In which Broadway comes to Elgin tonight and tomorrow
BroadwayNight! will be presented on Friday, July 10 and Saturday, July 11 at 8:00 PM.A variety of singers, including Solange Sior (Elgin), Susan Dennis (Bartlett), Robert Jastrebski (Arlington Heights), Charles Martin (Elk Grove Village), Valerie Meachum (Elgin), Kimberly & Brittany Albrecht (Barrington), Jori Jennings (Chicago), Kendra Wieneke (Barrington), Lindon Warren (Round Lake Beach), Marianna Adaire (Evanston), Nicole Teram (Chicago), Tatiana Ranallo (Gilberts) , Annamarie Schutt (South Elgin), and Gabriella Stocksdale (Elgin) will perform excerpts from Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Porgy & Bess, The Sound of Music, Annie, Show Boat, South Pacific, Songs for a New World, and The Light in the Piazza, and music by Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Kurt Weill.
All Events and Performances will be held at the Kimball Street Theatre, located on the first level of the new Rider Center, on the Campus of Elgin Academy, 261 Dundee Avenue, Elgin, IL 60120.(Visit our website at www.elginopera.org for map and directions.) Tickets are $18 for Adults and $15 for Seniors and Students.Discounted prices for members of the Elgin OPERA Guild.
In which our Diva is holding breath and keeping fingers crossed
Posting on the fly. If I stop and think about how much I have going on through the rest of this summer, it's enough to make my head spin! So I'm just being in one place at a time and loving it. (And not thinking too much about how my house looks kinda like we were raised by wolves.)
There are a million things I want to post about right now, and no time to put them into words! Remember, if you ever want to know where and when you can see me performing live, check the events calendar on my website.
Song for today: "The Beauty Is" from The Light in the Piazza, which I get to sing in this weekend's program. I love Clara's sense of wonder and adventure, finding commonality with a foreign place and people. I hope I always remember how to approach the world that way.
In which our Diva climbs aboard yet another electronic bandwagon
The nifty little widget you see above is generated by IndieGoGo, a site where independent filmmakers can promote and get grass-roots support for their projects. This particular one leads to the page for One Night, the project I start shooting next week as Sheila the waitress.
If for some reason you don't see the nifty little widget above (I know not all browser settings are created equal, even if a lot of designers these days don't seem to!), click here and support independent film!
For six weeks this summer, from the end of July to the beginning of September, I will be a regular cast member on a TV series. It's a sitcom (title TBA), created by a grad student for Frequency TV, the on-campus and online station run by the TV department at Columbia College. And even though it's only six episodes, and isn't a multi-million-dollar production with a network pickup, I'm ridiculously excited.
There's a very simple reason for that: I love TV. It seems like a weird thing for an actor to say, but it's true. As an audience member, I love television more than I love movies, and... well, differently from the way I love theatre. Inside -- and not too far from the surface -- I'm still the little kid who lived through every week in delicious anticipation of what would happen next to Jaime Sommers or Wonder Woman or the Doctor and his companion. Heck, when the BBC revived Doctor Who in 2005, that little kid was right there on the surface.
A handful of times in my life, I've been so impressed/energized/inspired by an actor's performance that I had to tell them so in an actual ink-on-paper fan letter. Almost all of those actors were on TV series, adding new pieces every week to characters who grabbed me for one reason or another. At any given time, there are three or four series running that I will not miss. At the top of that list right now is In Plain Sight. It's an exception for me -- the number-one slot is almost always occupied by a sci-fi or fantasy show -- but Mary Shannon is a heroine tailor-made to hook me in, with a heart of gold, will of iron, tongue of snark, and a full subscription of thorny personal issues. If someone asked me the old-standby interview question about my dream role, that would be it: A character like Mary, or Vicki Nelson, or Sam Carter, or Sara Pezzini.
And while the quirky office manager on a six-week sitcom might not seem to have much in common with those world-saving ladies, it's my chance to taste the creative side of a mode of storytelling dear to my heart. To live with a character over time, in a story that keeps going.
All of which is my very wordy way of saying "Wheeeeeee!"
Happy Fathers' Day to the wonderful man who taught me to fix stuff in the process of teaching himself, opened doorways of books and TV and movies to worlds of amazing imagination (and delightful cheese), answered questions with "look it up," and laughed and loved and always believed in me.
For him and all the dads out there, have a fantastic day!!
