RENT is returning to Seattle!

With Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp playing Roger and Mark!!

I thought I was tired of RENT ... When I first saw that it would be playing here, I thought, "Eh, maybe." But - but - Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp! The original Roger and Mark!

(Granted, if you'd asked me to pick two members of the original Broadway cast to see performing live, I probably would've chosen Jesse L. Martin and Idina Menzel above these two ... but just barely.)

June 16-21, you guys! Who's coming with me?

For anyone who shares my music interests (which are, admittedly, pretty random - but you should find one or two things that interest you):

-Onitsuka Chihiro, whose last single was released in 2004, will release a new single and album starting in the early summer.

-Sakamoto Maaya will release a new album, "30 minutes night flight," at the end of March.

-Lea Salonga is currently playing Fantine in the Broadway production of Les Mis. She originally played Eponine over ten years ago. What's weirder is that the actress she's replacing as Fantine is Daphne Rubin-Vega (the original Mimi). O_o

-For those who are curious about why Rubin-Vega and Fredi Walker did not reprise their roles as Mimi and Joanne in the Rent movie, the Wikipedia articles report that Rubin-Vega was pregnant at the time of the filming, and Walker and director Chris Columbus decided that she was too old to play Joanne again. (Sort of old news, but I never knew.)

-Idina Menzel apparently has another solo album coming out this year.

P.S. Most of this information comes from Wikipedia, so I don't know how reliable it is. But it's all probably at least partially true.

P.P.S. How obvious is it that I'm avoiding homework? :P

Technically I'm writing an English paper that's due tomorrow. But I poked YouTube and goodies came out, so. :P

Random searching won me this: Lea Salonga performing "Defying Gravity."

I don't know if that means anything to anyone out there - "Defying Gravity" is, of course, from Wicked, and Lea Salonga is a prominent Broadway performer who's done roles such as Eponine in Les Miserables and Kim in Miss Saigon. You may have also heard her vocals from Disney movies like Mulan or Jasmine from Aladdin. She has a gorgeous voice, and she's also Asian (Filipina). So basically I've wanted to be her since I was about thirteen.

I have no idea what this performance was for, though the notes on the video say it was at Carnegie Hall. Finding it at random was pretty awesome.

Like Shoshana Bean in the performance I saw, she goes falsetto at the end instead of belting it out as fully as, say, Idina Menzel. I don't know if I'd want to see her actually play Elphaba - but this is still lovely to hear. (Be warned that the quality is pretty poor, though you can still hear her decently well.)

For more Lea Salonga goodness, here's a video of "Too Much For One Heart," a song that never made it to the final cut of Miss Saigon. (If you know the show, its melody is used in "Please.") And just for the heck of it, here's a video of Lea performing "The Last Night of the World," my favorite song from the show. (Dubious treatment of race aside, Miss Saigon has beautiful music.)

I also found this bit of Les Mis-related goodness: Ruthie Henshall performing "I Dreamed a Dream." She played Fantine in the special 10th anniversary performance several years ago, and I've always liked her portrayal; this performance is pretty recent, and I think is even better.

Now I'll get to work. I swear.

Why no I'm not riding a Wicked high just because I saw the live show two nights ago why do you ask? XD XD XD

I really wanted to share with everyone the awesomeness of the cast I saw on Sunday, and it occurred to me to check YouTube - which, incidentally, is brimming with clips from Wicked performances. (And I know it's against the rules to bring recording equipment into a live show, so I know that's bad ... but then again, it's not like these could in any way replace a live viewing. And besides, I've already shelled out cash for the show. >D)

So here we go:

( Here's a taste of what I saw )

( And, just because, here are some of the original cast )

( And some other cast members )

Okay, it's been several hours since the show, so I can come up with something more coherent than, "WICKED AHHHH WICKED AHHHH!!" :P

( The review! )

Speaking of Wicked - rivendellrose or nekokoban, does one of you have my copy of the book? I lent it to your household last summer for one or both of you to read, but I keep forgetting to get it back.

Also, this is kind of random, but worth noting: after the show, we wandered around Barnes & Noble to kill time while the line for parking validation went down. I had worn a red qipao for the show, and a man commented to me that it was pretty. And it was ... nice. A polite compliment that wasn't at all invasive or creepy. He just said, "That's a very pretty dress," and then I looked at him and he met my eyes and smiled. That's all. No leering, no smirking, no sense of entitlement to anything just because he said something nice to me.

