Halloweekend Day!

This week has been quite long, but culminated in the BEST HOLIDAY TO CELEBRATE IN NEW YORK. I love Halloween. For real.

To start at the beginning of the week:

On Tuesday, Nick and I saw Memphis, which is a new musical that recently opened. I thought it was really good. It takes place in Memphis, obvi, in the 1950s, and was written by David Bryan (of Bon Jovi fame). It tells the story of Huey Calhoun, the first DJ to play music by black artists on a major radio station. The choreography was brilliant and the songs were amazing. I was very emotionally attached to all the characters, even though the dialogue in between all the songs was slightly sparse. It was still marvelous. (First act better than the second however. Not by a lot, but all the conflict happened and resolved in the first act, and then there was a tiny bit of new conflict later. Which is bizarre, and made the show feel slightly lopsided.)

On Friday, the RAs of the 305 threw a smashin' Halloween party. I basically used this as an excuse to throw another Albion College Players Halloween party, haha. We ate candy and cupcakes, Single Ladies was played on repeat, costumes were judged and certificates were given (literally the exact same ones I printed last year for Players with the name changed) and most importantly...doughnuts on a string! It was a knee-slappin, rip-roarin' good time. Fun fact: Nick won Most Creative costume again. How does he do it???

And Saturday...Halloween!!! The day started off normally, with a whole lot of doin' nothin', but became chaotic at about 4:30 when we all realized we needed to eventually get into costume. For we were heading to the parade! Reference: http://halloween-nyc.com/. Anyone in costume is allowed to walk in the parade; unfortunately, my costume as Little Edie Beale was slightly unrecognizable (I looked vaguely Islamic which is slightly offensive and also just unnecessary).

Something else unfortunate: it was a perfect evening to sing Don't Rain On My Parade. It poured. Buckets. Sheets and sheets of rain came down and I was completely soaked and my feet hurt and it was very sad. But I was in the parade and that was super fun. There were some AMAZING costumes (my personal favorites: Jon and Kate + 8 and Legends of the Hidden Temple) and the floats were pretty cool. And it was mostly just a really fun experience to have.

Because Halloween in New York is crazy. Everyone dresses up. Everyone. There were people of all ages and all walks of life at this parade. I clearly did not get the memo that you are supposed to go all-out on your costume, because I basically dressed out of my closet. I was unaware that you are supposed to plan your costume for MONTHS and spend hundreds of dollars. Ooops.

All in all, I count it as a successful Halloween. Hopefully, next time I'm here it will not steadily rain throughout the festivities. Cross your fingers.

And today was a Two-Show-Day, which is my favorite kind. First we went to the matinee and closing performance of Brighton Beach Memoirs.

It was amazing. I'm scared of committing to this phrase but: I think it may be my favorite Broadway show. I literally cannot explain how amazing this show was. The entire cast was flawless, individually and as an ensemble. The relationships between the characters: brother to brother, father to son, mother to son, cousin to cousin - all perfect. The set was absolutely beautiful - they built a house onstage. Literally, a house.

The only complaint I have is one light cue. That's it.

It's completely devastating that it's closing after only nine performances. Stupid modern audiences don't want to see straight plays anymore and stupid tourists can really only be counted on to go see Big Broadway Musicals. So straight plays struggle and something not good like Finian's Rainbow can get rave reviews and survive while Brighton Beach Memoirs doesn't get enough ticket sales to continue.

Plus also I met Neil Simon. Who is the most adorable, grandfatherly man ever. And I idolize him, haha. Awkward moment in Kelly's Life: Neil Simon came out of the theater and Nick, Amanda and I had no idea who he was. We just kept asking, really loud, "Who on earth is that random man everyone is stampeding? Why would they want him to sign their Playbills?" And a man finally took pity on us and hissed, "That's Neil Simon." Haha, we were kind of awkward. But I basically love Neil (yeah, I call him Neil). I forget how fabulous his writing is, especially because it's the kind of writing that needs to be said aloud to get the timing and humor and everything. MARVELOUS.

And then we followed it by watching a performance of Still Life. Ummmm, if anyone ever asks you, "Would you rather watch Still Life or break your own collarbones with a crescent wrench?" you should think long and hard about that decision. Well, I exaggerate. But it wasn't good. And I am seriously in the minority when it comes to that opinion because everyone around us loved it. At one point during the show, I audibly said, "So unnecessary" and the guy behind me said, "So intense." Ummm, I beg to differ.

