My continuing Applification

Also competing in the category of ‘why didn’t I just do this in the first place?!’, we have Apple TV.

For those who aren’t familiar, Apple TV is basically a streaming device to allow one to play web- and iTunes-based content via the TV. It costs $99, so for years I’d been doing ‘everything but’—I’ve been paying for cable in this new apartment, I’ve been getting the Netflix discs rather than the streaming, and I even bought a $25 cable last week to try to use my MacBook Pro itself as a makeshift Apple TV. None of this was really working all that well—I watched cable maybe once a week (Glee!), the computer-to-TV adapter I bought couldn’t carry audio from my (older) MacBook Pro, and the Netflix discs of course arrived several days apart (and I rarely had time to watch more than two or three a month, anyway)—but dammit, I was saving money. Somehow.

Then my Apple AirPort wireless router died, so I went without for a couple of weeks, using an Ethernet cable (which of course didn’t work with my &*@^% school-issued PC) and scavenging free wireless connections where I could. After a little research, I realized that the AirPort I had (which I’d bought used) was actually approaching its tenth year of existence. Thus, I forgave it the extreme faux pas of giving up the ghost whilst bearing an Apple logo (blasphemy!), and decided that, assuming the cost was going to be spread over another decade, the investment in a new one was, in fact, probably worth it.

Somewhere in this confusing analysis of electronic devices and cost-benefit ratios, I ended up investigating the AirPlay feature of the Apple AirPort (and the awesome free Remote app for iPhone), which led me back to the option of Apple TV. After crunching a few numbers, talking to my sister (who owns one), and taking a good look at what I pay for versus what I actually watch, I realized that my current setup was both practically and financially ridiculous. I canceled my cable (keeping my Internet, but still saving me $54 per month), switched Netflix to streaming (no additional cost), and… drumroll… bought an Apple TV.

Verdict? So far, it is absolutely amazing. (See above comment re: why why whyyyy didn’t I just do this from the start?!) I’m currently working my way through all six seasons of The Wonder Years (don’t judge) and my lovely sister has agreed to share with me her vast collection of digitized movies and TV shows when I go home next week, so I will soon have even more content at my disposal. Also, an unforeseen perk is that, when I play music through Apple TV, if I do it with the Remote app (which, again, is super cool, and FREE), I can stream music simultaneously through the TV and my MacBook Pro. In other words, the laptop functions like a separate wireless speaker that I can place anywhere I want. Not that I throw a whole lot of parties in this 500sf apartment, but hey, who needs a party to appreciate a well-balanced audio system? Not this girl.

In other words, good decision (that is significantly contributing to my enjoyment of this lovely winter break!), and I wish I hadn’t waited so long.

Summer

So I spent the majority of my vacation in Florida with my family, and overall I had a really great time. I ended up going down a bit earlier than I planned because of the timing of my grandmother’s funeral, but I’m glad that things worked out to where I was able to be there. I drove down on the first of the month, and services were on the second. We had a small family remembrance in her backyard, and although I hadn’t managed to write down anything to say, I was able to speak pretty well ‘off the cuff’ despite everyone’s emotions running high. After that, there was a Catholic mass (the priest was very amusing and did a great job with the eulogy) followed by a delicious lunch. Sad setting aside, it was really nice to have such a big chunk of my family together; my dad has 4 sisters, and they were all there, with most of the members of their families. That’s how it used to be on big holidays, when all of us cousins were little, but I haven’t seen everyone in one place like that in years.

The rest of break was pretty low-key. I did some clothes shopping with Mom, went to the Bookmine (twice), did a lot of early-morning runs, took my parents to Three Layers Cafe, and swam three practices with my old masters’ swim team. The first one hurt (both my body and my ego!), but the second and third ones weren’t bad. I also checked out the new downtown library, and, yeah — there are pretty much no words for how amazing it is. Five stories tall, with everything you could possibly dream of and more: a teen room, a genealogy research center, a theater, a Grand Reading Room on the top floor, a forest-themed children’s area, a map room, a cafe, and so on. I would have lived there as a kid.

