Well, 11 pm, but still. Bex and Chantel and I decided that, outnumbered as we are by boys in our particular group of friends, we needed a girls' night out. We put on our dresses and heels and wore flowers in our hair and drove out to the Broadway Palm dinner theatre in Mesa to see Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella . My voice teacher was in it, as were Ryan, a girl from Chantel's studio, and two guys I'd met at the sing-along mentioned in my previous blog . :) We enjoyed our dinner and getting to get caught up on each others' lives, talking and laughing and having good girly fun. The show was beautiful. The set was a rolling, folding, pivoting masterpiece of bright colors and storybook details. And the costumes - they were magnificent! Bright colors, tons of detail, some ...

Oh how I love summer vacation! The freedom to lounge around and soak up sunshine without a care in the world but not frying and not being late for a barbecue. It doesn't get better, does it? I've had such a fun week! I went to Big Surf with Jessica and lounged around in the wave pool and on the slides during the hours when very few people venture out to a water park. Delightful! I saw Marc and Mohamed perform in "The Music Man" at the MAC, which was way better than I was expecting. Afterward, we enjoyed deeeeelicious food at Old Chicago , along with copious amounts of laughter, as usual, and one particularly awkward moment. My bad. I took my first piano lesson in 7 years, and my first jazz lesson ever. I have a healthy new respect for my adult students now! But it was great fun, and I'm excited to continue. I had a girls night involving a ton of scrumptious junk food and lots of really bad 80's movies, redeemed by finishing the night with Dr. Horrible...

I'm into alliteration recently. Besides my own current penchant, however, if you continue reading there will be a little more explanation as to the abundance of E's in the title of this post. This whole weekend has been wonderful fun, which has kept me from blogging. As much as I would like to stick to the idea of blogging every day, real life is much more important than the internet facsimile, so I chose live interaction (and sleep). I had so much fun, though, that now the blog is going to run a little long just so I can share all my enjoyment with you! Luck you. Friday night I went and saw Judy: The Musical for two reasons. 1) my friend Rebecca was in the cast. 2) It was starring Paige O'Hara, the voice of Belle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Belle is far and away my favorite Disney princess, so I couldn't pass it up. (3 reasons - it counts for concert attendance credit!) It appears that time changes things, so we listened to the Beauty and the Beast s...