"Out of here, we're out of here. Out of heartache, along with fear. There goes the fear again, there goes the fear." ~doves

Gosh, it is way too hard to update this with all the cool stuff I've been doing recently. So I'll have to limit myself to the highlights.

1. I won tickets to see Doves at Terminal 5. I was excited. I've liked them for the past eight years but have never seen them live before. It was a great concert. I got a spot dead center in the front row, so I had a perfect view. I absolutely love that venue; it's so nice and intimate. They played my favorite songs of theirs (10:03, Caught by the River, There Goes the Fear, the Last Broadcast, Here it Comes). They're a great live band.

See if you can spot me in thetripwire's coverage of the concert (I'll help you: second-to-last photo, bottom right corner). You can also see how cool the venue is in that photo.

Here's a video I took of Caught By the River (bad audio quality and somewhat spoiled by the idiot yelling behind me):


And a video taken by the girl standing next to me of 10:03:


And finally, a video of There Goes the Fear (great song, great audio quality, so definitely watch this one):


2. I went to see Brian Stokes Mitchell ("the premier male star of the Broadway stage over the last two decades") in a free concert, and he was amazing. I looove him. He sang Some Enchanted Evening (South Pacific), Stars (Les Mis), Where is This Life That Late I Led? (Kiss Me, Kate), This Nearly Was Mine (South Pacific), I Was Here (The Glorious Ones), It's Not Easy Being Green, What a Wonderful World, The Impossible Dream (Man of La Mancha), Wheels of a Dream (Ragtime), and more that I can't remember at the moment. Most of the songs were Broadway classics. Here's my video of Stars (one of my favorite musical theater songs):


3. Twelfth Night at Shakespeare in the Park! Nicole won tickets in the virtual line for the very first performance, which was Wednesday (I was soooo glad we didn't have to get up this morning and get in line before 6:00am like we had planned to do). Luckily it was a nice evening for it. I absolutely loved it. They gathered together the most talented ensemble cast possible (14 total Tony nominations among them, 5 Tony wins, an Oscar nom...it's ridiculous). As the relative theatre novice, Anne Hathaway was very good. The play was just so entertaining and fun. It's perfect for Shakespeare in the Park. I especially loved the music. With Raul Esparza, Audra McDonald, David Pittu, and Anne Hathaway in the cast, who all can sing very well, the music had to be good.

4. I should comment on the Tonys but I don't have time right now to go into much detail. So here are my highlights: the awards were pretty predictable. BroadwaySpace had a Tony poll (where you had to predict the winners) and I won second place, so I won the cast recordings of the nominated musicals. I was happy about that. I was so glad that Next to Normal won best score; that was an upset, even though I predicted it. Of course everyone knew Alice Ripley would win best actress in a musical, but I still let out a sigh of relief when she did win. I love her. Her performance in Next to Normal is one of the best, if not the best, stage performances I have ever seen. I thought Marcia Gay Harden's acceptance speech was incredibly classy and she was deserving of her award (she was hilarious in God of Carnage). Geoffrey Rush was another performer I was happy for, although everyone knew he would win. His performance in Exit the King is also on my all-time favorite performances list. I won't even go into the awfulness of the Tony Awards telecast, though. The sound problems were ridiculous and the performances weren't great (partly because of the sound problems, but not solely because of that). Anyway, it was still an entertaining evening. One fun thing was going to the red carpet and watching the stars arrive; I was glad I got to do that and was glad that I got the perfect spot from which to observe and take pictures.

That's all for now. Tomorrow I'm going to the closing performance of Guys and Dolls, so I'll (eventually) report back on that.

Only two more weeks of school! I hope I survive.