I got to see some of my old friends, too — met an old middle-school friend for coffee, an old swim team friend for brunch, and a high school friend for dinner (complete with peanut butter pie as big as my head!). I also got to spend a whole day with my best friend from high school, who is an RN, married and living in Orlando. I sat beside her on the first day of Spanish II class, in ninth grade, when we were both 14; she had braces and long reddish-purple hair (which is now back to brown, and as short as my own). Anyway, I drove down to O-town for the day, and we hit up IKEA, the mall, the outlets, and an amazing restaurant called The Elephant Bar (which unfortunately does not exist in my part of the country, so we may have to make that a regular destination when I visit home!). Our mouths never stopped moving all the while. I am so grateful that she and I have been able to stay friends for all these years — I’ve known her for literally half my life, and every time I see her, we manage to pick up right where we left off. It’s just so ‘easy’ to be with her, which is such a rare gift.

The next day, I drove down to Gainesville to watch my cousins (18 and 15) swim at their sectional meet. I’m particularly close to my 18-year-old cousin M; she just got a full college scholarship to a top-five swimming school, and is also competing at the FINA World Championships in Shanghai at the end of this month, so this was my last chance to see her swim before she hits the big time. I am so freakin’ proud of her, both as an athlete and as the young adult she’s becoming, and it was great to spend some quality time with her, sitting in the bleachers chatting about life in between her events.

Let’s see, what else? Well, my dad scrubbed three years’ worth mold off my car (he’s amazing), fixed my folding bike (see? amazing), and sweet-talked the salesgirl at the Apple Store into replacing my drowned iPod for free (told you he’s amazing). And I guess I did a little bit of work myself, too — reviewed some PACKRAT (end-of-year exam) questions, worked on my speech for the scholarship lunch (more on that in a minute), and wrote a blog entry for the ‘Day in the Life’ series of essays that are posted on the PA website (link to come). Oh, and I busted out my medical ‘toys’ to look at my sister’s infected ear (she managed to perforate her eardrum less than 4 hours before I got to FL), which evolved into an impromptu medical clinic in the dining room, with everybody looking at everybody else’s ears, eyes, and throats. Catie’s perforated TM was the star of the show, but it turns out my dad and brother-in-law have great (read: easily visualizable) optic discs, and my mom has perfect ‘textbook’ pearly gray eardrums. I freaked out for a second upon seeing a black splotch in my dad’s right eye, and tried to ask him casually whether he’d ever had any other eye issues apart from his nearsightedness; he replied, “No, but whenever I get those pictures taken of the back of my eye, they tell me I have a ‘freckle’ back there in the shape of a T-bone steak. It never changes; it’s just there.” Cue the sigh of relief that it was a normal finding… but I also felt like a stud for seeing it! :)

Oh, and, of course, we drove down to the Canaveral National Seashore to watch the final space shuttle launch. That was a big part of why I’d wanted to go home for this break. Although we were several miles away from Kennedy, it was still an awesome sight, and an unforgettable experience. Waking up at six o’clock to a seventy percent chance that the launch would be scrubbed, but still taking the risk and driving down. Walking a mile down the beach, hanging on the radio announcer’s every word for weather updates, anxiously watching the skies begin to clear. Standing on the sand in the middle of a stock-still crowd, everyone facing the same direction, silently waiting. Listening to the countdown via portable TVs and radios, holding our collective breath as it stopped at T-minus 31 seconds for a quick double-check of a retraction arm, exhaling in relief as it started back up. Watching the famous old digital countdown clock tick down to zero for the final time, then exploding in cheers and applause when the bright streak of light lit up the horizon for the last time, arcing its way upward ever faster. Just fantastic. Hard to believe that such a huge part of my childhood is over, though. I went to Space Camp at age 12 and loved every minute of it. A newscaster that I’ve been watching for my whole life got so choked up over the end of the shuttle program the night before the launch that he almost couldn’t finish his piece. His point was that those of us who grew up in Florida feel a sense of ownership of the space program; it means something different to us than those in the rest of the country. We were the kids who stood on our driveways and rooftops on launch days and pointed to the faraway streaks of light, watched the solid rocket boosters fall, listened for the sonic booms from the reentries, heard the stories of the Challenger told and retold. An era has ended, but beautifully so. I hope that whatever comes next can compare.

