Beautiful

Last night we went and saw Beautiful at Bass Hall.  It was so fun and really, really well done.  And I love Bass Hall, probably better than all of the theaters in North Texas - says a person who has season tickets to Dallas Summer Musicals and had tickets to last seasons Broadway season at ATTPAC.  I know that of which I speak.

Winspear (ATTPAC) is beautiful, and very, very similar to Bass.  But it's location is right next to the connector (35 and 45) and it's just not a good downtown spot.  Bass is right off Sundance Square and it's amazing and has great energy and restaurants.  We went for Italian and then walked the two twinkle light lit blocks to the theater.  In contrast ... when we got to ATT we drive some place and then drive to the theater because there's no where affordable to eat within walking distance of Winspear.  They should really, really fix that.

Broadway / Theater is getting to be an exclusive elitist thing.  And maybe it's always been that way.  Tickets are super pricey.  Food is pricey.  Parking is pricey.  It's all pricey.  And there's some really great theater out there that people are missing.

This show, Beautiful, is one.

It was nominated for the Tony in 2014 but it didn't win.  It was totally robbed now that I look it up.  It lost to Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, which I saw last year.  And it's good.  But not as good as Beautiful.  It's got a schtick, one actor plays like 16 roles and he has to change between them in like 60 seconds.  And he does a really great job.

But that show was nowhere near the same ballpark as this show.  This was amazing and heart warming and funny and catchy and so much fun to watch.

Jessie Mueller won the Tony for best actress for Beautiful.  Which brings us to "why Stacy bought the tickets."

I bought them on my birthday last year.  Two weeks before I had been to NYC and seen Waitress with Jessie Mueller from like the 4th row.  It is an experience I don't think I will ever duplicate.  I love that show.  I love the story.  I love Sara Barielles.  I love it all.  Somewhat bereft when I came back because the experience just can not be duplicated, I decided I needed to see Beautiful to somehow stay connected to Jessie Mueller.

It didn't disappoint.  We saw Sarah Bockel as Carole and she was very talented and it was easy to kind of imagine Jessie in the role with the material, even though Sarah's take was very good on her own too.

Which brings us to "Stacy's NYC adventure 2018..."

I am the most excited.  As I wrote last year, it was the most decadent thing ever and I loved it.  So I'm doing it again.  I am hoping to see all of the shows above but Anastasia may be a stretch.  Plus, it's going to tour and is old so I'm not sure if I want to use my time and $$ that way.   Frozen is going to be a hit and if you see up there Carousel's revival ... my gal Jessie Mueller is the lead.  So, so excited. Tina Fey's Mean Girl's is also supposed to be a hit but we'll see.

As of March of last year I hadn't finished out the ATT season ... I still had Something Rotten, Into the Woods and Finding Neverland.

Into the Woods was horrible.  Awful.  It was like a high school production with a cast of maybe 7 people playing all 25+ characters.  No set design.  No costumes.  They used a sheet of white paper as the birds that Cinderella talks to.  The company that did it ... this is their schtick.  They don't have big fancy stuff they let the "content speak for itself" as "character development" or some such.  But for over $100 a ticket ... seeing something that my high school drama club would have been done better was super, super annoying.  Had I known what I was going into I might have liked it better but I was expected the broadway version of Into the Woods.  Not what I saw.  (Supposedly they pay their actors higher salaries than other companies - so all the money goes to the actors and not sets.  Supposedly.)

Something Rotten was really funny.  I laughed way more than I thought I would.  That was really good.

Finding Neverland was my favorite of the season.  I knew it would be.  Shanda didn't like it because she didn't realize it would be so sad.  We're kind of Peter Pan fans at my house so I knew a lot about it (and had seen the movie).  Finding Neverland is a favorite movie of ours.

Someday I want to take the family and take Julia to see Frozen.  But she's not ready.  I offered (obviously) to take the boys to see Frozen but they aren't interested.  They are pretty Frozen saturated these days.

But.  I did buy Lion King tickets and I spent big girl money because the best seats in that show are in the orchestra because the animals walk in through the crowd and there's crowd involvement.  That's next June.  The 8yo is going to love it.  I see so many musicals and they are very aware of this and it's kind of what I listen to when kid appropriate.  They know Sugar, Butter, Flour and Hamilton songs.  I think they'll be happy to share that with me.  They are still at that age, thankfully.  My official DSM season starts in January.  Beautiful was kind of the start of my year.  Shanda has season tickets to both but at the time she purchased I couldn't do that (we had just gone to NYC).  But I'm tagging along to two of those shows (King and I and Bright Star - which isn't till June!).

All this to say ...

Go see Beautiful if it tours near you.  Sarah Bockel is great (I've seen a lot of theater - she is great) and the show is amazing and you'll be shocked by all the songs that Carole King and Gerry Goffin wrote.  Well.  Maybe you won't be.  But I was!