Hamilton

We've been in England since Sunday, and I owe you a post about the fun and foibles we've encountered, but right now, I have to write about Hamilton.
Before we even arrived in England, I had searched for tickets to Hamilton in London, thinking maybe it wouldn't be quite as popular as it was at home in New York and Chicago. Wrong.
Grace found tickets for us for nearly $400. That was too much. We planned to enter the daily lottery to see if we could get some cheap seats, but otherwise resigned ourselves to not seeing Hamilton.
But we did have tickets to see Wicked on Thursday evening.
After a nice hike with the dogs in the snow and piercing wind, we walked the mile to the train station and prepared for our 30-minute ride to London. Some trains had been cancelled that day and people kept talking about the bad weather. I understand that it's bad for England, but the temperature was in the 20s (Fahrenheit) and not even an inch of snow had fallen, so for Ohio, this wouldn't be bad.
Still...
It got me thinking. I didn't know if Hamilton had a matinee, but I suggested that when we got off at Victoria Station, we head over to Hamilton to see if the show had a matinee that day and if any tickets were available because of cancelled trains or people who didn't want to brave the weather.

I took this picture after the show, which is why it's getting dark. 

As we walked toward the marquee a little after 1 p.m., we saw some official theater people. One very jolly man stopped to explain to us how to get in line (queue) for the "returns." Returns are tickets that other people bring back to the theater and then the theater helps them sell the tickets for face value.
He sent us into the wind to wait by the security guard. There were 4 people waiting when we arrived. Apparently, the line is usually much longer.

The poor security guard, his eyes and nose were dripping as he stood in the cold. 

So Earl and I joined the line; I went to fetch us coffee. When I came back, two people had already gotten in to the show, and only two people remained in front of us, maybe a mother and daughter from Sweden. Behind us was an American woman who snagged a single ticket a few minutes later. As the clock ticked to 1:45, the ticket rep came out with a young man who had two tickets that were 79.50 pounds each. "Really, very good seats," the ticket rep said.
The Swedes in front of us decided that was too pricey and Earl snatched them up for us. That was a lot of money, but much less than the prices Grace had originally found. So we paid our cash and walked into the warm theater.
What did I know about Hamilton, other than the fact that everyone wanted to see it?
Well, I'd listened to the music with Grace. I knew some of the history, of course. And I knew that the roles were played by people of color, only King George III being played by a white man.
We had a glass of wine standing in the lobby before finding our seats in the "Dress Circle" section. Perfect.
I had chills the minute the show started, and tears pooled at the edge of my eyes, splashing over.
Why? Why did this show move me so much.
The music and the actors were inspiring. I loved seeing this struggle to create our country.
Here's a line from one of the songs that made me tear up:

"Look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now. History is happening..."
And here's a two-minute clip of the London show with the very same actors we saw performing.

So what made this show so emotional for me was seeing the actors, from all different cultures, portray our founding fathers and revolutionary fighters. I couldn't help but think how much stronger our own country would be if we had treated all people equally from the beginning.
The man who played George Washington really inspired me. We could have had a black George Washington  200 years ago if not for slavery and deciding that some people had more worth than others based on their skin color.
In the musical, again and again, they called Hamilton an immigrant. I imagine most people were immigrants in the late 1700s, but I got the point. Immigrants made our country stronger.
As Hamilton met the Marquis de Lafayette, along with the lesser-known revolutionaries John Laurens and Hercules Mulligan, the four of them bonded and sang a song about "The Story of Tonight," with the lyrics especially moving, "Raise your glass to the four of  us, tomorrow there'll be more of us..." And then, I pictured the students from Parkland High School, fighting like revolutionaries to be heard, fighting to stop the massacre of students in school. They started out with just a few and their cause is growing. You can find the song and lyrics on Youtube here.
Of course, the song "My Shot" inspired similar feelings as I watched the revolutionaries deciding to fight and at the end they implore, "Rise up! When you're living on your knees, you rise up. Tell you brother that he's gotta rise up. Tell you sister that she's gotta rise up"
All of it feels like it could be applied to today.
I wanted to rush back home to the States and jump into the risings that are going on now.



I wanted Hamilton to transport everyone of those Florida students to their audience to sing for them and inspire them. I wanted my children to watch the show and be galvanized to make a difference in the world.
If you have a chance, go to your favorite music app, or youtube and listen to some of the songs. It won't be the same as seeing the show, and no one can explain how basic and deep the feelings are that this show stirs up, but it's a start.
Drained from all the emotions of Hamilton, we stumbled out of the theater into the cold of London again. We didn't go far, just to a nearby brasserie called The Shakespeare across from Victoria Station to eat before we attended Wicked.
Poor Wicked.
It's a wonderful, inspiring musical, but it didn't stand a chance after Hamilton. I actually drifted off a few times during the song Gravity, which is the highlight at the end of the first act.
I found myself dismissively thinking about white people dancing and singing. But then I made myself listen.

Me and Earl in the cold in front of the theater. 

At the end of the musical the words pierced me, "Because I knew you, I have been changed for good."

My day on Thursday, definitely changed me for good, and for the better, too. 

Musical Spectacular

I had never seen Into the Woods, the Steven Sondheim musical. So last night I was thrilled to see it with Grace performing as Cinderella.
The first act entangles a bunch of fairytales. In addition to Cinderella, there's Rapunzel and Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood. They follow the Brother's Grimm version rather than the Disney-fied version, but at the end of the first act, everyone lives happily after. A neighbor of mine went to the show Friday night and left at intermission, thinking it was over.
After the intermission, the characters return,  and they aren't quite content with their happily ever after.
The show made me laugh a lot and I thought Grace did beautifully.
I hope to record one of her songs this afternoon and include it in the post.