In which our Diva is getting her ducks in a row (as soon as they stop swimming on her lawn)
Hey, what's that shiny round thing in the sky? *g* I was joking on Facebook yesterday about building an ark, and an old college friend pointed out that God promised never again to make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights, but nobody said anything about 39. Thankfully, it was only about five. And the thunderstorms yesterday were spectacular! There's just something about them that always makes me happy.
Plenty going on, but mostly continuations of stuff I've already blogged about. Tonight is my maiden voyage as a "Ghost Host" for Historic Ghost Tours of Naperville, and I've been stuffing my head with the facts and fancy of the town's hauntings. Still need to shop for good sturdy summer walking shoes -- really don't have anything right now that will take me through the season.
Earlier in the week I updated the photo gallery on my website, including blast-from-the-past theatre pics and stills from recent film projects. I've been meaning to scan some old photos, both professional and personal, for ages and ages, and it was fun to finally get around to it. Of the theatre ones, I think my favorite has to be the Witches goofing off in the dressing room before a performance of Macbeth at Rosebriar Shakespeare Company in 1994. Good times, man. The headshots I added are still in the proof stage, but I'll have my shiny new marketing materials in hand in the next couple weeks, and then it'll be time to get some more agent mailings out.
We've now had a table read and some great discussion for One Night, and I'm grooving on the way Sebastian, the writer/director, thinks and works. There are plans in the works for at least one actual rehearsal of my scene before we shoot in July, which marks the second time I've had that luxury with a film. (The first was The Storm, which really couldn't have done without it since so much of the interaction was nonverbal.) He's also keeping the actors filled in on the business plan for his production company, which I've never run into before, and which really makes me feel like I'm getting in on the ground floor of something special that could really go somewhere. I know there are no guarantees, but for now, there's a great energy in that. Giving life to Sheila the waitress is that much more awesome when I can feel how excited everyone is about this project and where it could go.
Meanwhile, on the singing end, things are coming together for Elgin Opera's Summer Music Festival, which promises to be a great time. It's an ambitious undertaking -- a different concert each weekend throughout July -- and it comes hard on the heels of the annual voice competition (which I decided not to do this year after all -- too much stuff going on, and still transitioning into bigger lyric soprano rep, so I just wasn't going to be ready). I'll be checking out the finals next weekend with an ear on the musical theatre numbers, to help plan the Broadway Night program. The website and Facebook page will be updated soon with more details on the July concerts and master classes.
Oh, one more thing: I won't be performing at this year's World of Faeries festival, but I did promise I'd ask around. It's a fun time, and I still say my best review to date was the small child last year who declared that "some of them are just pretending, but the purple fairy is real!" They're looking to cast a couple dozen interactive performers, so if you're in the Chicago area and think you might be interested, drop me a line and I'll get you in touch with the guy you need to talk to.
The first subject line I typed up there was "Holding pattern," but then I realized that was silly, because things are still moving and growing every day. I think maybe I'm just so used to the pace now that even a slight pause feels like a thudding halt, like I'm slacking off. F'rinstance, an evening off to finish reading the shiny new book I drove to Toronto last weekend to have signed by a longtime favorite author. (And spend a few hours hanging out in the friendliest of bookstores -- seriously, if you're on Queen West and you read SF/fantasy at all, BakkaPhoenix is an absolute MUST -- gabbing with a gaggle of fellow fans/friends, munching on strawberries and cookies, and generally having a fabulous geeky time.)
Fabulous fun book. Will make you crave pie. Consider yourself warned.
Auditions all over the map this week: Student films, musical theatre, and storyteller/guide for haunted walking tours. One of these things is not like the others, I know. But hey, not going to turn my nose up at a paid gig that's also a bit of exercise and good spooky fun. Which is good, since I got the call today, so that'll be where you find me at least an evening or two a week through October.
And whaddya know, there's a video about it on YouTube, hosted by none other than my friend Mary!
I've got myself pretty well trained at this point to think of the audition as a performance in itself -- best way I've found to be done with it and not dwell on whether they're going to call me, what they were looking for, etc. I have to confess, though, I'm still thinking about the one last night for Man of La Mancha. Not second-guessing myself -- they're looking for what they're looking for, they'll know it when they see it, and I'm that or I'm not, so I give my best and that's it -- but definitely hoping to hear back. I love that show so much, and I like everything I've heard about this company. Promises to be a nice long run, too -- their current production of Evita has even been extended.
