Tonight was one of the BEST nights! I took Reagan into Manhattan to watch my cousin Sara perform in a Broadway Revue. It was such a great night, just my daughter and me, watching my only family member in this area. Sara was amazing, as was the entire cast. It took place in the Mormon wardhouse that is in the building connected to the Manhattan Temple (65th Street and Broadway, right across the street from Lincoln Center). I'd always wanted to see what a chapel looked like that was located in the middle of the city, and I must admit, it looked exactly the same as every other Mormon church! It was so weird to see a chapel and a gym in a business looking building in the middle of Manhattan ... I felt like I was in Sandy, UT!
The cast was made up of some of the most talented performers, 16 men and women from surrounding wards, all of whom had or attempted to have careers in Theater in NYC.
As you can see by the above program, they sang songs from 3 different song-writers/composers.
Reagan was SO excited to go and asked if she could wear a dress (not that this request is any different from any other day, since she's dress-obsessed!). I decided to wear a skirt too just for fun. Reagan also insisted on bringing her pink purse, which NEVER left her arm the entire evening.
We got there early and saved front row seats. Reagan was SUCH a good girl! She sat still and watched the entire show, clapping excitedly after each performance!
Fiddler on the Roof's "Tradition"
Fiddler on the Roof's "Matchmaker"
"Will He Like Me" from She Loves Me
Rebecca Holt-Gilmore singing "What More Do I Need" from Saturday Night
Kevin Goertzen and Ryan Wood singing "Agony" from Into the Woods
Libby Marshall singing "The Wizard and I" from Wicked ~ she was amazing!
Matthew Herrick and Libby Marshall singing "As Long As You're Mine" from Wicked
My cousin Sara and Vanessa Goertzen singing "For Good" from Wicked ~ this was an unbelievable performance of one of my favorite songs!
I downloaded this song ("For Good") onto my iPhone and played it for Reagan several times before the show, so she knew a lot of the words by the time she watched Sara perform. It was so cute to see her singing the song softly from her seat :)
The entire cast at the end of the show, singing "In The Beginning" from Children of Eden
The final bow was right in front of us ...
Reagan got SO excited when everyone started clapping and standing up, that she literally jumped up out of her seat and ran over to Sara! I couldn't believe she did that and I was a little bit torn between my emotions - part of me was upset that she ran away from me like that without even asking if she could get out of her seat - the other part of me thought it was the sweetest thing I'd ever seen!
As soon as the show was over, she asked if she could get up on the stage ... she ran around the stage, totally in heaven!
Steve and Sara (too bad I didn't get a picture with Sara's eyes open!)
It's pretty obvious how excited Reagan was to see Sara! Look at that smile!
We had a lovely time and I was overjoyed that I had the opportunity to expose Reagan to some Broadway Theater in this way ... it was the perfect venue to ease a 3 year old into the Arts. I only played songs from Wicked before the show, mostly because they were my favorites. I was part of the ensemble for Fiddler on the Roof during my sophomore year of high school at Hillcrest (I was a member of the Dance Company, so they literally forced us to be a part of the musical numbers for the school musical). I got so tired of those songs, so I didn't think to play these for Reagan beforehand. But it turns out she loved them! On our drive home from the city, she asked, "Can I hear the ... house on the roof songs?" It was amazing that she'd picked up even part of the title of the musical, but she knew exactly what she wanted to hear. So I found some video clips on YouTube on my iPhone and let her watch them on the way home. She loved "Tradition" and "Matchmaker."Speaking of my sophomore year of high school, I ran into a girl who I danced with on Hillcrest's Dance Company! As I watched the show, I couldn't help but notice that the girl who was turning the music for the pianist looked very familiar. I thought her name was Marin Leggat, so at the end of the show I stopped her to ask ... sure enough, it was her! She was a senior when I was a sophomore and if I remember correctly, she was also a Student Body Officer. We were on the Dance Company together, but most people stuck with their friends from their own grade, since the company was made up of Seniors, Juniors and Sophomores. She said she remembered me, but her picture of me in her head was someone with really curly hair ... I told her I had the permed-do back then, so she was probably thinking of the right person. She told me she was living in Manhattan because she moved there to pursue a career in choreography. After talking to her, I asked Sara if she knew her ... she had only met her briefly at one of the rehearsals, but Sara told me Marin was the one responsible for organizing the entire Arts Festival that took place that weekend for the church. She'd put on a dance performance the night before. I'm posting this because it's SUCH a small world that I would run into someone I went to high school with in Manhattan, 17 years later!
Speaking of the curly hair, just one more story and then I'll end this post! A couple weeks ago, I decided to style my hair curly one day for work. When I say curly, what I really mean is wavy. After I wash my hair, I put some mousse in it, do a lot of scrunching, then dry it upside down with a diffuser. It goes wavy and looks like an 80's do, but sometimes a girl needs a change! So, I walked in from work that day and Reagan was in awe! Her eyes got big and she said, "Mama, you have curly hair! It looks just like Sara's!" It cracked me up that she immediately made the connection to Sara. Who notices stuff like that? Only my little Reagan :) Since then, we've have MANY conversations about Sara, especially when Reagan gets out of the bathtub and has curly wet hair. She loves to run around the upstairs saying she's Sara, not Reagan!
