Musical Tangents

I just got back home from seeing West Side Story at The Pantages Theatre in Hollywood with my sister, mom, and some friends. This is one of the things I really miss about Los Angeles: the music, the shows, the culture. Of course, they have this stuff in Seattle, but I don't have reliable transportation to go up there often so I don't really enjoy these kinds of things while I'm at school. Actually, I haven't even hung out in Seattle all year. The only times I went there this past semester were for Bumbershoot [so I didn't walk around the city, just the festival grounds] and to drop off/pick up some friends from a concert. Anyway, back to the point of this post...
I always feel so inspired whenever I watch a musical production - I wish I had that talent. Not just the singing, but the dancing and the acting. Part of me wishes I could move the way all the dancers on stage do. Their movement is so beautiful and precise and it looks like they are having so much fun. And then there's the singing. I love it so much, you can't even imagine. I get goosebumps whenever I hear a completely amazing singer. Unfortunately, I wasn't blown away by the singers in this production. The leads [Maria and Tony] seemed to get lost in the music and their voices just weren't as strong as I had hoped and expected. West Side Story has such an amazing score and the original Broadway cast had such a great sound. I guess I'm just used to those recordings, so I compared tonight's performance to them.
Going back to The Pantages, however, reminded me of the last time I was there. It was my 17th birthday [has it really been 2 years?] and my sister, mom, and I went with our family friend, Andy, to see Wicked. My mom and sister had already seen it before, but I hadn't. I was pretty excited for it because I had heard everyone saying such great things about it. I remember being blown away by the performance that night. Everyone did such an incredible job and I fell in love with Wicked right away; it is definitely one of my favorite musicals now and I can't wait to see it again. That's what I love about going to these things: the feelings of being so fulfilled and inspired by what I had seen. It makes me so happy and amazed with how much talent everyone involved in the production has. Everything that goes into it, it takes so much time, energy, patience, talent, work. It's crazy and I think the people who do it are great and you can always tell that they love what they're doing.
I hope I can be as happy as they are, doing what I love, someday. I don't want to be a performer at all, but behind the scenes - I hope I enjoy it and am satisfied everyday by doing whatever it is that I may be doing. I think my first experience of putting together some sort of public event will be next semester [although the planning and preparations have already started and it's really only for the Puget Sound campus]. I'm the co-chair for RSA's biggest event of the year: Casino Night. Although I don't deal with a lot of the details, I'm trying to be involved with all the committees, if I can. I'm hoping to get some outside entertainment at Casino Night this year. Every year we have the same stuff: on-campus a cappella groups, the jazz band, etc. And, I mean, they're great, they really are. But I'd like to change it up a little bit this year. I have a friend who just finished recording a band's EP, Lamppost Revival. He and all the band members go to Western Washington University and he's been looking into book them in the Tacoma area, specifically something for Puget Sound. So, I told him about Casino Night and put him in contact with our Entertainment Committee Chair, David. I hope they actually get everything together for Lamppost to play, it would be really awesome to have some local, off-campus music at the event. Plus, it's cool to think that I helped to make that connection and get Lamppost booked for the event. And maybe it will help them get a good rep at Puget Sound so they can do other shows there, in the future. Or maybe I can develop a good connection with them and look to them if I ever want or need a band to play for any event that may come up.
Anyway, I've gone on a very interesting tangent and somehow ended up here. I'm tired, it's time for sleep. Goodnight everyone and, in case I don't write anything else for a while, Happy Holidays. Have a awesome start to the new year [can you believe it's going to be 2011??!] and be safe.
:]