Wicked Divas Concert

Last weekend I attended the Wicked Divas Concert with the Utah Symphony with my mom at Abravanel Hall. It was AMAZING! I loved every minute of it. Two singers were brought in for the concert-Julia Murney and Stephanie J. Block. Both women have played Elphaba in Wicked. I don't remember seeing Julia Murney play Elphaba but Stephanie J. Block is my most favorite Elphaba of all time. (I have even seen Idina Menzel who originated the role on Broadway play Elphaba.) This is the first time I have attended one of Stephanie's concerts (and it better not be the last). I saw her as Elphaba numerous times (on tour and Broadway) and as Judy Bernly in the musical 9 to 5 when it was playing in Los Angeles (before it went to Broadway). My friend Matt used to work with Stephanie decades ago at Disneyland and would tell me the funniest stories.

Back to the concert. I went with Mom Friday night to see it. I think I had a perma-grin on my face the whole time. I loved the songs these women sang. The instrumental pieces were amazing too. It was a perfect blend of orchestral and singing Broadway-style songs. I loved it so much I bought a single ticket and went Saturday night by myself to see it again! So good! I must admit, I enjoyed Friday night better because Stephanie sang Defying Gravity. (No one beats her Defying Gravity!) She sang Popular and Julia sang Defying Gravity Saturday night. Although Saturday night after Stephanie sang My Heart Will Go On, the entire audience was so entranced with the song there was a moment of silence between the last notes of the music and the audience clapping. It was magical! Here are some pictures from Friday night.

Three Divas-Julia Murney, Me, Stephanie J. Block

Me and the Amazing Stephanie J. Block-I can't get enough of her!

Michael, Me, and Chihuly*

The Close Up Version*

*Friday night I went to the Concert with my Mom. Michael randomly showed up after the concert. I think he is stalking me. Since we were dressed so nice, we decided to snap a few pictures. Thanks Chihuly for providing us with such a wonderful background.

Valentine's Day Ice Castles

Valentine's Day was a Furlough Day at work. I love Furlough Days! I am hoping for some more next year. Work can keep their money as long as I don't have to show up! My big Valentine's Day activity was to go see the Ice Castles in Midway, Utah with my parents. An artist made these ice castles out of a series of sprinklers and pipes. They are amazing! Enjoy the pictures!

A New York Minute

It happened in a New York Minute, but it has taken me a month and a half to blog about it. I'm not used to this whole 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week job thing. I know most of you are saying, "Wah, wah!" Anyway, three days after I arrived home from Nashville on Christmas, my mom and I hit the airways and headed back East.

We departed for New York City a day after a blizzard had dumped mounds and mounds of snow. Our flight was not canceled but it was delayed two hours. That posed a slight problem as time was getting less and less between landing in Newark, NJ and getting to the Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Spectacular.

Once we landed in Newark, we channeled the racers on Amazing Race and booked it to the Music Hall. Our first challenge was to get a taxi. Once we got a taxi, we asked the driver if he had ever seen the Amazing Race. He said he had so we told him we had to get to the Music Hall in less than an hour. He took side streets and various other maneuvers to get us to our destination. After giving him a hefty tip, we entered the Music Hall less than ten minutes after the Christmas Spectacular started. Luckily Mom had already seen at least six times that season, and I had heard it over 100 times. It was awesome to see the show performed on that magnificent stage with twice as many Rockettes than I am used to. We took our time leaving the Hall.

A Christmas Tree inside the Radio City Music Hall

We decided to bundle up and walk to the Rockefeller Christmas Tree. We didn't make it past the Music Hall's stage door before I ran into some people I knew. Two were performers in the show I had worked with in previous years and two were performers in my show that were visiting like I was. It was fun to talk with them in the freezing weather. We all had stories to tell of our Christmas travels. Good times!

Mom and I made it to the Rockefeller Christmas Tree. We took a lot of pictures and saw it from every possible angle. It looks pretty on TV but, in real life, it is AWESOME!

Since we arrived after the blizzard of 2010, we found out how they got rid of all the snow. They couldn't just shovel it to the road because it would just be mounds and mounds of snow blocking the sidewalk and lanes of traffic. It would never melt until July! They have workers shovel the snow into huge plastic laundry bins. Then they wheel it to the road. The snow is then put into huge garbage trucks and hauled out of the city. Where the final destination is nobody knows?? It's NYC's well-kept secret. My guess is the Hudson River. These snow shovelers sure had their work cut out for them!

Snowflakes on the Saks Fifth Avenue Department Store

Huge Christmas light decorations

Crowne Plaza Times Square Christmas Tree

Late that night (after a huge slice of pizza from Patzeria Perfect Pizza), we checked into our home away from home at the Crowne Plaza Times Square. We got our money's worth in the less than 12 hours we spent there.

The following day was a busy one. We managed a little bit of sleeping in and then it was go, go, go. Our first stop was Macy's Department Store. Macy's always decorates their shop windows so cute for Christmas. This year's theme was "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus". All of the cutouts were made out of paper and moved. It was amazing!

We rode the subway back to Times Square. We ate lunch at another one of our favorite places Virgil's. We then dodged the huge puddles on every street corner and headed to the Marriott Marquis Theatre. We saw the Donny and Marie: A Broadway Christmas show. Poor Donny and Marie were overcoming illnesses so they weren't at the top of their game but they still put on a wonderful show. What made it even better was my friend was performing in the show. I found out later he was the swing and he rarely was onstage. But that day, he was!

After the show, I waited at the stage door to see my friend. Performers from the show came out and kept telling us that Donny and Marie weren't coming out. I told them I wasn't waiting for them but for my friend. They were able to go back inside and have my friend paged. We talked for a little while, took the above picture, and Mom and I continued on our journey.

