Vote for Claire for Glee!!

One of my good friends sister Claire has auditioned for Glee. Please vote, just click on the link below

checked out Claire @Glee

Oh What a Night

For Christmas I gave my mom tickets to see "Jersey Boys" in Charlotte. You may be thinking that this was a little self-serving with my love for musicals and all, but she had always said she wanted to see the show and we had never seen it on Broadway.

It just so happened that The Wonderful World of Wicked was in the Northlake Mall, so I meet up with my parents in Charlotte and we set out to the mall. The Wicked set up included Galinda and Elphaba's costumes, a spot to take photos and a card to get stamped at various stores where you could get discounts and then drop off for a chance to win tickets. I'm not going to lie, it was really exciting, although I had seen most of the costumes from the Behind the Emerald Curtain tour.

After a fun trek around the mall, we headed back to chill out before going for dinner and then the show. I really love the Belk Auditorium. Whoever designed it actually understood how to design a theater where you can actually see from your seats (what an idea). I know a lot of the music from the show, but really had no expectations for it. The music and cast were infectious and I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Some of the audience members were annoying though. One woman proceeded to yell out during parts of the show, the woman beside my mom sang the show and the guy behind when (when his cell phone wasn't going off) was telling the people beside him what was going on (like we weren't all seeing the same thing). Sometimes I wonder if these people didn't come straight out of a barn!

If you are in the Charlotte area, I highly recommend you check out the shows and especially next season. The Blumenthal Broadway series will have "9to5," "Shrek," "Young Frankenstein," "White Christmas," "Billy Elliot," "In the Heights" and "Next to Normal." Amazing shows - go see them!

There's Always Magic in the Air...On Broadway

If you don't already know it, I LOVE Broadway. It's not just the shows, but its everything about them. I am fascinated by the whole process from the initial idea and writing the show to putting it on stage through workshops, and finally, hopefully, making it to the Great White Way (or West End). I especially love the marketing and advertising, but I'm a little bias!

Since my first trip to NYC in 2001, I have been more times than I can count and have seen shows that have changed my life. Although I have been to visit the city with some really cool people, I have never been on a trip entirely with Broadway lovers, which when you want to wait at the stage door and you can come up with a song lyric for any situation, non-Broadway lovers get a little over it.

So for this trip, we have been planning it since December (I know this because we booked on my birthday). Allison, Rachel and I were the original three going and about two weeks ago my friend Cole joined the trip too.

The dates for the trip were chosen based on seeing Sutton Foster in "Anyone Can Whistle" that was only showing for one weekend. It ended up that Raul Esparza and Donna Murphy were also in the show and were amazing. Murphy as the Mayoress stole the show! To cap off an amazing night, we got to meet all of them at the stage door, which is a real accomplishment because Foster doesn't always come out. It was, to say the least, an amazing night. For dinner before the show we meet up with some of Allison's friends at Vinyl, which had amazing food (I had fried chicken better than any you could find down south) and the theme was cool too. Each bathroom featured a different performer. There are three locations in the city, but ours featured Nelly, Elivis, Cher and Dolly Parton. So that was Friday, but let's go back.

We all arrived in the city Thursday. Cole and I got in the earliest and meet up at Laguardia (which is a feat in itself) and caught a cab to the hotel. Allison was next and Rachel was last because her flight got delayed. Rachel didn't make it for dinner, but the rest of us headed to Ruby Foos, which was a fun restaurant with Asian food served family style. Although our waiter didn't think it was enough food, the portions were huge and we had more than enough food with two entrees. Luckily with some help from Marques, Rachel made it from the airport in time to grab a quick bit to eat and meet up with us to see "American Idiot." The new musical features Spring Awakening's John Gallagher, Jr. and the music of Green Day. Although it wasn't my favorite for the story, it sort of lacked dialog, the stage, lighting and choreography was brilliant. It is a show unlike anything Broadway has ever seen before. After the show we got to see some of our Spring Awakening favorites, Marques and Alan.

Saturday was a double show day, seeing a matinee of "In the Heights" and the evening performance of "Promises, Promises." I have always had a grudge with "In the Heights." I first saw the show when I went to the Tonys in 2008 and everyone keep talking about how revolutionary it was, but I just didn't see it. It was a combination of "West Side Story" and set in NY like "Brooklyn the Musical" or something. So it has taken two years before I could bring myself to see it. The show was good, Corbin Bleu was playing the lead role of Usnavi and did a good job. Is it the best thing I have ever seen, not really.