Anyway… then yesterday was the aforementioned scholarship lunch; the organization that sponsored my elementary school’s safety patrol brigade gave me an award last year that they were kind enough to renew for 2011. I had let slip that I was going to be in town, so I ended up being invited to attend one of their weekly meetings, and was asked to give a brief speech on what I’d been up to over the past year and what was on tap for me for next year. I was nervous about it, but I think it went well; I saw lots of smiles and nodding heads throughout, and got a couple of big laughs — even some spontaneous applause when I talked about St. Baldrick’s. I talked briefly about what a PA is (“We’re not ‘Personal Assistants’; we’re not ‘Public Attorneys’; we’re not the state of Pennsylvania…”), what I’d been up to over the past year (“You may notice that I’m sporting a pretty short haircut…”), what was coming up for next year, and how lucky I felt to be at Duke (“I’m learning something new every hour of every day, I’m surrounded by the most brilliant, caring, amazing people I’ve ever been privileged to meet, and I feel so humbled that someone, somewhere thought that I deserved to be among them. And I have people like you to thank for that, because it’s organizations like this one, and people like all of you, that allow me to get up in the morning and do what I love every day.”). I felt pretty good afterwards; one of the things I’ve been working on this year is trying to become a better public speaker, and this was one of the rare occasions when I’ve been asked to speak, not about a random school assignment, but about something I’m passionate about and truly know backwards and forwards. Anyway, I was pleased with how it went, and I drove back to Durham last night with a check in my purse, so my Duke bursar account is going to be pleased, as well. :)

Today, so far, has been amazing. I got caught up on bills and various other tasks, then went for a massage at 11am. I haven’t had a massage since I was 21 and living with a girl who was in massage school, but I still haven’t fully recovered from that finger-breaking tumble I took a few weeks ago — I pretty much wrenched the entire left side of my body from neck to thigh, and a certain muscle in my left hip/glute area, in particular, is still pretty stiff, especially after long periods of sitting. I thought a massage might help, so I’d been watching GroupOn and LivingSocial for deals, and finally snagged one. I swear I could feel my muscles crunching as the knots were worked out! It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but my body felt a lot better afterwards (and, knock on wood, my hip doesn’t hurt anymore, either!). My shoulders were actually sore afterward from all the work she did on them (after yesterday’s seven-hour drive, I’m not surprised they were so tense), but it was the good kind of sore. I’m glad I did it. It’s not something I can afford to do on a regular basis for full price, but I’ll definitely keep watching for deals.

After the massage, I went to lunch with my friend R, her baby girl, and her sister M; she had scored yet another LivingSocial deal (it was just that kind of day). We caught up over a delicious shrimp and artichoke risotto, and then I went a few blocks down Main Street to get my hair cut by the amazing C (whom I discovered during the St. Baldrick’s event a few months back and to whom I was an immediate convert!). We agreed that I had reached ‘critical mass’ in terms of hair and that it drastically needed thinning out, as well as some shortening. It’s amazing how fast it grows; C was telling the other stylists behind the counter that she couldn’t believe how fast it had come back; it’s been less than three months since I shaved it! Oh, and she and her hair posse officially challenged the DPAP crew to a cornhole tournament next week… this should be interesting… :)

Anyway, I just called and left a message for my very first preceptor, which was only slightly nerve-wracking; I assume he’s in clinic all afternoon, so I doubt he’ll call back until after 5. I’m headed to my BodyTone class now (the second-to-last one I’ll get to do for a while… *sniff*), then back home to clean up, then a couple of errands, then to Tutti Frutti with some DPAPers, and then… drumroll… the very last Harry Potter midnight show of all time! (Yes, I will be wearing my graduation gown — I’m just that big of a dork! :))

Three and a half more days of freedom… and it’s been an awesome break… but I gotta say, I’m actually feeling a lot more confident than I was before the vacation. I’ve wrapped my head around the transition and my changing role, for the most part, and I’m ready to jump back in.

Just don’t tell my classmates I said that. :)

(Note: I’ve been lazy about finishing this post, and now I’m glad I was, because I just checked YouTube and somebody else who was at this concert has since uploaded videos of a lot of the songs! Don’t mind the video quality — just imagine you’re in the front row like I was :) — but the audio is pretty good. So awesome in terms of my memories!)

Anyway, I saw Idina Menzel live in Raleigh on Thursday night and thought I’d post about it. For those who don’t know that name, Idina originated the Broadway roles of Maureen in RENT and (of course) Elphaba in Wicked; she also makes an occasional appearance on Glee these days. At the moment, she’s touring, hitting up mostly small venues with city orchestras and the like, and she puts on an incredible show, equal parts hilarity, intimacy, and and talent powerhouse. I scored a front-row center ticket through Ticketmaster months ago, and despite the fact that I had a surgery practicum the next morning, I couldn’t NOT go… :)

Anyway, Idina is incredibly entertaining to watch in a venue like this, mostly because she’s so quirky. For example, she sauntered out on stage in an elegant floor-length purple gown — barefoot. She belted out ‘Life of the Party’ like the superstar she is — and then became mildly obsessed with the various unidentifiable plastic artifacts lying around on the stage, picking bits and pieces up off the ground and saying things like, “I’ll just do a little housecleaning while I’m up here,” and “Wait, is this stuff coming from me? Is it, like, falling out of my dress or something?” She knocked one of her earrings off at one point, looked down at those of us in the front row, and said, “I’d give this to you, but my husband gave it to me, and they’re real diamonds.” Not sure why that was so funny in the moment, but it was.

