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 1153: Anna, Elsa, Tiana

The world's latest obsession is definitely adult coloring books, and I couldn't be more excited. As an artsy person in general, I've always loved coloring, and now that's apparently socially acceptable for adults to color too, I'm even more excited. Even Disney is getting in on the action, creating adult coloring books that are by far some of the most intricate I've seen out there. My mom gifted me the first two in the set - Disney Princess and Frozen - to test out, and Megan and I put them to use while watching Newsies recently. Because why wouldn't you want to watch a Disney movie and color in a Disney coloring book?

Megan picked the Disney Princess book, eager to find her favorite Disney Princess: Tiana. I watched as she colored the page, and I got really excited when I saw her color choice for the intricate heart outline. I really thought the dark blue brought some real contrast to the picture and made it different from what one might usually expect! 

Meanwhile, I dove into Frozen, specifically intent on finding a picture of both Anna and Elsa. I found this one, and quite honestly had to look up a picture of them from the movie to make sure I got the color combinations correct. I think it turned out rather well though! 

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that I'm going to be spending more time with my nose in a coloring book than I may have before, but with all the pictures I now have available to color, I don't think that's going to be a problem.

Have a magical day! 

Day 1137: The Wonderful Wizard

You may not know this, but The Wizard of Oz was easily one of my favorite movies as a kid. I remember the days of watching it constantly, and one of the earliest presents I remember was a VHS copy of the film all my own. Granted, my love of The Wizard of Oz hasn't really continued, at least not in the force it had when I was three, and it also happened to instill a terrible fear of thunderstorms and tornadoes in me. Still, when I found out my high school theater program was doing a production of the musical version of The Wizard of Oz, I was pretty excited. It's not a terribly complicated musical, and I loved their production of it...which I apparently have no pictures to prove I went.

The musical version, if you don't know much about it, is a bit different from the film or the book, although personally I still think the movie is the way to go if you really want to experience The Wizard of Oz. As you can probably imagine, the musical features a couple additional musical numbers, including The Jitterbug, which does its job of getting stuck in your head for what seems like forever.

It's also funny though because in the matter of two months I'll see four different musicals: I saw CHICAGO here at SNC, Newsies on tour, now The Wizard of Oz at my high school, and finally I'll be heading to see The Little Mermaid at another local high school in March. Talk about a lot of music, right?

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 591: Kids from Wisconsin

Tonight, or rather a few nights ago, I had the pleasure of heading to one of my favorite summer shows: Kids from Wisconsin. I saw the group a couple years ago when I went with my Camp and absolutely LOVED IT, so when one of my college friends became a part of the group this year, I was more than excited to go see it.

For those of you who aren't from Wisconsin or don't know what Kids from Wisconsin is, it's a group of basically college age kids who tour around our state every summer to perform a complete show filled with music of all kinds. There's 20 singers and then a band that backs them up (Go Jessica on Piano!!!), and they perform literally everything from musicals to jazz to current popular music.

So you can bet that there's always a couple of Disney moments in the show.

This year, and by far my favorite part of the show, they performed their today's hits section, which of course had to feature Let It Go from Frozen, because seriously, that song is everywhere. I think I've had the lyrics memorized since November or so and despite the fact that I do love Tangled more, I have a Frozen dress and am just totally pumped for the addition on OUAT.

But the Disney didn't end there.

Later on they were doing a tribute to the Tony's, featuring songs that were nominated or won there, and you can't have a musical montage without a little Mary Poppins and Newsies.

It's funny, actually. My roommate from this last year loved Newsies, or rather, she loves Newsies, and at some point during the school year I watched it for myself. Now, I don't really know all the words or anything, but I do love that musical, and now I have Megan hooked on it too. So from one Megan to another, the musicals go.

Seriously though, although their tour is pretty much over for this summer, if you ever have a chance to go see Kids from Wisconsin, DO IT! It's sooooo worth it because they're one of the best musical groups I've seen, and it's different every single year!

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on August 18).

Day 472: Wonderful Dreams Part 2

Yesterday we talked about how sometimes we just have these really really good dreams. Like insanely good dreams, such as the ones I talked about yesterday. But as I finished that blog post, I got an answer from my roommate as to whether or not I could blog about the awesome dream that she had, and she said I could. Or rather "YES YES YES." Our Twitter Conversations can get pretty entertaining.

Anyways, you may or may not remember that my roommate LOVES Newsies. Like, really loves Newsies, to the point where the songs are playing our room and now I like Newsies. It's a fun process. Granted, singing in our room just seems to be a given these days. We have a good time. Either way, the other morning I woke up and she was just like "Lizzie...are you up?" and I of course answered that I was, to which she just goes "Good, cause I have to tell you about my dream." Apparently it was a really good one, about how she was a part of the Newsies cast and she was singing the one song and she knew all the words AND, to top it all off, she was dating one of the cast members. 

Gosh, I'm eating hamburgers with Colin O'Donoghue and my roommate is dating Newsies cast members. Our dream lives are way better than our broke college student lives.

But let's continue to hang in this weird dreamland that seems to be better, or at least more interesting that the one that actually is in front of us. I wouldn't call this next dream good, but just...strange I suppose. It's been a couple years since I had it, so I'm a bit fuzzy on some of the details, but I remember enough of it to make it a bit of a story. Basically, I was in my high school, and I was Elizabeth Swann (from Pirates of the Caribbean), and for some reason Jack Sparrow insisted that I hide in one of the lockers (That happened to be the hallway my locker was in at the time...only I wasn't hiding in my locker). So I did, but eventually I got sick of waiting and left the locker and went out this set of doors that's a little ways away from where those lockers are. I go out them, and apparently my high school was a cruise ship, because that's where I was. Ultimately I ended up jumping overboard for some reason or another. The dream skipped around a little bit before eventually I was in this bedroom and Jack was sleeping on the floor? I have no clue, it was a strange dream, as I said.

The only other recent Disney dream I've had is one where I was at the Boardwalk Resort, but there was a cruise ship also involved in this one. Like we went on a cruise and then it docked at the Boardwalk, which makes no sense, and my brother and I were trying to figure out how to get back on the ship, so we're just walking all along the boardwalk, and then for some reason I remember being really sad. This was moreso just a confusing dream than anything else though. I really don't know what happened. But it must have been nice because I woke up in a great mood. 

Dreams are interesting things, that's for sure. I'll probably have more in the future, and if I have a really interesting one I promise to share. But you know how these things work, good dreams come and go, and you don't have one every night, so who knows what will happen!?!

All I can say is hopefully I'll share more hamburgers with Colin...or you could throw Harrison Ford in there. Or maybe a coffee date with Jennifer Morrison where we just talk about hair and braids for a few hours. Yeah, those all sound like great options.

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on April 22 due to Easter).

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!