The cure for that is, of course, to keep the brain occupied with other things. Going to curl up and finish that book in a few minutes here. And in the next day or two, I should have the updated script for the film I'll be shooting in July, so I can prep for rehearsal on Sunday.
What film is that, you say? Yeah, I know, bad blogger, no cookie. It's an indie feature called One Night, of the genre that I call "postmodern romantic comedy," for lack of a better/standardized label (or at least I've never heard one) for films like Chasing Amy or Garden State. I originally read for one of the leads, and wasn't really holding my breath that anything would come of it, so I was delighted when they contacted me to offer a different character that's going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait to meet the rest of the cast Sunday and start building!
In which our Diva has photographic evidence of her stint as Creepy Mystery Woman
Check out this nifty set of behind-the-scenes photos from the set of The Storm, the HD short I filmed in April. Taken by Nate, the action man, who taught me to slap a clip in a (prop) handgun without looking.
Even more excited about this one now... Can't wait to see it!
In which our Diva endeavors once again to kick-start a long-dormant project
Those of you following me on Twitter may have noticed some cryptic comments the last couple days about "Lizzie," and wondered what the heck I was on about. Or possibly you didn't care, which is also perfectly fine. (The cryptic thing is one of the reasons I've finally caved and climbed aboard yet another electronic bandwagon -- 140-character-or-less nibbles of people's lives are astonishingly addictive, and I'm finding the more opaque ones to be the most compelling. But I'm weird like that.)
In any case, it all started with this self-portrait of Elizabeth Siddal, when I first saw it about 20 years ago (eeep!) in the now out-of-print Pre-Raphaelite Women by Jan Marsh. I vividly remember flipping through it in the bookstore and stopping dead to stare at this image for what seemed like minutes. I instantly wanted to know who this woman was, and how she could possibly be the same person painted by William Holman Hunt, or Dante Gabriel Rossetti, or most famously by John Everett Millais. I've read everything I could get my hands on about her ever since, and a few years ago hatched the crazy idea of developing a one-woman show about her.
There are certain images crystal-clear in my head, threads the notion hangs by when I hit a writing wall and think I can't do this... but I want to put these images on stage! With all the crazy-busy of the last year or so, with my career suddenly growing in different directions, I haven't even been doing the little dribs and drabs of work on it that I had been. Now something's gone *sproing* and I'm getting back to it. Not much concrete yet, maybe, but a shift in my way of thinking that makes me realize some of the things that have been stopping me are really irrelevant to this project.
See, I want to get her "right." And I didn't realize how much I hadn't let go of the notion that it needs to be factually accurate. I'll let the scholars duke that one out, as they have for over a century. This is a work of theatre, and it needs to be the Lizzie that's right for how her work and her words and others' images of her and words about her come together and come down to me.
It doesn't matter whether her death by laudanum overdose was accident or suicide. It matters whether she wanted to die. (Do I know the answer to that? Not yet, but now I think I'm asking the right question.)
It doesn't matter what the actual clinical diagnosis of her chronic ailments might have been. It matters that she was an intensely creative person who persistently lacked the strength to create. (I can barely imagine the frustration of that, but have several dear friends who live it every day.)
I don't have this trouble when it's just about acting. I'll research a historical figure in as much depth as I possibly can, mostly because it's an excuse to research. (Seriously, my ideal day job is dramaturgy. Too bad there's even less call for that on a full-time basis than for acting!) I've posted here before about that process when I played Lucy Hale. And I read more about Catherine de Valois than anyone would think I possibly needed to know just to play Princess Katherine, with her broken English and her whole adult life ahead of her. But surely even that girl, listening bewilderedly to Harry's clumsy so-called wooing, must have something in her of the woman who would outlive him and remarry to become the mother of the tempestuous Tudor dynasty!
But I've always started with Doug Hoehn's Lucy, Shakespeare's Katherine, William Gibson's Anne Hathaway. They gave me the words, and I made them my own. This time, the words are mine.
I knew that was harder than it looked, but damn.
Here's to keeping momentum going this time! Let's see where it takes me...
None of my lines, but you can spot me just past the halfway point, munching away on a "Road Kill Burger." (It's the bright sunny shot with no blood. *g* As opposed to the most of the rest of the video.)
Check it out on MySpace!
Hopefully you can't tell I'm freezing my tushie off in that cute little rayon dress!