She sang a pretty eclectic mix of stuff — various Broadway things, of course, mixed in with some of her own songs (namely ‘Gorgeous’… “This is for all my gay friends out there. But you straight people can have it, too.” LOL!) as well as quite a bit of oldie/jazz-type stuff (‘Funny Girl’, ‘Roxanne’, ‘Love For Sale’, ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’). There were a few I’d never heard of (‘Look to the Rainbow’, ‘Asleep on the Wind’, ‘I Feel So Smoochie’), but most were familiar to me. She even sang a couple of the songs that she and her husband ‘wrote’ for their 18-month-old son, Walker… so stinkin’ cute. She said, “His name is Walker Nathaniel Diggs, and we feel like, with a name like that, he could be a Supreme Court justice. Or a famous jazz musician.” Her pianist (who was evidently an old friend of hers) said, “Or both!” at the same time that I said the same thing from the front row; he and I then had a ‘moment’ where we locked eyes, nodded heads, and gestured at each other. Kinda fun. :)

This dynamic continued throughout the whole show — Idina would have a ridiculous conversation with us about something completely random (wedding singing, Long Island, etc.), then turn around and belt out a perfect song or two, then go back to chatting. At one point, she picked up one of the random plastic tubes she’d found on the ground and said, “Do you guys ever play that game with your friends, you know, like, ‘What could this be?’” [studies it thoughtfully] “Hmm. A urine sample…” [extends it from her nose] “…Cyrano de Bergerac…” While she was going on like this, the musicians, who were apparently operating under an entirely different set of cues, started to play the intro to the next song. She stopped them, laughing, and said, “I wanted to talk to them” (gesturing toward the audience) “about games and stuff, and you guys want to play this serious song. Which I guess is my bad,” she continued to us, “because I always tell them to go right into that song…” At another point, she didn’t know what song was coming up next, and said, “I really really hope it is what I think it is,” then looked at the ‘cheat sheet’ taped to the floor and said, “Oh, no, it’s not at all what I think it is!” Her stream-of-consciousness chatter just made me giggle.

She also had a funny story about singing a Barbra Streisand song at the Kennedy Center Honors, and how she’d poured so much effort and preparation into it, and then Barbra had completely ignored her when they were seated at the same table afterward. “So then my husband and I decided to start taking tequila shots, because it just seemed like the thing to do…!” :) Anyway, apparently Barbra did eventually ask, “Did you sing for me tonight? I wasn’t wearing my glasses,” and when Idina said yes, Barbra paused, then said, “Oh. …You were good,” and walked away. Idina’s commentary to us was, “So I didn’t know how to take that. Is that a good review? Is that a bad review? …So then my husband and I proceeded to fight about it for the next two hours, and he said I was too pessimistic, always seeing the glass as half empty… and by that point, all the glasses were empty…!” :)

Side note: of all people, Beyonce had also performed a Streisand song that night, ‘The Way We Were’, which is one of the songs that Idina used to frequently perform as a wedding singer, and she indignantly said to us, “That was MY song!” She paused for a moment, then, as an afterthought, added, “…Bitch.” LOL!

She also sang ‘Tomorrow’ as her second curtain call, “dedicated to my mother!” she said wryly, because apparently her mother wouldn’t ever let her audition for Annie, “because she wanted me to have a normal childhood.” :)

Oh, and one other fun thing. She spent a lot of time talking about a military guy she’d been seated next to on the flight to Raleigh, and he had told her about ‘Challenge Coins’. I’d never heard of this before, but apparently it’s a military thing, where certain units/brigades get coins minted that they’re supposed to carry on them at all times. In theory, you can walk up to anybody in the military and say, “I challenge you!”, and if they can’t produce their Challenge Coin, then they have to buy a round of drinks for everybody. (But if they DO have their coin, then YOU have to buy the drinks!) Anyway, this guy had evidently given her his coin, and she pulled it out of the front of her dress to show everyone (“I put it there, because I knew I wouldn’t lose it!”), and was in the middle of her meandering story about the coins when a distinguished-looking gentleman stood up from about the tenth row back, walked up to the stage, handed her something, and said, “There’s another coin for you.”