The show that surprised me in how much I loved it was "Promises, Promises" starring Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth. It was funny, creative and really different from anything I had every seen. It is based on the Oscar-winning movie, "The Apartment" and is really worth seeing. To cap off a star-studded trip, we got to meet both Hayes and Chenoweth at the stage door.

While visiting the city I got to tour where I am going to be living this summer, which has an awesome location next to Macy's in Herald Square and has outings to see Broadway shows. What could be better than that?!?!

During our trip we did do other things that see shows. It is unfortunate that shows aren't at more diverse times of the day because we would have loved to see more! Macy's was having their annual Flower Show which featured more than a million flowers in their store. It was beautiful and smelled great as well. One night for dinner we went to Maxie's. I don't recommend it, the food was eatable at best and our table looked like a bad feast at the end. To hit the highlights, the breakfast food came with mashed potatoes, which had a peanut butter consistency and all came with bread, not toast, which was six pieces of cold white bread. And yes, there was jelly, but it tasted like grape children's benadryl. Another fun excursion was wondering around Central Park. I had been to the park, but it was to eat or just see it and had never really explored it. After a trip down memory lane on the swings we climbed one of the gigantic rocks and just had a fun time. It was a great ending to the trip.

Sadly Rachel was the first one who had to head back but Allison, Cole and I wondered down to Greenwich Village and walked up seeing some great sights of the city. All in all it was a spectacular trip and I can't wait to be in the city for the summer.

Better Late than Never

So I haven't blogged, in well, forever. Things have been super busy but exciting all at the same time. I can't believe that I am almost finished with my master's degree. It feels like I just started! Below is my attempt to catch up:

Aside from Broadway, seeing my Gamecocks play football is my favorite thing in the world. This year playing our rival, Clemson, the game started out rocky when they scored a touchdown in the first 30 seconds, but something happened and we turned the game around. I certainly wasn't expecting the game to end in our favor, and after what I had seen so far in the season it was shocking when the Gamecocks took the lead and held it! Ending 34-17, the Gamecocks won the game. My early post about Carolina Football talks about the game, but if you have never been to an SEC football game, you haven't been to a real football fame. Sandstorm is our theme song you could say and when it is played, the entire student section of 12,000 jumps and cheers, creating a one of a kind experience.

Football ending comes up right as classes are finishing up too. The holiday season seemed to fly by and we spent New Years in Vail. My friend Rachel joined us to ski and then graciously let me stay with her in Denver for a few days. I had never spent any time in Denver other than flying into it, but it is a great city. The art museum is one of the best I have been to in the World. There exhibit was Embrace! and 16 artists had been invited to choose any spot in the museum and do whatever they wanted. The result was some brilliant art that filled so many neat spots in their beautiful building. Rachel had to work, but I had no problem filling my time. Other spots I visited included the Margaret Brown house (Unsinkable Molly Brown from the Titanic) and the US Mint where they make coins.

It wasn't long before it was back to classes. This semester I have four classes: Integrated Combination Strategies, New Technology and Mass Comm., and independent study with the marketing director of the Department of Theatre and Dance and a magazine class where we write for the alumni magazine for the school, InterCom. The time I have left over from that is divided between working in the Office of the Provost and as a communications intern at the S.C. Arts Commission. I love working at the arts commission because everyone here loves the arts and so there is always someone to chat with about what is going on with arts in the world. Classes have be interesting this semester and we have had some neat projects that have put our skills to the test.

Also this semester I had to take my COMPs, which are two days of testing that have to be passes in order to graduate from the program. After arguing to be able to take both days in the same semester (you would have thought I wanted to fly to the moon), I was able to take both in March. Day 1 was five questions in five hours based on the five core courses of the program. To be honest, it was really boring. It was no test to what we had actually learned, but rather what could be memorized and typed out in the time allotted. Day two on the other hand was exciting. In the five hours we had to essentially write out an entire campaign including research, communications plan, goals and objectives, evaluations and provide a budget. This was much more fun and made the time fly by.

It was funny because I passed all of the day one except research, which means I have to make two or three additions to pass and got a passing score for day two. Surprisingly, there were a good many people out of the seven who took day two that didn't pass. It's a little shocking because it is a culmination of all we have been taught in all our classes and you only had to get an 80 or better to be allowed to continue to the oral defense. They made a big deal about me not having had my practicum, which I am doing this summer, yet the people who didn't pass were all in theirs. makes you wonder...