Once again, I find myself with several friends' shows I really want to see nearing the end of their runs. Gotta figure out how to slide them in around auditions, singing, and other friends' weddings... n.u.f.a.n. ensemble's world premiere of Caliban, Dancing reunites Mary Czerwinski and Adam Krause (our Mina and Jonathan in GreenMan's Dracula) in a story of relationships woven around two of my favorite things, ballet (Giselle, even, my all-time favorite!) and Shakespeare. I didn't even realize until just now that it's directed by Jim Heatherly, whom I'll love forever for seeing Jekyll & Hyde the same way I do, and undoing some of the tweaks that should never have happened between out-of-town and Broadway. And, just for the home run, it's running at Chicago Actors Studio, where I train when I can commit to the consecutive weeks of a session.
Caliban, Dancing runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 3 pm, through May 24.
It's not exaggerating to say that Babes With Blades are one of the reasons I moved to Chicago, and working with them in Horror Academy was every bit a dream come true. The stars weren't aligned for a repeat with their current all-female production of Macbeth, but I'm determined to be there in the audience. The Babes are deservedly getting ever-increasing notice for bringing the dramatic goods, and still delivering the action that made their reputation. This show also sees them in partnership with The Viola Project, a fantastic workshop program building girls into powerful women through the vehicle of Shakespeare. (Of which one of the cofounders is a dear friend of an old friend from Columbus. I love this town!)
Macbeth runs Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 3 pm, through May 30.
Last but far from least, WildClaw Theatre is getting raves all over the place for their Midwest premiere of The Revenants. Their tagline, "A relationship drama -- with zombies" pretty much says it all. Aaron Christensen (or, as he's known in Chicago horror-fan circles, Dr. AC) served as fight choreographer on this one, and he and his WildClaw colleagues are at the forefront of what seems to be a burgeoning horror theatre scene. It's smart stuff (last fall's stage adaptation of Lovecraft's The Dreams in the Witch House was not to be missed), and if the momentum keeps up, it'll be right up there in visibility with the physical theatre that's exploded in the last few years (at companies like the House and Lookingglass). Chicago has great improv, but there's a LOT of other stuff going on here! Did I mention that I love this town?
The Revenants runs Thursdays - Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm, through May 24.
Seems like we're steadily getting more feature production in Chicago, and Michigan is really hopping. Those tax credits are doing their job. Keep the work coming, filmmakers!
In which our Diva is singing for scholarships instead of her supper this week
Elgin Opera is partnering with Highland Christian Academy to raise Scholarship Funds for both organizations. Please come out for a wonderful evening of Opera, showcasing several vocalists and young students who have a love for singing.
When Sunday, May 17th, 6:30-9:00 PM
Where Highland Christian Academy 2250 W. Highland Ave. Elgin – 847-741-5530
Cost $5.00 per ticket, donations/offering accepted at the concert
Call For Tickets & Reservations 847-695-5014 (Elgin Opera) or 847-741-5530 (Highland)
Donations An offering plus a Silent-Live Auction will be a part of the evening (All Donations Tax Deductible)
Highland Christian Academy is the school under the umbrella of Highland Fellowship Church, where our resident tenor/Elvis impersonator (and my waltz partner in Fledermaus recently), Jeorge Holmes, is senior pastor. And if you read this blog at all, I don't need to explain Elgin Opera. We have a terrific program of opera and musical theatre favorites lined up -- hope to see you there!
I've been jonesing to do some Shakespeare again for a few years now. Stepping in for a weekend as the Widow in Taming of the Shrew last year really just whetted my appetite. So I was delighted when I read the sides for the callback I had last week -- not Shakespeare, but a pretty darn good pastiche, in perfectly respectable iambic pentameter with some nice wordplay. (Bonus: the callback was at North Lakeside Cultural Center, so I got to get in some nice Lake Michigan shoreline time in Berger Park on a gorgeous sunny day. I didn't grow up around water at all, and now I have a pretty little creek with a nice strip of woods a block and a half away, a gorgeous scenic river six blocks away, and a whole freshwater inland sea smack-dab against a lot of places I go. All of them just amazing.)
Yesterday I got (and this is going to sound odd, but it's not ironic or facetious at all) the best rejection email EVER from the director of that show. I love people like that -- he knows I'm a professional and I know the odds, that when you have three or more awesome actresses and two female roles something's gotta give, and that something is as likely to be me as anyone else, but he still took the time to write me a nice personal note and promise to keep me in mind for future projects and recommend me to other directors. It's such a simple thing to do, and shows so much class.