Well, he got the longest applause of the night, and Idina was visibly moved. “That was such a nice thing to do. …I’m trying to hold my shit together here!” She was dabbing at her eyes, looking around the stage, trying to figure out where to put the coins. Someone gestured to the front of her dress again, and she exclaimed, “No, I can’t put them down there with my sweaty boobs!” which made everyone crack up. Eventually, she laid them on a table next to the pianist, but pointed a finger at someone offstage and said, “Do NOT let me forget!” (If you watch the ‘Poker Face’ video below, where she loses the earring, she makes a reference to lying the earrings on the table with the coins.) Anyway, it made me laugh.

Other high points:

1) The second song she sang was ‘I’m Not That Girl’ from Wicked. ‘Nough said. That song doesn’t make as much sense out of context (and nobody beats Teal Wicks for that particular song in my book, anyway, not even Idina), but it was neat to see her perform it, knowing the history behind it.

2) I have somehow managed to survive 27 years of life without ever seeing RENT, and I think that situation needs to change, pronto. As I said, Idina was the original Maureen, and in a nod to the show, she sang ‘No Day But Today’. If you haven’t heard it, it’s a slow song, about the importance of living in the present. At the end, she had us all sing with her. So amazing, and definitely one of my favorite moments of the whole show. Here’s the video.

3) Sort of the antithesis of that: she actually also sang the Glee version of ‘Poker Face’, and had us all giggling uncontrollably for much of it, mostly because she kept stopping the orchestra in mid-song for no particularly good reason. Totally gets my point across about her quirkiness. First it was because of the ridiculous lyrics (“‘Bluffin’ with my muffin’… Why are we talking about baked goods?”), then to explain a gesture she had made, then because she lost her place (“Wait, what is it again?”) and so forth. Utterly hilarious, and the musicians were all laughing right along with the audience. At one point, I leaned over to the girl next to me and said, “I bet this is the first time the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra has ever performed Lady Gaga!”… and approximately five seconds later, Idina stopped the orchestra in mid-song for the fourth time, faced them, and said, “I’d just like to take this opportunity to say thank you for indulging me with this song — because I know you all went to Julliard and this is not the kind of music you thought you would be playing!” Maybe you had to be there, but it was ridiculously funny.

4) ‘For Good’. Oh. My. Goodness. This was absolutely THE highlight of the entire concert. For those who don’t know, it’s the final ‘big’ song from Wicked, very sentimental, where you’ve seen the ‘good witch’ and ‘bad witch’ go through their full character arcs and now they’re singing about how much they’ve learned from one another. Anyway, Idina sang the first line, then seemed to be thinking about something… and stopped. She put the mike down. Silenced the orchestra. Pulled her earpieces out. Stepped to the edge of the stage in her bare feet. And sang. Completely a cappella.

You could have heard a pin drop.

My hand flew up involuntarily to cover my mouth, and I heard the girl next to me sniffling. That was, hands-down, the most intimate, ‘real’ thing I have ever experienced at a show. Here’s a video, from a different angle than the others I’ve posted — you can really get an idea of how her voice filled up the house, even without a mic — but it still doesn’t even begin to capture the magic; I think it’s one of those things where you really did have to ‘be there’. Anyway, she got a standing ovation, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Amazing.

5) …And, of course, her first curtain call was ‘Defying Gravity’! She launched into it, and the spotlight changed to green as a nod to Wicked :) …which was funny enough on its own, but then Idina changed the lyrics of the first few lines and started singing, “…and they’ve got the green spotlight, but without the green makeup on, it just makes you look — sickly…” Hilarious. Here’s the video; this one is from the same angle as above, and the person filming actually caught the ad-libbing about the green spotlight, so it’s pretty funny.

Anyway, I waited at the stagedoor afterwards and got a brief encounter; the groupies around me were too awestruck to say anything once she finally reached our part of the line, and for all their former bravado, they just held out their Sharpies and programs without a word. I’d been planning to tease her about a comment she’d made about the Kennedy Center folks being worried about her falling into the ‘hole’ through which Beyonce was going to rise up (one of Idina’s dubious ‘claims to fame’ is that she fell through a trapdoor and cracked a rib during one of her final performances of Wicked), but the joke didn’t feel right; there were about 200 people there and she seemed pretty frazzled, with bodyguards flanking her on either side. So instead, I took advantage of the relative silence and said, “Thank you for such an incredible show. It’s so rare to leave feeling as though you really got to know the person, not just the performer.”

