dancerjodi | Entries tagged with theater

Last night I went with some old friends here http://www.yelp.com/biz/happy-feet-reflexology-waltham for their $35 foot massage. The Yelp reviews are pretty spot on. Neat albeit odd setup (you are all in one room), but calm, quiet. You cannot beat the price! I would definitely go again.

The night before we caught the free Shakespeare on the Common (I had switched my Tuesday night out with Brian for Wednesday so that we could go then). http://www.commshakes.org/ is doing Two Men of Verona this year. Free, with a suggested $10 donation. We drove in and parked at the Common Garage. I liked the 50s/Rat Pack setting for the show and thusly appreciated the music (music! with Shakespeare)! I'm glad that I finally got to see one of these, because it has only been 18 years. There was some kind of fight/scuffle/police activity at the very end of the show. Masses of teen boys came running over the hill and one broke from the pack and ran into the crowd and ducked, trying to elude police. They were driving right through the Common in their cruiser on the grass, jumped out and a few cops grabbed the guy.

Things have been crazy busy lately all around. Work. Home. Brian is fighting some kind of cold/sinus thing. We are keeping it together in the parenting front, but barely. There are good days and bad days, as always. I'm looking forward to staying in tonight.

Mina's 18 month pedi appointment was Monday. All is good, and she is TALL. Her weight is balanced out with her height. At 18 mos she's 34" tall and 28 pounds! All proportional though. Totally out of her crib, climing up and over things. Our current challenge is breaking her out of the overnight (baby) bottles. She's all cups during the day, but uses milk in the baby bottle at night as a sleep association/comfort thing. Plus she is teething hardcore. I talked with her Pedi a bit about it, and she reminded me that Mina will not grow out of it. We would need to break the habit ourselves, when we are ready. We are starting a bit at a time. That night she had milk in a bottle before bed, teeth were brushed, and when she asked for more we told her it was all gone, and after some crying/pleading she was OK with water in the baby bottle. She woke around 1 AM and after some crying/pleading Brian settled her back to bed with the baby bottle with water. She woke again around 5 and wanted 'milk! milk! milk!' but we got her into the water bottle. Each night has gotten a bit easier. We have not caved, and figure once we cut out the overnight milk, we can try to cut the water in a baby bottle. Then we can try and bump the pre-bed milk in a bottle earlier. Then have the earlier pre-bed milk in a cup and not a baby bottle. Progress is good.

All and all she just seems so OLD and BIG. She will always be my baby, but less and less does she look like one.

Our weekend proves to be a fun one. I'm hoping for a chill night at home tonight and finally watching our DVRed Sharknado. Tomorrow we're heading to Harvard Square for Brian's haircut, and going to CT for a cookout/pool party. Sunday we are actually going to a farm in Central MA and Mina, her cousins and an Aunt are dressing up as Amish folks and posing for reference photos at a farm in Charlton. My Dad's request to do some more paintings http://marmontiart.com/amish_series.html . I actually bought Mina a cute cotton Amish-styled dress on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/shop/thejewellshandmades . My Dad bought her one of the white heart-shaped amish girl hats, which she does not want to wear on her head at all. Toddlers aren't predictable, and I hope that my Dad is OK with this on Sunday. The peer pressure of the other older kids wearing their costumes may motivate her to put hers on.

I saw this with K last night at the Opera House. Why did I wait so long?! Such a great show! I loved the movie years ago, but the musical is one thousand times better! With its long run time, ups and downs (and tears) it reminded me of my Les Miserables experiences years ago.

I just cried and cried during the song "The Letter" http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/billyelliotthemusical/theletter.htm . Would I have done this anyway had I not recently become a Mum? I've surely been more hormonal since giving birth and continuing to breast feed.

The "new" Opera House (it has been years since it has been reopened now, hasn't it?) was lovely. The sound was LOUD though, I was wishing I had my earplugs. I'm not sure if that's the acoustics of the venue being an Opera House, the location of our seats or just a coincidence of how they did the show.

Traffic was the suck (it took me 2 hours to get from Woburn on 93 to Downtown crossing). Oi. Going home I got stuck in Mass Pike tunnel traffic for construction, and it took us an hour to get back. I'm amazed I'm as alert as I am (thank you Mina for sleeping through the night until 4:00 AM). It was another 'stick her on the boob in bed and go back to sleep' kind of morning. :)

The film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1336608/ comes out next week, based on the musical of the same name.

When I heard of this show I HAD to see it. Brian and I caught it in NYC and I was hooked. Bought the soundtrack, listened all of the time, could not wait until it came to Boston. Which it did, and we saw again with some friends. What a fun time!

The movie based on the imdb synopsis has been changed a bit from the show. I was wondring how this would go, since Tom Cruise is playing the Stacy Jaxx character, who while a primary role in the musical is not the lead by far. I was wondering if the previews were pimping Cruise as a main character to get more attention than the two real leads (characters Drew and Sherrie) were protrayed by actors not as well known. It turns out they are changing the story a bit. I'm still excited to see this in the theater (our next "date" that is planned), but I'm skeptical.

I've also learned about Def Leppard's song(s) being added to the film, and them out promoting it. The funny thing is, I want to say when they were originally approached by the creators to make this show, they were not interested, and did not give their approval to use their songs. The creators sought out the rights to the 80s music, and then actually crafted the story around them (which is why the lyrics fit so perfectly in the musical show version). Now that it has been successful, all of a sudden Def Leppard is interested? True, the show was titled "Rock of Ages", I think because they were able to do this legally, without Def Leppard's OK.

