Day 1292: Santa Fe

"Santa Fe, my old friend, I can't spend my whole life dreaming." 

 It's been a couple of years now since I first moved to college and my my freshman roommate, who was just as obsessed with Newsies as I was pretty much everything else Disney. Despite the fact that Newsies is indeed a part of the Disney Universe, I'd never actually seen the film or the listened to the music from the Broadway Smash Hit. She taught me well though, and two years later I ended up smack dab in the middle of Santa Fe, experiencing everything Jack knew it was. 

On a day excursion from Colorado, we made the two hour drive down to Santa Fe, New Mexico, entering a new state for the both of us and ready to explore a city unlike anything we'd ever seen. We were only able to spend a couple of hours in Santa Fe, as we had another stop on the way back up to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, but it at least gave us a taste of everything the city had to offer. 

Our first stop, after finally finding a parking space (parking in Santa Fe is sort of ridiculous), was the Georiga O'Keeffe museum. Born in Wisconsin, O'Keeffe traveled all over the United States, from Texas to New York, before ending up in New Mexico, just outside of Santa Fe. Living on Ghost Ranch, which I'll talk more about later, O'Keeffe took inspiration from the beautiful she found around her and created spectacular paintings and drawings. Here are just a few of my favorites from the museum: 

We then took some time to explore the Plaza, which sits at the center of Santa Fe and is definitely the tourist section of the town. I actually have no pictures of the Plaza itself, but its a park lined with stores and churches and definitely feels very different from anything we have around here. We also got a chance to go inside one of the many Chapels of Santa Fe, which are internationally renowned. If you're there for a longer period of time, there are various tours available that showcase more of these stunning buildings. 

I wouldn't say that Santa Fe is my favorite city in the world, or at least not on a Jack Kelly level, but I did enjoy the entire state of New Mexico. It's a far cry from little old Wisconsin, and I highly recommend stopping there if you're in the area! You won't regret it! 

Have a magical day!

Day 1259: Tony Time

As a fan of musicals, I'm sure you can imagine how exciting a night like the Tony Awards is. After all, Hamilton was sure to have a sweep this year, and a Hamilton fan myself, I probably watched just as much for them as I did for everyone else (although Hamilton or no Hamilton I would have been on my couch either way). As we so often do on Sunday nights, we gathered together with food and a TV for three hours of wonderful performances, and it didn't disappoint.

Of course, Hamilton did sweep the awards, winning 11 throughout the night. While they were nominated for 16, the most ever in Tony Awards history, they only needed 13 wins to beat out the previous record holder, The Producers. In fact, they came really close to a tie with The Producers, but a much deserved award for Best Actress in a Musical went to Cynthia Erivo of The Color Purple.

Noticeably absent from the awards was Disney, although with no new musicals this year this isn't surprising. Frozen will appear soon, and I'm sure that will be a contender for several when it does finally make its Broadway debut. In the past, several Disney musicals have won Tony Awards. In fact, a lot of them have won Tony Awards. Beauty and the Beast was nominated for 9 in 1994 and won for Best Costume Design. The Lion King, in 1998, was nominated for 11 and won 6, including Best Musical. In 2008 The Little Mermaid was nominated for two, and in 2007 Mary Poppins was nominated for 7 (Mary Poppins would win Best Scenic Design).

More recently, Newsies was nominated for 8 in 2012 and won Best Choreography and Best Original Score, and Aladdin was nominated for 5 in 2014, bringing home one for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical for James Monroe Iglehart.

All in all, I think you could say that Disney has had a long relationship with the Tony Awards, and if that's not enough for you, just remember that Jake Gyllenhaal and Sean Hayes did an impromptu performance of A Whole New World during one of the commercial breaks.

Have a magical day! 

Day 1131: Santa Fe

I still remember the day I met my freshman roommate Megan and she told me that she loves the Disney Broadway Musical Newsies, which I had never heard of aside from discussion here and there and the memory of seeing the advertisement in Times Square when I visited New York back in 2012. From there, she got me completely hooked on the story of the newsies of 1899, and then I got my best friend into it, and now it's become a huge thing.

So, as you can imagine, when we found out that Newsies would be visiting our local performing arts center, we knew we had to get tickets ASAP, and we did! My parents, Megan (best friend Megan, freshman roommate Megan is in Ireland...too many Megans!), and I went to see Newsies, and when we left I was tap dancing along to "King of New York" and humming "Santa Fe" all the way home.

