Monday, June 29, 2009

THE WIZ WAS QUITE WHIMSICAL!



While in NYC over the weekend we met up with our friends CaTanya and Riley to see The Wiz at the New York City Theatre.

Ashanti starred as Dorothy and was cute as a button. The only down side of her as the main character is that she isn't a very good actress and had pretty low energy throughout - but that girl can sing! She has an amazing voice and the actors around her more than made up for her mediocre acting skills.

What was most impressive in this show was that the interpretive dancing. When they walked the yellow brick road they had actors dressed in all black swinging actors around like they were flying down the bridge - rolling across the stage. This was a very modern interpretation of the show from the costumes to some of the changes made to the script - it was seriously great!

I love live theatre - it's so much better than seeing a movie or television show - because the actors get one shot at putting on the perfect performance. Being able to sing, act and dance in a musical takes mad skills and only certain people have this sort of talent!

We all very much enjoyed the show and part of the fun was our awesome seats as we were in the second row - close enough to see the spit flying out of the actors mouths and detailed makeup the scarecrow was wearing. It reminded me of doing some of the high school musicals I was in - I played small ensemble roles! Not many people know that I was a thespian in high school. I liked making the scenery/directing one-act plays and my biggest role was playing the ghost of Christmas future in A Christmas Carol- I was tall and skinny and didn't have any lines - yep, I was a bit of a theatre geek in high school, Good Times!

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