That got through, I could tell by the way she had to search for words for a second. She said “Aw, thank you!” then pulled her eyes up off the marker in her hand, searched for the face that matched the voice, and when her eyes found mine, she smiled and said, “…You know, I feel the same way.”

I asked her if she’d mind if I got a picture with her, and she said, “Ooh, they’re gonna get so mad at me…!”, meaning the bodyguards. But she did it anyway. :)

Anyway, that was about it… but if any of you guys get the chance to see her live, you should definitely go. Whatever your musical taste, and whatever your knowledge (or lack thereof) of who in the world Idina Menzel is, you will not be sorry.

“Dude, that was totally wicked.”

You know how every so often we all have one of those days where absolutely nothing goes right, and we question why we even bothered to get out of bed? Well, yesterday was the complete antithesis of that. I don’t know what kind of sparkly cloud was following me around, but whatever it is, I wish it’d stick around!

To recap, I’d decided earlier in the week that I would regret it if I didn’t go and see Wicked one more time before it left the Southeast for good. Something about the music, and especially the character of Elphaba, really touched me in a way that doesn’t happen often. So I’d been scouting Craigslist for a few days, and had finally struck a deal to buy a woman’s 19th-row seat for only half the Ticketmaster cost. However, when we spoke again the day before the show, she gloomily told me that her plans had changed and she wasn’t going out of town after all. She said that she’d still sell me the ticket as agreed, but was clearly sad about missing the show. I told her that although I’d plan to still take her ticket, that I’d keep trying to find another seat in the meantime so that we could potentially both be able to go. Cutting to the chase — lo and behold, another ticket came available for almost the same price — and I got it.

Fourth row. Center.

So that was the first pleasant surprise of the morning — I’d left the house around 5:30am because the uncertainty over the tickets meant that I wasn’t sure if I’d end up at the matinee or the evening show, but the owner of the 4th-row seat (for the evening show) called before 7am to say, “You can absolutely have the ticket” (for less than his asking price!) and that he would meet me at the arena on my way into town. He and his wife had planned to attend the show with their daughter, but she had decided at the last minute to attend an out-of-town music festival instead of coming to see Wicked. (Her loss, my gain!) I stopped for a cup of coffee, texted the owner of my backup ticket to tell her she could keep it (thus making her very happy, too!) and continued on my way.

Once I’d made the tradeoff and had the precious ticket safely in my hot little hands, I went to a nearby mall, hit Barnes & Noble just as it opened, curled up in a comfy chair with my coffee, and read for a while. That was a nice, relaxing break after all the uncertainty and stress over the tickets. Around 11am, I walked down to the restaurant where my aunt and uncle and I had agreed to meet for lunch. We were the first patrons in the restaurant, so the food (delicious salads and pimiento mac-n-cheese) came out quickly, and we ate, chatted, then did a little shopping at REI. After that, I accompanied them back to their (beautiful) house, admired my uncle’s photos from his recent trip to Brazil, and took a much-needed nap before heading back to the arena around 5:30pm.

That was when things started getting interesting. As I walked from the parking lot around to the front of the arena, I saw Anne Brummel sitting outside the stage door with a friend. She was the one who played Elphaba when I saw the show for the first time, back in April, and she had blown me away. I didn’t have the guts to try to go talk to her — I wasn’t quite a hundred percent sure it was her (hard to tell without the green makeup! :)), and I didn’t want to intrude on her conversation, but I probably did stare a little longer than was strictly necessary. As I walked by, a tall black man wearing security badges started walking toward me. Oh, great, I’m about to get hustled along and told not to bother the actors, I thought, but I put on my best smile and asked him how he was doing. After a brief, pleasant conversation, during which he introduced himself as Marvin, he told me, “If you’re here after the show ends, the cast will come out and sign autographs, take pictures, all that kind of thing. Hint, hint.” He smiled, and I thanked him for the tip. As he started to walk away, I asked him who was playing Elphaba tonight. That seemed to pique his interest, and we had another conversation about how I’d come “all the way from Raleigh” to see the show again. Then he lowered his voice and said, “Tell you what. If you come back here to the stage door after the show, and stick around until all the autographs are done, I’ll give you a tour.”

Um, what????

Needless to say, I instantly agreed.