It was just a great example of how easy it is to give a nice compliment in a non-sexist, non-privileged way. So if anyone tries to say that it's hard to compliment a woman without it being mistaken for harassment: it's not. Even this crazy man-hating feminazi didn't misread it. XD;;

Tickets for Wicked (playing at The Paramount Theatre in late September) will go on sale this Friday!

You can buy tickets through Ticketmaster. They range from $30 to $75, and weeknights are a few dollars cheaper. If, like me, you're cheap and are getting the lower-priced seats, I would order them ASAP so that you can get the best ones possible (i.e., front row of the upper balcony).

I just bought tickets for me and ratzeo using a promotional code I got from the Paramount mailing list that gave me access to an online presale - if you want to get in on that, I can send it to you.

Wicked performed live, whee! XD XD XD

Last night I decided to forgo (some) sleep and break out my brand-spankin' new RENT DVD. (I actually bought it last week, along with Serenity, but never got around to watching either.) The extras include cut scenes (yes, including "Goodbye Love") and a documentary called "No Day But Today" about Jonathan Larson and the making of RENT (stage and movie). Some highlights:

"Halloween" and "Goodbye Love": I've heard Chris Columbus' justification for cutting these, even though he loved them, and I'm pretty well convinced. I don't think they would have ruined the movie, but I understand how he wanted to maintain the pace and cut down on the emotional saturation. That said, I *loved* being able to see them. Anthony Rapp (Mark) steals my heart. T_T These are some of the best Mark bits, and I'm sad they couldn't be in the original movie. (Not to mention the one moment of Benny being a non-dick.)

Alternate ending: Originally the final number was done a bit differently. Again, I can see why the change was made, but it's awesome to see what the first version was.

"No Day But Today": This sucker is long, so I only watched about half of it, skimming through to see the bits with the cast. XD Daphne Rubin-Vega (original Mimi) and Fredi Walker (original Joanne) make appearances, so yay. Also, you learn tidbits about the cast, such as Adam Pascal (Roger) sucked at remembering lines. You know how "One Song Glory" is pretty much Roger with his guitar sitting on a table? It was made that way so they could write his lines there and he could read them. XD;;;

Oh man, such a fangirl ... This movie actually makes me love Chris Columbus. How weird is that? :P

It's good that I finished classes yesterday and only have work today, and get to look forward to seeing Rent with ratzeo tonight.

It's not so good that I remember that I finished classes, only have work, and get to see Rent, while I'm still in the middle of work, and walk down the hallway with a strange niyari look on my face that would probably disturb my coworkers if they saw it.

Oh well. XD;;;

So, yes. Rent tonight, Thanksgiving lunch with my parents tomorrow (they need to drive back to Vancouver, so they can't stay late), and Thanksgiving dinner with the crazy kids over at Grimmauld. (And I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for the occasion, which hopefully my guinea pigsfriends will enjoy.) Also game on Friday, which will be all DOOMDOOMDOOM but in a funfunfunbutohgodwhy way. :D

SO HAPPY FOR THE HOLIDAY. ♥♥♥♥

Moviefone has the new RENT trailer, this time set to "Another Day" from the finale, rather than "Seasons of Love." New scenes, and actual dialogue this time, yay! (The only thing is, now they have some voiceover by The Movie Voice, all deep and menacing-sounding, so at the end when he says "RENT," he might as well be saying "DOOM." It's kinda weird. XD;;)

The RENT site has samples of the soundtrack up for download. :D (For some reason I only see four songs, but if you let it keep playing it goes all the way through "Seasons of Love.") They're good! They're fun! And my heart has been put at ease about Rosario Dawson. XD

My fannish luck continues to dance the line between 'uber-lucky' and 'pitiful gimp' (and then tip over to the right side, thus making me look cool). Today I decided that I'd stop by Tower Records after work and buy the Firefly DVDs. I've been watching zinjadu's copies, but I like it enough that I knew I would want my own, and I would regret waiting until the movie hype bumped up the price. Anyway, I called ahead to see if the store had it in stock, and was told that the one copy would be put on hold for me.