It's pretty easy to say that I love the musical much more than I love the movie, especially since it has one of my favorite songs from the soundtrack: "Watch What Happens," and features some extremely elaborate dance routines that keep you on the edge of your seat. As for everything else, I don't want to give away too much because I highly recommend you go see this amazing show for yourself as it continues its tour around the United States!

This does bring my Disney musical total up to four though too, as I've previously seen The Lion King, Mary Poppins, and Beauty and the Beast. I've actually seen The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast twice, and I'd love to catch another showing of Mary Poppins, my personal favorite Disney musical, at some point in the future. What I'd really love, however, is to someday see a performance of the discontinued Hunchback of Notre Dame, which features some of my all time favorite Disney music in addition to new songs created for the musical adaptation. As of right now, it's not showing anywhere and it's not headed to Broadway any time soon, but it's definitely on my Bucket List!

In summary, Newsies was amazing, and you need to seize the day and see it for yourself!

Have a magical day!

Day 899: Just a Spoonful of Sugar

I've seen two versions of Mary Poppins so far...well, now I've seen three...and I can't wait to see another production later this summer, but it all goes to prove just how much I love this musical. Mary Poppins has something special for me, and while I can't quite put on my finger on why, I would see a production of this one long before many other musicals out there. 

This time, it wasn't on broadway and it wasn't put on by a high school, but rather a cast at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre in Minnesota, where I attended a performance on the band trip. Now, for those of you that don't know, the Chanhassen is an experience unlike most theatre shows, as you arrive roughly an hour or two before the show for a meal and then experience the show from your seat at your table. Dessert arrives during intermission as well, so it really is a complete dining experience mixed with a show. That being said, I was more impressed with my dessert than anything else. Don't get me wrong, the food was good, and I probably feel that way because with my lactose intolerance it was in my best interest to order the chicken tenders, but I was impressed with how everything else looked! And when it came to dessert I was thrilled to find a dairy-free option on the menu as well, which I promptly ordered. It was a lactose-free chocolate cake and it was 100% delicious. 

As for the show, however, I felt like it just fell a bit flat for me. Mary Poppins is an astonishing show, especially when it comes to the special effects that most productions include. However, due to the small size of the venue, which you can see in a picture below, many of those effects were impossible. Most noteworthy? Mary Poppins flying over the audience. Obviously it was pretty impossible to get a rig into such a small theater to do so, but it's just not quite the same without that extra element. 

There were other little things that bothered me too, but nothing to ruin the entire show. Overall, per usual, I loved it, and for the band members also on the trip who hadn't seen the musical before, I know for a fact that it was just as inspiring and heartwarning as the first time I saw it years ago. 

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on June 25 due to Travel).

Day 803: Mary Poppins

I have a friend from high school that I get to see Once a year, although now I guess that'll all change because he's a senior and will be moving on to bigger and better things, and in reality, it's two friends, but the point is that I don't see them very often. They both transferred to a nearby school part-way through High School in an attempt to join a better music program, specifically music theater (and French for my friend Joey), but the good part about this is that it also means I get to go and see the spectacular productions they're a part of. Two years ago it was Les Mis, last year it was Shrek and this year it was one of my all time favorite musicals: Mary Poppins!

I saw the show in Chicago several years ago and it immediately gained a spot at the top of my Disney Musical list, beating out Lion King as my favorite (I guess I'm one of those weird people that prefer Mary Poppins to the Lion King, but they're both great shows...I just get more Mary Poppins stuck in my head I guess). I used Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious during my junior year (or was it senior?) to learn how to spell the word as a joke on an English test (and now I can't spell it without singing the song), and when I found out that my friends would be part of the production at their school, one of them portraying Bert, no less, it was pretty hard to contain my excitement.

I thoroughly enjoyed the show, as I knew I would, and kind of want to see if there are any remaining seats left for this upcoming weekend so I can see it again. Alas, I don't know if I'll have time, nor do I know if there are any seats left, but yes, the show was that good. Long (almost three and a half hours), but really, really good. They even had a flying rig set up, so that was pretty entertaining, especially since the seats I bought up me directly under a flying Mary Poppins. Totally worth it.

So congratulations to Joey and Alex and the rest of the Cast of Mary Poppins! It was a spectacular show and I loved every second of it! 

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on March 16 due to Midterms).