Here is Grace with me and Earl after the show. 

She's All That

For adults, our lives are fairly predictable. We go to work, do all the household chores, occasionally indulge in hobbies or vacations. Life is not like that for my daughter Grace.
Grace is 21 and in January she decided not to go back to her college in New York (10 hours away). Instead, she took some classes locally and applied to other colleges. She'll be going about 20 minutes away from home in August for a theater/broadcast journalism major.
But she's not sitting home waiting for August. She'll be appearing in two shows this summer. In Les Miserables, she's a prostitute in the first act and a barricade girl in the second act. She was so thrilled to come home and tell me she was a whore!
The other show is Emma by Jane Austen, the musical. And Grace is Emma.
I know!
Promotional photos for Emma came out the other night and I was wowed. What do you think?

Here she is striking a fierce pose with Mr. Knightley 

All innocence

Each time I choose one as my favorite, I look again and prefer another one. 

Slightly mischievous

What do you think?Which do you like best?
 I can't wait for the show.

Three Musketeers - A brief clip

The whole family went to see The Three Musketeers yesterday since it was the final performance. Tucker brought along his girlfriend and Spencer barely fit into the seat, his knees jamming against the wooden seat in front of him. But neither of them were prepared for how uncomfortable the play was going to make them.
Here's Grace's first scene. As you can see, it was a bare-bones set.

From the very first scene, when D'Artagnan tells Grace's character that she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, the boys were squirming in their seats.
The next seen, D'Artagnan kisses her.
From then on, they tensed in dread whenever D'Artagnan was on the stage with Grace.
"Oh no," Spencer mumbled under his breath. I may have even captured it on some of the scenes I filmed.
At the intermission, I let them leave, even though they didn't get to see Grace's character kill Catherine de Winter. Yeah, the story totally changed in this one, but it added a lot of comic elements.
Here's a shot of Grace with some friends after the play was finished.

Now, let the summer begin.

The Three Musketeers -- The Musical

Somehow, Grace manages to find theater wherever she goes.

From last year's production
 of Pride and Prejudice

Last summer she was in a community production of Pride and Prejudice, the musical. Those same people who adapted Pride and Prejudice wrote music and adapted The Three Musketeers this year, and they told Grace they'd written a part specifically for her. She felt flattered, but worried that she might be reaching above her abilities.
"I've never been the leading love interest," she wailed one night after a frustrating rehearsal.
She plays Constance, who in this version, is the love of D'Artagnan and who is unfortunately married to D'Artagnan's landlord. The D'Artagnan actor is a dashing blond who just graduated from high school and strides across the stage singing his love for Constance.
The landlord, Constance's husband, luckily is supposed to be a "silly man" because Grace's friend Leron plays him. He's a 6-foot, 4-inch, gay, African American man and he camps it up. He might just steal the show.
Grace is lovely and sincere in the part, trying to stay true to her husband, to withstand the affections of a Musketeer, and to support her queen. In the end, she even gets to kill someone to protect D'Artagnan.
I wish you all could sit with me in the theater to watch and to laugh and to clap. After a few more performances, I might even be singing along to some of these original numbers.

Cowboys

The wind came sweeping down the plain in our little town this weekend as the high school put on the musical Oklahoma. When Grace was in high school, I worked on costumes for weeks before the musical. This year, teaching 7 college classes, I avoided volunteering. But Earl went to work on the set and kept telling me how intricate it was. I finally got a chance to see for myself on Thursday night. One of the other mothers texted to ask if I'd help sell flowers. So I passed out carnations for a dollar and got to sneak in to watch the production.
Tucker tried out for the ensemble and in addition to being a cowboy, got to be a dancer, which meant throwing himself on the floor, learning the two-step, and flinging girls around the stage. As a matter of fact, at the end of the production, they gave him the "brute strength" award because much of the time he was lifting girls into the air. Not a bad way for a 16-year-old to spend nine weeks of rehearsal.
He says it was a lot of work and he doesn't know if he'll do it again. He had to juggle swim team with musical, and going to States to compete, and he has already started track practice. But I think he had fun, and I could tell he was having fun on stage. Who knows, next year, maybe he'll get the nerve to accept a speaking part.

Pride and Prejudice - The Musical

This weekend was the culmination of 3 months of rehearsals for Grace and cast in the production of Pride and Prejudice -- The Musical.
Grace played Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth Bennett's best friend who married Mr. Collins, the annoying man that Elizabeth turned down.
Here's a picture of Grace getting ready to go to the theater for the first show.


And here she is right after the show in one of her fabulous costumes.
In the book and the play, they constantly talk about how plain Charlotte is, but they didn't do anything to make Grace look less beautiful (in my opinion). They did make her act clumsy.
This production ate up a good part of Grace's summer and helped her gain some great new friends. It was the first time she's done a play that included adults in the cast, so that was a nice balance as she eases into the adult world. Some of them were creepy (Mr. Collins), some of them were parents of teenage friends, and some of them were college students.
Some of her former high school friends were in the play, which made it more fun. Here she is with Jeff who played a member of the regiment in the play, but is leaving to join the Navy this month.

It's fun to see Grace, who tends to be quiet around strangers, blossom on stage. She even steps in to move the show along when someone forgets a line. She's become a real acting pro, along with applying makeup for the cast before hand.