I didn't even have time to be disappointed (and I am, a little, but there's never time to wallow for long around here!), because not ten minutes later I got another email -- based on a recommendation from the Shrew director -- inviting me to audition for a really cool-sounding project that is Shakespeare, but with a very intriguing twist (on a play I've done no less than three times in various capacities). That'll be coming up in the next couple weeks, and I'm excited to learn more about it.
And then, this morning, an email from the director of last fall's Dracula, announcing auditions for the As You Like It he's directing this summer. With all this going on, it just might be that somehow, somewhere, I'm going to get to feed that jones soon!
Time to get the Titania "forgeries of jealousy" speech solidly back in my voice and body for auditions. I don't think I'll ever get tired of that one, and it blows my mind how often it gets cut to the bone in productions. All that amazing imagery, and most importantly of all the arc that tells you so much about her and about their relationship: Nature is going berserk, and it's all your fault... and there's this terrible thing, and this terrible thing, and it's your fault, your fault... our fault. "We are their parents and original." And then, of course, Oberon opens his big mouth and blows it, because fairies are contrary that way (kinda like humans -- funny, that!). But for that moment, there's honesty and taking responsibility and... just wow.
And GreenMan, the company where I did Dracula, is opening this fall with Pride and Prejudice. Talk about a solution to the "too many awesome actresses" problem! Of course, at this point even my much-younger-than-my-real-age playing range (which is a bit more elastic for stage, but still) is really too old for any of the Bennet girls except maybe Jane. And even according to my birth certificate I'm still too young for Mrs. Bennet and much too young for Lady Catherine. Caroline Bingley could be fun (especially if I float the idea of the Lost in Austen subtext, which I still say explains an awful lot about her). Charlotte... hmm. Maybe. Perhaps not coincidentally, GreenMan's season wrap-up party is tonight, so I'll be able to get the skinny on it and the rest of the upcoming season there. I had such a great time in Dracula, and I'd love to work with them again.
In which our Diva had a marvelously operatic weekend
Die Flederflöte... okay, "Love & Fairy Tales" had three smashingly successful performances, plus one delightful school matinee of our abridged version of The Magic Flute, all capped off with singing for a wonderful crowd at Villa Verone, most of them fresh from either our Sunday matinee or the Elgin Symphony's Bernstein concert.
Even the surprise insertion of "This Place Is Mine" into the zany midst of our standalone adaption of Act 2 of Die Fledermaus went over well. I can say now that I was a little worried about it -- what were they going to think of me randomly busting out this crazy opera-parody number from the Maury Yeston version of Phantom? Sure, it was a big hit at the Halloween benefit, but that's one thing and shoehorning it into a full-fledged stage production quite another. Luckily, Lady Diva (sort of Solange's alter ego, dating back to one of the company's early semi-dramatized concerts -- that's the persona I'm sending up with this number) knows our audience, and I got enough compliments on it that my head might have swelled to fill up my big pile o' hair if I didn't watch it! (And it was a big pile o' hair, especially Sunday. Nothing beats good old-fashioned foam rollers.) As it turned out, it fit into the craziness just fine. Which I guess makes sense, because that Phantom is a very champagne-operetta score anyway.
My aria will most likely be "Senza mamma" from Suor Angelica. I'm so happy that my voice has shaped up in the last couple years to be suited to Puccini, because he just makes sense to me, musically and dramatically. Sometimes I wonder if it has anything to do with growing up on Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard/read someone comparing him to Puccini (or just flat-out accusing him of ripping Puccini off), and I can hear where they're coming from. They appeal to me as a singer for a lot of the same reasons. One of those is one of my primary challenges with "Senza mamma" -- tempi and dynamics and such are constantly in flux, but you can't just randomly speed up and slow down or get louder and softer or whatever. To some extent it's marked on the score, but there's a lot of it that just has to feel right. (Try that after weeks of Mozart!) I have that sense internalized almost to the point of instinct for musical theatre, and especially for certain composers (ALW, Frank Wildhorn, Stephen Schwartz), but I'm still developing it for opera.
Also, floating that pianissimo high A at the end is kicking my ass.
In which our Diva did say she probably wouldn't blog again before opening night
There's at least one moment at every rehearsal where I'm just struck by the fantastic performers I get to work with in this show. A few of them have material online to show you what I mean...