After killing a little more time, I went inside and saw the stand of souvenirs. I’d been casually looking online for a Wicked poster (like this image), and so was thrilled to see that they had one for sale. After buying it, I went to find my seat, and my eyes just about popped out of my head when I saw how close fourth row center actually was. I saw my first Wicked performance from the nosebleed seats, and this was an unbelievable contrast. When the show got going, I could see every facial expression, every nuance. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had that close of a seat for anything, concerts, plays, or otherwise. It was awesome.

I was a little early, so I chatted with the people around me — I was the only one who’d seen the play before, though most of them had read the book, so they had lots of questions about the similarities and differences between the two. The couple who’d sold me the ticket arrived and took their seats beside me, and we had about five more minutes for small talk before the lights went down and we were underway.

After my umpteen listenings of the soundtrack, the opening notes of the score brought tears to my eyes. Hearing the music as it was meant to be heard — not through headphones or car speakers, but big deep round sounds filling the cavernous dark space around us, filled with hundreds of people, all there for the same experience… along with the knowledge that the music would, within seconds, be accompanied by live actors, perfectly acting out the scenes I’d played in my head so many times — was just incredible.

The Glinda (or Galinda, depending on your preference) that we had last night was just amazing. I don’t remember being quite that amused by her during my first performance — it might not have been the same actress — but this girl got chuckles from the audience after nearly every line she said. After the first two musical numbers, out came Elphaba (the witch — played by Vicki Noon this time rather than Anne Brummel), and the audience burst into spontaneous applause at her appearance. Onstage, she was made to realize that her magical talent, rather than being a curse, could be the means to everything she’s ever wanted, and she sang “The Wizard and I” to show us her new sense of hope. As she belted out the last note, I heard a chorus of muttered “Wow”s and “Damn!”s reverberating around me through the applause, and smiled to myself. It was great to hear others appreciating the play as much as I do.

The show progressed. At first, Elphaba and Glinda evoked roars of laughter, displaying their (initial) hatred of one another — angrily singing nose to nose, each mocking the other’s behavior. Elphaba is seen as an brilliant outcast, Glinda as empty-headed and very popular. As their relationship began to evolve into friendship, the laughter continued, mostly at Glinda’s antics as she proceeded to give Elphaba a makeover. Around the middle of Act I, Fiyero, the male love interest in the play, appears on the scene, bringing new tensions; though he and Glinda are similarly shallow people and almost instantly become boyfriend and girlfriend, we’re shown that it is really Elphaba to whom there is a genuine mutual attraction — though neither will act on it. Later, the tone turns darker; Elphaba and Glinda journey to the Emerald City and meet the Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, he is revealed to be a fraud, the head of a corrupt government with no true magical power of his own. After Elphaba realizes that he has tricked her into using her own (genuine) magical talent for negative purposes, she escapes by enchanting a broomstick to fly, singing all the while about how she will fight the Wizard with all her power. This song, “Defying Gravity”, was my favorite one during the first performance that I saw (with Anne as Elphaba), and Vicki did a wonderful job, but she sang it much more ‘sweetly’, not belting it out with quite the same strong conviction. Still, it’s hard not to be moved by that particular combination of music and action, as she rises into the air… wow.

After intermission and the requisite dash to the restroom, the second act began — much less comedic than the first, with more emotional complexity. Glinda and Fiyero become engaged, despite his continued attraction to Elphaba (whom no one can locate), and Glinda insists that everything is wonderful and that she’s perfectly happy. However, we see a new depth of her character when she concedes, “Though it is, I admit, the tiniest bit unlike I anticipated…” Elphaba and Fiyero eventually reunite briefly, before he is deemed traitorous and dragged away to be tortured. This was the song that truly blew my socks off at last night’s performance — “No Good Deed”, or, as I call it, ‘the mental breakdown song’, where Elphaba finally gives in to the repeated accusations of her wickedness. She attempts a spell to save Fiyero from torture, thinks she has failed, and then — utterly desperate and at the end of her rope — swears that she will never again try to perform any good deed, because none of her attempts ever work out. She stands above a yellow light, eerie shadows cast across her face, her robes billowing on currents of air, and declares harshly, “So be it, then — let it be known throughout Oz, I’m wicked through and through!” It was so good, with such conviction, that I literally got chills.

