Oklahoma at HCT

Wednesday night I saw Hale Theatre's production of the classic musical Oklahoma!  Every song is instantly recognizable: "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," "The Surrey With The Fringe On Top," "Kansas City," "People Will Say We're In Love," "The Farmer and the Cowman," and, of course, "Oklahoma!" I've seen this show many, many times and I was quite impressed with what Hale was able to do on such a small and intimate stage. The choreography was absolutely amazing and I especially loved the rope tricks by Will Parker (Jack David Shapiro) in "Kansas City." The Dream Sequence was extremely well done. I think having Laurey (Elise Groves) and Curly (Derek Smith) as children and then adolescents together was very effective at showing their relationship and it was very impressive that Groves and Smith danced their own parts (most productions have a Dream Laurey and Dream Curly). I also think the Dream Sequence was very bold in its depiction of Jud (Jacob Theo Squire).  He is truly menacing and he literally made my skin crawl during this number. I always think Jud is a difficult character. Usually I have some sympathy for him and I feel a little bit unsettled by the exuberant happy ending after his death.  But in this production, I did not like Jud at any point. Director David Tinney made a bold choice to portray Jud as Native American and, at first I didn't like this characterization because it made me feel guilty about not liking him. However, I think Jud is supposed to be a polarizing figure who makes everyone uneasy so, after thinking about it, I feel it was very apt! I also thought it was quite interesting that Tinney chose to have Aunt Eller (Lizanne Chapman) break down in tears alone on the stage following the trial. As I mentioned, I've never been comfortable with such a happy ending after the death of another, however reprehensible that person might be. All of the actors have wonderful voices and seem to have a lot of fun with their characters, particularly Heather McDonald as Ado Annie and Andrew Hansen as Ali Hakim. My only complaint is that I sometimes couldn't hear Aunt Eller but that may have been a technical issue. Set designer Kacey Udy continues to amaze me with what he is able to build on such a small stage. This time he created a full size wooden windmill tower!  Quite impressive!  I would highly recommend this production because it contains all of the familiar and well-loved musical numbers but the story is presented in a completely new way! It runs until Oct. 3 and you can purchase tickets here (but get them quickly because many shows are sold out).

Note:  When I bought my season tickets last year, I had no idea that this show would fall on the first day of school.  It was a long day...

Off to a Great Start

Yesterday was the first day of school and my officers definitely hit the ground running!  We had to plan an assembly for Friday (tomorrow!) and Homecoming is in three weeks!  I have to admit that I am a little bit stressed out about Homecoming because of everything that I have going on in my life right now but I am just so excited to work with this group of students!  They have so many great ideas!  I am particularly excited about one idea for the assembly (it involved a trip to Home Depot to buy a galvanized metal garbage can!) and I'm also pretty excited about their theme for Homecoming (Into the Woods).  They have been hard at work for the past several weeks to make sure that the 2015-2016 school year is a success and I am very proud of them!

They came in on Tuesday (their last day of summer vacation) to make this amazing banner to welcome the students.  They are so artistic!  One of the officers drew those giant letters freehand and cut them out of paper!  They also went around the building helping teachers set up their classrooms.  Hunter High has had a lot of construction and painting going on over the summer and many teachers were not able to have access to their classrooms until Tuesday which was stressful, to say the least!  I know the teachers really appreciated their help (I certainly appreciated them moving my heavy filing cabinets for me).

Last week they sponsored an orientation for the incoming sophomores and freshmen (we have freshmen at HHS for the first time this year and they are so little) and they did such a great job!  We planned this quite a while ago but I've been so distracted that I didn't really touch base with them until that day.  They followed through with everything we had planned and were completely ready to go!  I can't tell you how much I appreciated that!

Several weeks ago they sponsored a blood drive with the American Red Cross.  Not only is this an incredible amount of work to organize, but they gave up an entire day of their summer to run it!  I am so lucky to get to work with such wonderful students!  It's going to be a great year!

2014

2013

Ten Thousand Saints

Last night I had my final late night excursion to the Broadway Theatre before school starts and the film I chose to see was Ten Thousand Saints.  It generated a lot of buzz at Sundance this year and I tried, unsuccessfully, to get tickets.  I didn't worry because I knew that it would eventually be screened at the Broadway (like The End of the Tour, another film I really wanted to see, which opens next weekend).  This film is partly a bittersweet coming-of-age story about three troubled teenagers and partly a love letter to a New York City that doesn't exist any more and I loved it!   The plot revolves around a boy named Teddy (Avan Jogia) who ODs on cocaine on New Year's Eve and how his death affects his best friend Jude (Asa Butterfield), his brother Johnny (Emile Hirsch), a lead singer in a hardcore punk band, and Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld), a girl with whom he had a one night stand and is now pregnant with his baby.  They come together in the East Village during the late 80s, when writers, artists, musicians, drug dealers, and squatters all inhabited the iconic neighborhood before the yuppies invaded (in fact, a pivotal scene takes place during the Tompkins Square Park Riot when police used force to remove the homeless), to form a surrogate family for Eliza's baby.  Ethan Hawke plays Les, Jude's drug-dealing father, and Emily Mortimer plays Diane, Eliza's uptight prima ballerina mother who happens to be Les' girlfriend.  Les is a character similar to the one Hawke played in Boyhood but it doesn't matter because he is just so good at it!  He has some of the best lines in the film and I laughed and laughed when his ex-wife calls to see where Jude is and then Diane calls on the other line to see where Eliza is and, since neither one is there, he simply hangs up the phone!   All of the actors give wonderful performances, particularly Hailee Steinfeld.  She is something else!  I loved how the filmmakers painstakingly reproduced the East Village of the late 80s, especially a scene of Johnny's band playing at CBGB, a night club where the Ramones, Blondie, and Talking Heads once played.  I also really loved the scenes in the Krishna Temple!  I sometimes attend the SLC Krishna Temple and these scenes just made me happy.  Finally, the soundtrack is amazing, filled with atmospheric music from the 80s such as "Sixteen Blue" (sigh) from The Replacements and "Talk About the Passion" from R.E.M.  Good stuff!  It is a wonderfully nostalgic movie that will make all of my fellow Gen Xers laugh and cry!