Teppei Kono was our Belcore last year in L'Elisir d'Amore, and he's back with us as Papageno in The Magic Flute and Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus. If I had to name only one person I know who should be a star, this guy is it. Gorgeous voice and superb actor, all in one easygoing and totally professional package. He has some audio and video clips on his website, and for a change of pace, I ran across this clip on YouTube of a classic song from the Philippines:
Solange Sior, our beloved Artistic-Director-of-Many-Hats (and my voice teacher) loves to tell how, when Paula Mrazek joined the Opera Training Ensemble, she was bowled over by this gorgeous mezzo voice coming out of the group, and had to all but force its uncertain owner to take on solos. That was then, this is now, as I'm sure you'll agree when you see her Prince Orlofsky. She's no slouch with musical theatre either, as she demonstrated at our fundraising dinner last Halloween (the song starts just before the two-minute mark):
If you come by Villa Verone for our Sunday evening cabaret performances, you might be treated to a tableside serenade by Jeorge Holmes, who likes to take arias like "La donna e mobile" and "Che gelida manina" on walkabout through the dining room. On other occasions, you might catch one of his solo programs, featuring his best selections from Elvis and Sinatra alongside all that Italian. And while most of us have day jobs to work around, he has just a bit more than that as pastor of Highland Fellowship Church. I couldn't ask for a better waltz partner.
And that's just the tip of the talent iceberg. Solange is never anything but amazing, and her Rosalinda is no exception. Paul Scavone has comedy chops to spare as Eisenstein. Susan Dennis' Adele is adorable. Matthew and Heather Giebel are the loveliest of young lovers in Flute, and Kristin Johnson is an exquisitely scary (scarily exquisite?) Queen of the Night. And Katherine Dalin is wearing more than a few hats herself, keeping the office running, stage-directing Flute, and turning in a darling Papagena.
Love & Fairy Talesruns this weekend only, May 1-3, bringing you close to the story on three sides in the black-box space at the Rider Center, on the campus of Elgin Academy. Don't miss it!
Whew! I can't believe it's only a few days to tech week! Rehearsals are a blast, but busybusybusy, so this will probably be the last moment I grab to blog before Die Zaubermaus... er, Love & Fairy Tales opens May 1. We're doing a school matinee of just the Magic Flute half that day too, which I'm equally excited about. Almost like doing children's theatre again! Which most people seem to think of as one of those things you have to live through on the way to being a Real Actor, but I've always loved it as its own thing.
At this point, I have the show music running through my head constantly -- good thing I like it! Oh, and the "champagne toast" from the Fledermaus finale keeps segueing somehow into "The Night They Invented Champagne" from Gigi. Which, y'know, how can you go wrong with Leslie Caron? She was my number one idol for a while there when I was about eleven, and I still love her to bits. So elegant and whimsical all at the same time.
But I think I'm gonna want some rock 'n' roll when this thing is done. *g*
I have decided that "Love & Fairy Tales" is an okay name, but we should have called it Die Flederflöte. Or Die Zaubermaus.
Watch: Harper's Island, premiering tonight at 10 Eastern on CBS in the US and Global in Canada. I started out looking forward to it because it means Gina Holden on my TV, and she blogged a bit about it during filming. Now I'm looking forward to it because it looks really nifty in general, and in particular because I love that a major US network is experimenting with the British model of telling a full-season story with a definite end.
Read: The "Hollows" series by Kim Harrison, starting with Dead Witch Walking. We're up to our eyebrows in kickass urban fantasy heroines these days -- not that you'll catch me complaining! -- but Rachel Morgan is easily my favorite (at least of those whose authors haven't moved on to other worlds). I have a thing for protagonists who really really really want to do the right thing, but who need to be grabbed and firmly shaken on a fairly regular basis. Rachel is definitely that, and Harrison's universe is a seriously nifty place to tell stories in.
Listen: The Secret Garden. Still the most shimmeringly gorgeous score ever composed for Broadway, with an amazing cast including Mandy Patinkin, Rebecca Luker, and (pre-Hedwig) John Cameron Mitchell.
Eat: Southwestern BBQ Chicken Salad from Portillo's. Yum!
There are a bunch of cynical comments on the YouTube page about its being an advertising stunt, as if that ruins it somehow. Let me get this straight: Some phone company decided to spend money on something really fun to witness. And the problem with this would be...?
In which Broadway comes to Elgin tonight and tomorrow