The last ‘big’ song is an emotional duet between Glinda and Elphaba; Glinda comes to warn Elphaba that the Wizard’s followers are coming to kill her, and Elphaba hands over her spellbook to her friend, saying that Glinda must be now responsible for saving Oz. They sing about how much they have learned from one another — Glinda having been the outcast Elphaba’s only friend, and Elphaba being the popular Glinda’s only friend that truly mattered. Just then, Dorothy and the Wizard’s team appear on the scene and douse Elphaba with water; she (supposedly) melts and dies. I heard several muted gasps around me as Glinda mentally puts the pieces together and suddenly understands that the Wizard is Elphaba’s true biological father. She blackmails him into leaving Oz, and takes power herself. Fiyero comes and reunites with Elphaba, who is revealed to have survived, and the two of them secretly leave Oz, sadly wishing that they could tell Glinda the truth, but knowing they cannot. In the last scene, the Munchkins dance and celebrate the witch’s death, and Glinda pretends to be happy along with them, while silently mourning what she thinks is the death of her friend.

I swear, I’ll never be able to watch The Wizard of Oz the same way again. Every time the “Wicked Witch” shows up from now on, I’ll be saying, “Oh, you’re just misunderstood, it’s okay!” :)

After the curtain call (where everyone literally leapt to their feet when Elphaba and Glinda took their bows!), I hurried outside to the stage door. I was the first one there, but about 30 others followed my lead. I was amazed that the cast could get out of their complicated costumes and makeup that quickly, but they started filing out the door less than five minutes after I got there. I unrolled my poster, and as each of them went by, they signed it for me, with varying degrees of friendliness. ‘Dr. Dillamond’ (one of the Oz professors) didn’t seem especially happy to stop, while ‘the Wizard’ was happy to hang around for as long as we wanted, and ‘Glinda’ chatted for quite a few minutes as well. Both the principal and the understudy for Glinda had gotten some stage action that night, which none of us had realized (their faces are very similar), and we overheard one of them say that it was her birthday, so we sang Happy Birthday to her as she came toward us. Throughout all of this, Marvin was strolling up and down the line, friendly and jovial, but clearly making sure no one tried to pull anything untoward. (He was about 6’3″ and 250 pounds; they’d have had a hard time!)

Vicki showed up somewhere in the middle of the pack, and I asked her, “How in the world did you get all that makeup off so fast?” She smiled, winked at me, and said, “Magic!” I would have loved to have taken a picture with her, but I hadn’t brought a camera, and it was too dark for my phone’s camera to pick anything up, so, with a twinge of regret, I let her go on her way.

Everyone dispersed pretty quickly after the cast members were gone, and Marvin surreptitiously gestured for me to come inside. We walked through every area of the arena, from the sound booth to the dressing rooms to the massage therapy area to the costume racks to the stage itself. (I wish I’d remembered to ask him how the flying machine worked when we were out there — there was no harness as far as I could see during the show — but I totally forgot.) I was amazed by the sheer volume of costumes, equipment, and props; Marvin said it fills 17 trucks, and I don’t doubt it. With as many quick changes as they have to do in terms of costumes and props, it’s amazing that, night after night, everything unfailingly makes it to its appropriate location at the exact second it’s needed. They have it down to a science. Every single piece is labeled, and some props are even hanging from the ceiling so they can be lowered into place quickly. Really cool to see. When I saw Anne’s dressing area, I asked him if I could leave a quick note for her — as an understudy, she hadn’t had a costume to change out of, so she’d skedaddled before I made it to the stage door, so I didn’t get her autograph. Unfortunately, he told me that was against the rules. One interesting tidbit was that I got to see the inside of Vicki’s dressing room, and judging by the various What to Expect books lying on her dressing table, congratulations are in order there… though I’m not sure that’s public knowledge yet. :)

At the end of the tour, he gave me a free Wicked T-shirt — the very one I’d been deliberating over buying, and had decided not to because of the cost. I thanked him profusely and asked him how he knew, out of all the people he’d spoken to that night, that I was the one that a tour would mean so much to, and he just shrugged, smiled, and said, “You were very sincere when I talked to you, and I just thought it might give you something fun to think about on your drive home.” How right he was.

Anyway, so that was my Wicked experience — fourth-row center, a backstage tour, a free T-shirt, quick meet-and-greets, and a poster with everyone’s autographs. I’m not sure I could have asked for more! This may officially make me a groupie. :)

I’ll spare you details of everything else that’s going on at the moment, but in other news, this is my last week of work before my three weeks of vacation. Which means it is officially less than two weeks until we move. Shoot me now… LOL. :)