Setting up the New Year's Eve stage in Times Square

Tons of snow in Times Square-Dirty!

We walked back to the Radio City Music Hall. We wanted to see the first ten minutes of the Christmas Spectacular we had missed the night before. We told the people taking tickets our situation from the day before. Amazingly enough, they felt sorry for us, and let us in. We had better seats than we had paid for the night before! We saw the first ten minutes of the show. I was also able to see my friend Brad perform. (He has been performing in the NY show since 2007.)

We had just enough time to pick up our luggage from the Crowne Plaza and then walk to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre where Elf was playing. Elf was very cute!

We got on the JITNY (sp?) and headed to my Aunt Caren's house across the Hudson River. We were able to see her place all decorated for Christmas. Very cute! She was willing to drive us to JFK at a very early hour the following morning so we could fly home.

My less than 48 hour trip to New York City was so worth it. If you EVER have a chance to go to NYC at Christmas time, you better not let it pass you by! It is MAGICAL!!! After we came home, I told my mom that we might have to change our NYC trip from annual to semi-annual. I just can't get enough....

Closing Night

Last night, I was at the theatre (not the Grand Ole Opry but a theatre here in Utah) and realized I hadn't posted any pictures from the Closing Night Party last year. I would hate for you guys to miss out so I thought I would poke a closing night post in here. The Closing Night Party actually occurred the night before Closing Night. It was fun to be with the cast, but I didn't stay long. I was probably one of the first people to leave.

The LPs-Lena, Eric, Cezar, Ryanne, Amy, and Me

Jason and Me-I put my life in his hands every night. Miraculously, we both survived!

The Elevator Epiphany

This morning I had some deep thoughts I thought I would share. I went down to the hotel's lobby, and I grabbed some food for breakfast. After I got in the elevator to go back to my room and pushed the level three button, I realized I had forgotten something. I was able to push the open door button and get out, but the level three button was still lit. After I got out, the elevator went to level three empty. I realized then that there is no cancel button in an elevator. I wonder if people realize how much of a commitment they make when they step into an elevator. Once you push that button, there is no taking it back. You have committed to that floor. The only way out of it is to get out of the elevator and get in a different one. Think about that the next time you get in an elevator!

Celebrities at the Christmas Spectacular

Sheryl Crow, Scott Hamilton, and Kimberly Williams-Paisley attended our first show of the Christmas Spectacular last Saturday with their children. During intermission after microphone check, I walked around trying to (casually) bump into the celebrities backstage. When celebrities come to the show, they stay backstage until the show starts and then are brought back again during intermission and after the program so they are not hounded by the audience. (Instead they get to be hounded by the performers! :)) I figured they were down the stage right hallway because all the kids from the show’s moms were standing there with their cameras. Dead giveaway. I thought they were farther down that particular hallway closer to the stage. As I rounded the corner, I realized they were right there! Well, hello there, fancy running in to you! The group was taking pictures with Mrs. Claus. They said, "Oh look it's one of Santa's elves!" I smiled and asked them if they were enjoying the show up to that point. They said they were. It was cute to see the kids so excited about the show and having a good time.

Scott Hamilton took multiple pictures of me.

Sheryl Crow shook my hand and told me it was a pleasure to meet me. (If I didn’t know Sheryl Crow was at the performance, I would have walked right past her in the hallway and never would have known it! See picture below.)

I exchanged smiles with Kimberly Williams-Paisley. Kimberly’s son looks just like his daddy (Brad Paisley).

Here are two pictures of our Company Manager Tim with the celebrities after the show:

Hockey

Some of the cast members and I drove to the Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville to watch a Nashville Predators hockey game. It was so much fun! I had a great time yelling and cheering. The locals say the Nashville Predators aren’t a very good team but they shut out the New York Islanders five goals to nothing. (I heard a guy behind us say that out of the last 23 games the Islanders have played, they have only won 5!) The only disappointment was there were only two small fights. The gloves never came off but one player got whacked in the head with the other team’s hockey stick. Good times!

One of the goals was pretty amazing. A Pred had the puck and were about to hit it into the net when an Islander was coming full blast at him. The Pred jumped over him, hit the puck to the teammate, and the teammate whacked it into the net. It was awesome!

On the jumbotron, they showed a guy with the name "Randy Houser" on the bottom of the screen. We all asked each other, "Who is Randy Houser?" I answered, "He must be Doogie Howser's brother." Ha ha! About 30 seconds later, we hear this girl in front of us ask her husband, "Who is Randy Houser?" To which he responds, "He's Doogie Howser's older brother". Then she laughed. Excuse me! You just stole my material! That is a copyright infringement! Then a little while later, things were not going the Predators way and I said, "Come on!" Then two seconds later the guy behind me says, "Come on"! Geez, I was surrounded by parrots! Come up with your own material!

As we were leaving the arena, people were handing out coupons for a free energy drink. Most people were tossing them in the garbage. While we were waiting for our car to pick us up, Lina and I watched a guy pick up the free drink coupons from the garbage can. A nicely dressed man watched him pick through the garbage. When the first guy left, the nicely dressed man took over at the garbage can and went dumpster diving for more coupons. Then his (assuming) wife started dumpster diving as well. The only thing was she was wearing a dark brown long fur coat! Are you kidding me?! Your dressed like that and dumpster diving for free energy drink coupons?! That's crazy! Then the nicely dressed man got a phone call and they left. Lina joked that it was the limo driver telling them he was waiting out front for them! I laughed so hard!

Another interesting thing we saw was a scooter/ice cooler. A guy was riding a motorized ice cooler out of the game. I had never seen one of those before! Very handy for the sports enthusiast though! Another guy in a motorized wheelchair was carrying a hockey stick with mistletoe tied on the end. Good luck, pal!

Good times at the Predators game! Great entertainment!