Note:  Emile Hirsch got into a bit of trouble while he was in Park City promoting this film at Sundance!

Shania Twain at Energy Solutions Arena

Country is my least favorite genre of music so many people are surprised when they learn that I am a huge fan of  Shania Twain.  I really love the album Up! and, when I saw the Up! tour in 2003, I started listening to her other music because she put on such an amazing show!  When I heard that she would be bringing her Rock This Country tour to SLC after an absence of over a decade, I was thrilled!  Last night I joined a crowd of all ages for an evening of her biggest hits.  She came up from the floor on a platform and rose high above the arena wearing a sparkly mini-dress, a black leather jacket with fringe, thigh-high leather boots, and red-tinted sunglasses to sing, appropriately, "Rock This Country."  After that it was one spectacle after another with lasers, pyrotechnics, giant video screens, multiple costume changes, and several forays into the crowd (one of which was on a mechanical bull that circled the arena on a crane).  I loved it!  Twain does not have the voice she did in her heyday but no one, including me, seemed to care and we all sang every word to every song along with her.  She had plenty of swagger and sass to make up for it!  She played for over two hours, dividing the show into three sets.  The first included "Honey, I'm Home," "You Win My Love," "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?," "I Ain't No Quitter," "Love Gets Me Every Time," "Don't Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)," and "Any Man Of Mine."  She started the second set with "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!" and "Come On Over."  Then she sang "Party for Two" with Gavin Degraw, who opened for her.  That was one of my favorite moments.  She continued with my favorite song, "Up!," and then toned things down with some acoustic versions of "Today Is Your Day," "No One Needs to Know," and "You're Still The One."  In my opinion, her voice was at its best during these songs and I was quite impressed to see her playing the guitar.  She began the third set with a powerful version of "From This Moment On" and finished with "That Don't Impress Me Much" and "(If You're Not in It for Love) I'm Outta Here."  For the encore, she sang a fun and rowdy version of "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!"  I loved this concert!  Shania definitely rocked the ESA last night!

Note:  The teenage girls sitting in front of me took about 812 (a conservative estimate) selfies during the concert...

The Man from U.N.C.L.E

I am too young to remember the television series (I sometimes lament the fact that I didn't grow up in the 1960s), but I have long been looking forward to the film adaptation of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  I had a chance to see it last night and it is fantastic!  During the height of the Cold War, an Italian crime family led by Victoria Vinciguero (Elizabeth Debicki) has enlisted (coerced?) the services of a German scientist to create a nuclear weapon.  Both the United States and the Soviet Union want to prevent this from happening (and possibly steal the technology for their own use) so they join forces and send CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and KGB agent Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) to Rome to stop them.  Their only lead is the scientist's daughter Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander), whom they rescue from East Berlin, but she may or may not be all that she appears.  Can the two enemy agents cooperate long enough to save the world from destruction?  Guy Ritchie is known for very stylized action scenes with pulse-pounding music underneath them and this film certainly delivers.  It is just so much fun to watch and I particularly enjoyed the car chase through East Berlin.  Hammer is not my favorite actor (Don't even get me started on The Lone Ranger!) but he is great in this role.  The chemistry between Hammer and Cavill is one of the highlights of the film.  Their quick and witty back-and-forth banter (another hallmark of a Guy Ritchie film) is hilarious and I loved it whenever they tried to one up each other with their spycraft and gadgets.  This is not one of Vikander's best performances (see here and here) but it hardly matters because she wears fabulous clothes and accessories (the sunglasses!) and has a few great stunts.  Speaking of clothes and accessories, I loved the 1960s aesthetic of the film: suave, stylish, and super cool.  It is well worth the price of admission just to see Henry Cavill cavort in, shall we say, some very well-tailored suits!  Even though the story is a familiar one, I thought it was wildly entertaining and, given the many allusions to the backstories of all of the characters and the montage of their dossiers in the end credits, I predict a sequel (although there is no end of credits scene).  Go see it!

Note:  It is worth mentioning that I am a huge fan of spy movies (I read too many Le Carre, Forsyth, and Ludlum novels in high school) so it is not surprising that I would enjoy The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  I loved the recent Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation and I cannot wait for the latest Bond installment, Spectre, in the fall.