Pirates and Witches

Today I am experiencing what is called post-vacation let down. It occurs most often when a person has recently gone on an awesome vacation where they had tons of fun and then is faced with the reality of returning to their semi-boring life. It usually sets in during the flight home. My symptoms include: the need for more sleep than usual, the aversion to any food that has not been prepared in a restaurant or purchased from a vending machine/gift shop, phantom map-hand pains (when you can feel a map in your hand when not holding one), and the almost overwhelming urge to sing "Defying Gravity" very loudly in public (because I haven't been able to get it out of my head since I saw Wicked on Friday).

That is a good segue into my review of Wicked! So, as I mentioned before, this was my third time seeing the phenomenon that is Wicked and I honestly loved it as much as the first time. I felt like a little kid seeing Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, I literally sat on the edge of my seat the entire performance with a huge grin on my face (until it got sad, then I got all teary). But that's the point, even though I know the story inside out I still go on the emotional ride every time, all the way. The cast was wonderful, most of them I had seen before except for Elphaba and Glinda.

We didn't get to see Kristy Kates who is the normal Elphaba of the Chicago cast, so we had her understudy; intially that makes me nervous because the understudy is the understudy for a reason. But, as my sister pointed out, the understudy has everything to prove. And she was great, I thought she did a fabulous job. I really like the actress who played Glinda too, she might be my favorite Glinda I've seen. She was really funny and sung "Popular" better than enyone I've heard next to Kristin Chenoweth. All around, it was a great production; I can't say enough about how GOOD this show is. It is a solid show, the music is wonderful, the characters are well dveloped and compeling, the set and lighting is stellar and the costumes are fun and interesting. My dad and I say that Wicked is the show we compare everything to now, which means a lot of shows fall short and fail to satisfy because Wicked sets a wickedly high standard. But that's the magic of it, there is just something special about this show that's all I can say.

The second big event, and really the whole reason we went to Chicago in the first place, was to see the pre-Broadway preview of the new Musical The Pirate Queen. This show caught our attention because the actress who was cast to play The Pirate Queen Grace O'Malley, Stephanie J. Block, played Elphaba the first time we saw Wicked. She was really impressive so we knew she wouldn't disapoint. The other draws to this show were: the writers, Boublil and Schonberg, who wrote the music for Les Miserables, and the production company, Riverdream, who produced Riverdance. Needless to say this show has the pedigree of a box office smash and we wanted to get in on the ground floor.

My opinion of this show: I liked it a lot and it has a lot of potential. There were some really great things happening, the story is wonderful, Stephanie J.Block was flawless (I see a Tony for her, she was really THAT good), and some of the songs were fantastic, but they still have some work to do before it is ready for Broadway. I can tell that when it is more polished and trimmed it is going to be really good, maybe not the phenomenon Les Miserables has come to be but I have a lot of hope for it. My dad and I waited at the stage door to meet the cast and were able to get the autograph of the actress who plays Queen Elizabeth I, but missed Stephanie which was a bummer.

Overall, it was a great trip. Seriously I love seeing shows so much! I couldn't have picked a more perfect trip for myself.

To learn more about The Pirate Queen the show, and about Grace O'Malley (who was a real woman) click on this link. There is also a link from the show's page to the cast's blog (called castcom) which has a bunch of really cool videos from the cast and crew, check it out.
http://www.thepiratequeen.com/

Wanna' hop on board the Wicked train? The web site is a good place to start, they have a Wicked trailer with clips of performances and interviews with the cast and creative team and a good synopsis of the plot. (Incidently, Stephanie J. Block is Elphaba in the video!) http://www.wickedthemusical.com/chicago/