A year ago this time I was eagerly hoping and anticipating that upon the next New Years celebrations I will have the privilege of writing a post from New York City and, as you probably should know by now, that's exactly where I am. It's kind of scary how time flies and the older you get, the faster it goes.
Firstly, I'd like to wish all of my loyal blog readers (and those of you who are visiting) a very blessed and prosperous 2012. I hope everything that you set your mind to achieve this year will be accomplished.
I was planning to do the same as last year and tell you about my goals for the new year, but seeing that I have just spent my first festive-season holiday away from home, I thought it would be a better idea to share what I got up to in the City over the past two weeks of my Christmas break.
I am not ashamed to say that on the first two or three days of my break I embraced sleep. The past semester has been an absolute thrill, but with that came a lot of work and sleepless nights. Losing sleep because you have to sing is probably one of the best chores anyone can ask for, but it does catch up with you.
When I finally did wake up to plan my days I realized that a holiday in the City is ideal because it gives me the opportunity to see a lot of theatre. And boy, did I see a lot of theatre! Over the 2 weeks I managed to squeeze in 5 Broadway shows, 2 Off-Broadway shows and 1 Concert. Each production was different to the next which is a nice thing for me because although I enjoy going to these things for entertainment, I now also use them more as an educational outing to see other performers in action and learn from them. Therefore, it's great to be able to pull from a range of genres, styles and types of shows or productions.
The Broadway shows I watched are Bonnie & Clyde, Lysistrata Jones, Hugh Jackman: Back On Broadway, Relatively Speaking: 3 One-Act Comedies, and Stickfly. I don't want to give any full reviews, but I will say that Bonnie & Clyde might just be one of my favorite musicals. I'm extremely disappointed that it got a stunted run. Also, I have been a fan of Hugh Jackman's work for a while now, but after seeing his one-man show I think he may have etched himself to role-model status in my books.
Off-Broadway I managed to catch Fuerza Bruta and Silence! The Musical. I watched Silence! twice! Two of my teachers are part of the cast of the show so it was interesting to see them perform, but besides that, it is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. It's extremely vulgar, but then again it is a parody of The Silence of the Lambs which was just as ludicrous so what did I expect, right?
The concert I went to was that of a six-man (actually five guys and a gal) acapella group by the name of Duwende. They're a New York City based group who have been around for quite a while, but they have recently increased in popularity with the release of their Michael Jackson tribute album, Remember: The Music of Michael Jackson. I love their YouTube videos, but they are even more amazing live. Here's one my favorite MJ songs done by them... you be the judge.
The two most important days of the holiday, Christmas and New Years Eve, were epic. I spent Christmas day with my Hillsong family where we ate a lot of food and had some deep conversations. Funny thing is that 80% of the people in that house were non-American. It felt almost like a UN feeding scheme... LOL!
On New Years Eve I was persuaded to not go to Times Square, although after seeing the multitudes of people I didn't need much convincing. I was invited to a friends NYE party in Prospect Heights. It was pretty awesome. I met a lot of cool new people and I got schooled a bit on a couple of sensitive topics which I enjoyed. I was one of the last people to leave and got home at around 5:30. I crashed immediately and was probably out for the next 12 hours.
Now it's back to reality and in between trying to write this blog and organizing my life, I'm busy preparing for the last two weeks of my first semester. This upcoming week I am being bombarded with finals for most my classes. For some reason I'm very nervous, especially for my Song Interpretation class final which is tomorrow. I have to sing cuts from seven stylistically different musical theatre songs. I should be alright, but I'm still so nervous!
The week after that we have rehearsals for first semester showcase and then the first semester showcase itself. Hopefully I'll have some video footage to post for that in my next update.
Again, Happy New Year everybody!!
