Finally

I can't believe it's been so long since my last post. I've always had it in the back of mind that I needed to get one done, but logging in, I see that it's been over 3 weeks since my last one! Part of it definitely is school, but part of it is that I've just been feeling so blah thanks to this never ending winter and have not had any motivation to do anything. Even though we had yet another big fucking blizzard over the weekend, just what we needed, most have it has now melted and the sun is out today, so even though it's still only right around freezing, at least it looks warmer as I stare out the window and count down the minutes until I can leave the office. Plus, it is so nice to not have it look like midnight by the time I get home.

So, trying to stay positive here, things are finally picking up on the theatre front. We have our tickets for Drowsy, Sweeney, and Les Miz. Drowsy and Sweeney were actually sold out on the main floor for the nights that we're going (April 5 and 23, both Saturdays), which is pretty impressive, you guys are obviously listening to me. It's important that we keep showing producers that we'll show up for shows, because Spring Awakening just announced its tour schedule and guess what major theatre-centric city was not on the list? It did say more stops would be announced soon, but I still can't believe that they'd front load the tour with Albequerque, Houston, Boulder, etc. instead of Chicago and other somewhat more liberal cities where the show will probably play better. Next up is trying to figure out when we're going to do Avenue Q (tickets go on sale Friday, but apparently if you go to a BinC box office and tell them the code word is Tribune, you can buy them now, that's hearsay though, I haven't actually tried it), as well as Nine, which is about to start and only running through mid-May, not giving us much time since just about every weekend is already taken. It looks like I won't be making it to Drood for the same reason. It ends in two weeks, but we've got shit every weekend, and I'm not driving out to St. Charles in the middle of the week for it. Hopefully someplace like Porchlight or Circle will pick it up. Speaking of Circle, they're doing Can-Can, which I'd love to see, but it's only a three week run, so that's not happening either. It kind of sucks that we have to appease the big Broadway producers and go to see shows that we've already seen in order to keep them coming at the expense of the smaller theatres that are just as good or even better and are doing rarely seen shows. Once the Lyric's season is over this weekend and we get these shows out of the way, things should open up. We'll probably catch Nine at the end of its run and should be open for anything coming up in the summer. Plus, if we go to New York in May, I can catch Adding Machine there as well as all the B-way shows I want to see. Since it looks like we're not going to go to Europe this fall due to the weak dollar as well as my having no time off after the cruise, we can try to make more long weekend trips to NY and if we just catch a couple shows each time, I should be caught up after about 3 trips, providing nothing closes unexpectedly. I'm looking forward to catching Matty Morrison in a stripped down soldier's outfit.

Also, going back to things not coming to Chicago, apparently Idina Menzel is going to tour, but is sticking to the east coast, where she's already well known. I guess that makes sense if she wants to fill larger venues, but it would be nice to see her branch out and play smaller venues like the Vic or Apollo, and take that show across the country. Fortunately, PBS will be taping the first night for future broadcast so it won't be completely lost. Lastly, one more thing is finally happening, yours truly is finally getting broadband on Thursday. Finally I can listen to Playbill radio (if I can find the time between all my Tivo'd movies and shows I'm trying to catch up on). That'll make it so much easier to download my emusic songs, I may even be able to move up to the next subscription level! Anyways, that pretty much gets us caught up. I've got Mandy Pants on Saturday and Eugene Onegin at the Lyric on Sunday, so look for reviews as well as an update on the broadband next week.

Stuck in Winter

Well, it's been a while since my last post. Not much has been going on since then other than I just finished my first paper in my return to school. Four weeks down, two years, ten months, and three weeks to go! Still now word on when I'll be seeing Drowsey or Sweeney, or Les Miz, my companion is being characteristically stubborn about discussing dates. While I'm kind of frustrated that we're seeing all the shows for the second (or fifth) time when there are so many good new shows going on (Augusta and Columbinus in particular), it's important to at least show up for Drowsey and Sweeney to show the producers that there is an audience in Chicago for Broadway shows and we deserve to be more than an afterthought in their touring plans. Plus, there's still Nine at Porchlight to look forward to this spring and I'll make sure we get to that.

I finished my monthly allotment of downloads and listend to Andrea Burns' solo CD yesterday, what a fabulous album!!! It really lifted my mood out of the winter blahs. I actually like it better than Victoria Clark's, which is a pretty tall order. Hopefully she'll get a Tony nod for In The Heights, she certainly deserves it, although I'm firmly routing for Jackie Hoffman to win. I also finally listened to Seesaw and enjoyed it, although wasn't overwhelmed. I'm not a huge Cy fan other than City of Angels and On the Twentieth Century, but it definitely had its moments. I started on Lauren Kennedy and will finish her up when my downloads refresh and then go for David Yazbek's solo CD and the Gone Missing cast recording.

Speaking of winter blahs, when is it going to be over? All my clients last week were talking about how this endless weather is making them depressed and that just made me more depressed myself. I looked up weekend getaways to Vegas, but Bette is wrapping up this week and won't be back until fall, and Cher doesn't start until May, by which time hopefully the weather here will at least be out of freezing temperatures. Plus, a two day getaway, leaving Friday afternoon and coming back Sunday costs as much as our three day getaway for Liza last year, and more if we want convenient times, which makes it seem like we're getting ripped off if we go now, which would not do much for improving my mood. New York isn't looking possible in the near future, my companion doesn't have any work-related reasons to go and we're trying to save our points as well as my vacation time for Europe. Plus, the weather there would be just as bad as here, I can still feel the cold in my bones from last March's trip. So, I'm trying to survive as best I can, hopefully a few shows and dinners out here can at least make it feel like I'm on vacation without the New York prices.