Anyway, rawk out with your cawk out. Or something.

The same week we see this movie we will be going to the Maiden/Alice Cooper show at Great Woods. I feel my hair getting bigger already.

The theme of yesterday was "What would Henry Rollins do".

Months ago I heard he was performing at the Brattle on the evening of the Boston St. Patrick's parade. We do this troop most years, though it is unsettling in my mind. It is freezing many years, long, and has a discriminatory history. The crowd loves us though, and the organization running the parade makes a large donation to charity in our name as a thank you for us coming. It is also neat that some gay members of our group have the opportunity to march despite the parade committee's history.

I had forgotten about this http://www.wbur.org/2011/03/21/st-paddys-parades . I wonder how large the parade was, and given how rowdy this crowd can be, I applaud their strength for getting out there.

But back to Hanry Rollins: St. Patrick's parade weekend is a long one for us. We're often getting things together for it on Friday, go out on Saturday night to meet up with the troops since a lot of people come from out of town for this, then we're in Boston in the Gillette parking lot bright and early, start walking some time after 1:00 PM, and the route is over 4 miles with lots of hills. It's often cold. You never know how things will go with folks along the route - running out, potentially assaulting us, unsure of what the police presence will be along the route. This has gotten better over the years (though, there is no control over the cold or long, challenging route in armor).

When I found out that Henry was coming to town this same night I e-mailed Brian to see if he wanted to go to the show after the St. Patrick's crazy and he suggested we should - what would Henry do?! We dropped our things at home and had some pizza with friends before heading out to Harvard Square for the show.

Henry is always inspiring, and I could listen to him for days. We try and see him each year when he comes to the city, because it is always the kick in the butt we need to keep moving along in life, making the most of our space here. I wondered if he would go to the parade being that it is the 2nd largest in the country, a good opportunity to just 'talk with the people' (something he likes doing when he travels) and he'd be in the city anyway. But given the discriminatory history and alcoholic nature of the thing (he being a straighted edge guy), would he go? It reminded me of his sketch about if he was president and the parade he'd stage in NYC to counteract the KKK (I won't even describe it here, because I won't do it justice).

Anyway, it was a great show, and despite our tired heads and bodies, I'm so glad that we went. Onward and upward!

The Zombie musical was excellent! It was total parody B-Movie musical fare, and the small theater (52 seats) was perfect, as was the creativity in the music, props and costumes. The URL is in a former post of mine if you'd like to try and get tickets.

We trooped at Carrie Fishcer's one woman comedy show at The Huntington Theater last night and as a thank you, they gave us free tickets. Oh my god was this funny! Seriously, this was belly aching, I'm crying in my seat uncontrollably funny in parts. I haven't followed much of the history of Ms. Fisher's life, so it was neat to hear her take on it.

For opening night, the large theater had only sold 200 tickets, and our contact was hoping that having us on the sidewalk in front of the theater may grab some passerbys to come in (or at least consider coming to a later show). I am so glad that we went, it was really excellent!

There are parts in the show where she pulls folks from the audience, and one of the NEG guys got selected to go up with her, hug her, then she wrapped her arms around him, GRABBED HIS BUTT, and pulled him down on the couch on top of her as the curtain dropped for intermission. Behind the curtain she was very sweet, they took a photo together and she later (during the show) gave him an autographed boob frisbee and an Obama condom (she made many political comments last night for Obama and against McCain and Bush).

Whatever your political bent, it was totally worth seeing. It was also nice to see her wonderful and strong singing voice . . . it really was the drugs impacting her ability in the SW Holiday special. Its come through CT already, will be in Boston for a couple of weeks and I'm sure will move on, so definitely try and catch this in your town if you can. :)

Here's a video from one of the preshows from the SW RHPS last month:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ch0BlaJB6Gs

Watch Factory construction is underway http://www.dailynewstribune.com/news/x2109420758/Company-ticks-toward-its-grand-opening . I spent lots of time riding my bike through corridors there when Dad rented a space for his graphic design/printing business. He shared stores of underground "secret" rooms that his father showed him where homeless people would squat (both of Dad's parents worked there making watches - that's where they met).

I saw Annie last Sunday http://www.dailynewstribune.com/arts/x2109420700/Reagles-Annie-bursts-with-energy with some folks from the dance studio. I've only seen the movie before, and I loved the show so much more for its emphasis on the time period. Sally Struthers was perfect as Miss Hannigan, and reportedly a sweet woman in person. There was a huge break between matinee and evening shows, and one of the orphan kids is a girl from my dance studio. Her Mom who lives near the theater hosted a lunch/pool party in between shows to keep the kids occupied and Sally got wind of it and just showed up there! My dance studio friend (very down to earth, hard-working, 5 kids with a plumber husband) sat and chatted with Sally on the deck feeding her homemade lasagna. How neat!

20 creepy baby items http://www.cracked.com/article_16475_20-baby-products-great-traumatizing-infants.html - OK, is it wrong that I think Metallica lullabies are a cool thing? Related somewhat, when driving down to my sister's cookout last week I realized that its totally time to get JD some Iron Maiden and old Metallica CDs since he's getting into that music, is old enough to think about the lyrics for himself, and he's taking guitar lessons in the fall. Bwahaha!