Day 328: Newsies

My roommate and I, like most roommates, have always shared the randomness of stuff that we like. I mean, I love Disney, obviously, and Once Upon A Time is just the TV show I'm always talking about. She watches One Tree Hill, so that's the show she talks about, but one thing that she's talked about since the beginning of the year is the musical Newsies. It's her favorite, and I've never seen the movie or the musical.

Well, until tonight.

I went home for most of the day, but when I got back I just wasn't feeling in the mood to watch Good Form for like the 20th time. Probably would just remind me that we have yet another week to wait until we find out what really goes down in Neverland. So instead I was like, I should watch a movie, and there was only one movie in my mind that I should watch.

Newsies.

So I went and I found it and I started to watch it and automatically I'm just like "THIS MUSIC IS THE BEST THING EVER." And I tweeted my roommate and eventually she ended up back in our room and we watched it up on our bunks on my laptop. It was a grand old time, and I have to say that I adore this movie. In fact I'll probably go and buy the soundtrack tomorrow just because I love it that much.

I also had a little freak out halfway through the movie because I was like, "This Denton guy looks familiar," so I look it up and it's Bill Pullman. For those of you who don't know who that is, he's been in a bunch of movies, but the one that I know him from is a little movie called Spaceballs, which is a serious parody of Star Wars that had me rolling around laughing the first time I saw it. He plays Lone Star, the play on Han Solo, and seriously it was just great...so there's that little portion of Newsies that freaked me out.

Overall I just loved the entire thing. Like I don't think I have more words...other than it's a fine life people!

 

Today for Frumpstagram the prompt was "Magic Kingdom Resorts," and since we already discovered I have absolutely no pictures of the Poly, and probably very few of the Grand other than my senior pictures I took there, I figured there was only one resort that I could pick for today (well, unless I did Wilderness Lodge...which is in the same category as the other two...or Fort Wilderness), and that's the Contemporary! Certainly Bay Lake Tower is one of my favorite places to stay now! Seriously!




Here's today's Disney History: 2010: Tangled, a 3D animated musical film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, is released to theaters. The 50th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics Series, it is largely based on the classic German fairy tale Rapunzel.

Have a magical day!

Day 111: The Lion King

Last night I was lucky enough to see a performance of The Lion King: The Musical. It was, as always, amazing!!!!

I've been fortunate to see multiple Disney musicals throughout my life. This was the second time I saw The Lion King (I saw it for the first time when I was about 5 or 6 in Chicago), and I've seen Beauty and the Beast twice as well. A couple of years ago I saw Mary Poppins, which is probably my favorite of those I've seen, although I'd really like to see the others I've missed, especially Tarzan because I'd like to see how they did it, and the same goes for The Little Mermaid. And Aida, since I haven't seen that either...and of course Aladdin will be starting this year too! So many shows to see, so little time!

I loved the movie the Lion King as a kid, so the musical is just an awesome experience for me...and here is my short list of thoughts from throughout the show.

My favorite song is "He Lives in You." 

Everyone says that Circle of Life takes their breath away, but as amazing as it was, it just didn't do that for me. The reprise of He Lives in You though...did very much take my breath away. Maybe it's because it's a song that wasn't in the original movie (although it's in Lion King 2), and was unique to the musical, or possibly because it's just different from anything else that's really there. It's a slower song and it has a lot of meaning if you ask me. =)

I can really see how much the costumes are inspired by African heritage. 

I noticed it much more this time, and the thought that actually came to mind was Animal Kingdom lodge, and how every single costume could be a piece of amazing artwork displayed there. I think that's one of the greatest accomplishments of The Lion King on broadway....the costuming is just spectacular.

My only criticism is how much Nala moves her arms. 

Maybe it was just my cast, or maybe it's there entire time, but I think the arm movements could have been toned down just a little bit. There are times when those arm movements are nice, but constantly is just kind of distracting.

And that's what I thought...or at least that I could think of at the moment. It was, and is, a great show that I suggest everyone goes to see because it's truly magical in it's own unique way, which makes it even better.

Here's today's Disney History: 2008: In a press release, Disney announces the launching of Disneynature; " a prestigious new production banner that will literally go to the ends of the earth to produce major big screen nature documentaries." In the tradition of the old" True-Life Adventures" series, the first film to be released domestically under Disneynature will be "Earth" in April 2009.

Have a magical day!