I got there an hour later (yay bus commute) and the woman behind the counter couldn't find anything put on hold for me. The only male cashier who was there wasn't the guy I talked to, and apparently no one else had worked there in the past hour. They looked for the box set on the shelf, but it wasn't there. At this point I was mildly despairing, and paranoid that I'd called the wrong store (even though I triple-checked that I was getting the phone number for the University location). Finally, the first cashier called the manager and asked him if he'd happened to answer the phone and talked to me -- apparently he hadn't, but then she started rooting around behind the counter again. They *did* have one copy of Firefly -- which had been special-ordered for the manager. And he said she could sell it to me! <3 He came up to the counter later, and told me that it sucked that someone had told me they'd put it on hold but it wasn't there for me. I thanked him, and he said he could just order another copy. I thought that was awfully nice -- he could have just kept his copy, and told the cashier to ask me if I wanted to order it or something. Either way I would have bought it, but this way I was happy to give them my money. Was it fannish camaraderie that motivated him, or good salesmanship? Either way, it was a little bit of niceness that gave me a small boost when I'd been feeling down all day.

And speaking of fannishness -- here's a video with clips from the RENT cast's performance in Bryant Park for the Broadway for Life benefit. It includes bits of Idina Menzel and Tracie Thoms doing "Take Me or Leave Me"! Also some interviewing of the cast, in which you hear that Adam Pascal has a higher speaking voice -- sort of what I'd expected Anthony Rapp's to be like. o.O Here are pictures from the event, while here are some from the Today Show (in which you see that Taye Diggs does not like to smile for pictures, but then realize that it's because he could easily take over small countries with that smile).

And now ... Cap'n Tightpants awaits.

I just got to watch my tape of the RENT cast's performance on The Today Show -- somehow when I thought I'd programmed it from 8:00 to 8:30 in the morning, I ended up setting it from 8:00 to whenever-the-hell the tape finally ran out. O_o All for the best, though, because I completely misread the time of the performance, and it was in the 8:30-9:00 block. :P My fannish luck is very powerful indeed.

So what do I have to say besides "OMG original cast live OMG"? Um ... not a lot. XD;; I mean, it was them. Live. My mind spent the length of "Seasons of Love" going "GYEEEEE" and not much else. <3<3<3 I did notice Tracie Thoms, though, and she was great. At first I thought that Rosario Dawson had it harder, because the character she's replacing (Daphne Rubin-Vega's Mimi) is essentially the female lead. But Joanne (Tracie) has that solo. o_o And she was good. *_* (It was very cute -- after the song finished, the others were hugging and patting her in appreciation, and Jesse L. Martin just went behind her and sort of engulfed her in his arms. XD) I have a soft spot for her, because she's essentially a RENThead who got picked up and offered her dream role. Plus, she has a hell of a voice, so that's even better.

After "Seasons of Love," there was some talking with Katie Couric, and then Anthony Rapp (Mark) said that he and Adam Pascal (Roger) were going to "sing a little somethin somethin." I was sort of disappointed, because I'd heard that Idina Menzel (Maureen) and Tracie were going to do "Take Me or Leave Me" instead, but "What You Own" is just as good. And really, if Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal offered "a little somethin somethin," there are few women who would turn them down. XD (Anthony, by the way, has a surprisingly deep speaking voice.)

The rest of the cast was very cute while the guys performed. Adam turned and gave his hand to Rosario when he sang "Yet I see Mimi everywhere ..." and the girls all swooned. XD Later in the song, Idina went up behind Taye Diggs (Benny) and put her arms around him. Those two are one of the prettiest couples I have ever seen. rivendellrose is right, though -- Idina *does* look faintly irritated when she has a neutral expression. ^_^;; I think it's because she has somewhat severe facial features -- nose, cheekbones, all that.

Yay performance. Yay movie! And, according to Anthony Rapp, there will be a ten year anniversary event next year. *_*

The (movie) RENT cast will be performing on the Today Show, tomorrow at 8:30-9:00 a.m. Will be performing "Seasons of Love" and "Take Me or Leave Me."

Need to check PST listings. Need to program VCR and record this. EEE!

*points at the goodies and squees*

I need to go home so I can watch the videos! EEEEEE!!