A few samples of the show's quality:
1. It was impossible to determine the character's names. Somehow they never really came up during the first act, which made it impossible to match a bio to an actor.
2. A few completely unnecessary dream sequences with the main character's dead father.
3. A throwback to a 5 Women Wearing the Same Dress moment, when one of the characters just pulled out a little bag of cocaine. For real???
4. The show managed to mix together a womanizing prick, a feminist argument, cancer, father issues, drugs, the downhill slope of the American culture and a huge relationship-betrayal and fear of commitment. SYSTEM OVERLOAD.

The saving grace of the whole Still Life experience? It was at the Lucille Lortel Theater, which is the one with all the stars of famous people outside. And that's just a good time.

Plan for tomorrow: seeing Aida at the Metropolitan Opera. Hooray!
Miss you all! Love, Kelly

Cultural Day!

Here's the thing: very little has happened in my life since I last updated, but Nick writes in his blog all the time and I have no idea how he does it.

So my new plan: chatter like a monkey until I have absolutely nothing left to say. And beat Nick. (With a stick as well as in Number-of-Legit-Blog-Entries.)

This weekend was semi-busy. Saturday morning was largely spent in an activity I like to call Waiting for Nick to Wake Up. Followed by a wonderful trip to The Met, which was AMAHZING.

The easiest way to describe The Met is GINORMOUS. Literally. You walk in, and there are rooms and rooms with little offshoots of rooms on either side of you, which have hallways to other rooms and it's this huge labyrinthine mess that is IMPOSSIBLE to navigate. (They have maps everywhere, but I cannot think spatially, and maps need to be oriented like the layout or I just can't figure it out. Ergo, useless maps.)

I always forget how much I like museums. I was just at the DIA this summer and I had already forgotton how much I like museums. Nick and I started in Greek and Roman art and it always shocks me that something manages to last for so long. Thousands and thousands of years, and sculpture is still intact (well, often sans nose. But hey).

Think about it for a second. Thousands of years. Wow. And the detail on sculpture is incredible. A woman's feet actually looked like feet. There was a bust of a head and the guy's lips were slightly parted and you could see the teeth. The detail was enough that you could see the tips of teeth inside his mouth! Wow.

We also got to see a special exhibit of Vermeer, which was amahzing as well. Vermeer painted Girl with a Pearl Earring. He's most noted for painting women and girls performing ordinary and daily tasks. I'm using this painting for my acting exercise in class on Tuesday: http://wahooart.com/A55A04/w.nsf/OPRA/BRUE-6WHL79/$File/G.jpg (Also, please note that this website is called Wahoo Art. That just sounds like a good time.)

We spent some time looking at Impressionists and saw some Rodin, Claudel, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Seurat (disappointing lack of that painting from Sunday in the Park with George--it's in Chicago and I'm slightly upset about it). We saw some artist self-portraits (think Andy Warhol) and some intriguing photos taken by a man who traveled around the US and photographed average Americans. There were some photos from the Detroit area, but none in places that I recognized.

Case in point: Nick and I probably saw less than half of The Met. Which is probably for the best, because he almost destroyed a painting (accidentally, he says, but I've heard him rant and rave about art and how much he hates it. You should hear him: "Artists! Pah! I'll show you art!" [At this point he makes an obscene gesture.] It's really quite insensitive of him.). But we'll go back and pay less money this time. Recommended prices, bee tea double you, are my new favorite things.

And then, after our day of immersing ourselves in culture and high class, we went home and watched a made-for-MTV movie called My Super Psycho Sweet 16, which is like the TV show except with a psycho killer and a lot more blood.

LEGIT.

And today was a whole lot of nothing followed by a spur of the moment venture to see if tickets for Mary Poppins were available. They were. We partook. And I really liked it. My fam did not enjoy when they saw it in Chi-town, but the cast was great and the choreography was so fun. And Mary Poppins flew! SO CLOSE TO US. I COULD HAVE REACHED OUT AND TOUCHED HER AND WE WERE IN THE FRONT ROW OF THE MEZZANINE. That's far away from the stage. She was flyin' like CRAZY.

Plus also the set was brilliant. Literally brilliant. It rotated and moved and went up and down and there were about 9873249817359187 screens in about a .000000003 foot space and it was designed with this crazy economy of space but attention to detail that literally blew my mind.

And Christian Borle (formerly married to Sutton Foster, which was the cutest Broadway couple ever before their divorce, which is just sad) tap-danced UPSIDE DOWN ON THE CEILING. So legit.

So I dunno what my crazy fam was thinkin', but I liked Mary Poppins.

And if anyone has any Halloween costume suggestions, I would love to hear them! Hooray!
Love, Kelly