Another Musical Choir Concert

I have attended more High School choir concerts than I can count.  Every school does a “Broadway” concert every so often.  When we were in Cloverleaf schools, they did one every year.

So tonight… at the choir concert… it is “Another Op’nin’ Another Show!”  Gonna be Broadway tunes, GREAT!

Uh-OH… she doesn’t list what musical the songs came from.  WHAT?  Now I have to look them up, because they are familiar but I can’t bring the musical to mind.  AND… there were WAY too many solos/duets.  There should have been more choir group numbers.     😦

Here are the songs they sang:

“Hello” – Book of Morman —  I have not seen that.

“Another Op’nin, Another Show” – Kiss Me Kate — I think I’ve seen that…. I’m pretty sure.

“All That Jazz” – Chicago — yes, I’ve seen that.

“Nine to Five” – 9 to 5 — I saw the TV show some, does that count?

“Don’t Let Me Go” – Shrek — I’ve seen the movie… yeah… not the same thing.  This is one of the few solos that I felt was worth the cost of admission ($6).  This kid did a fabulous job!

“Mad Hatter” – Wonderland — I read the book, that should count for something.

“Lovely to Be a Woman” – Bye, Bye, Birdie — I’ve seen it several times and my #1 daughter was in it.

“Beauty School Dropout” – Grease — one of my all time favorite musicals.

“Once More I Can See” – Wonderland (again)

“Singin’ in the Rain” – same — I have seen this.  When I saw it, it included actual rain on stage.  There was just “lightning” tonight.

“Tomorrow” – Annie — I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this on stage as well as the movie.

“Little Shop of Horrors” – same — I have seen this.

“Suddenly Seymour” – Little Shop — seen it

{They listed “Newsies” but it was not performed.}

“I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” – South Pacific — seen it, own the movie.

“There Is Nothin’ LIke a Dame” – South Pacific — (see above)

“Marry the Man Today” – Guys and Dolls — and #1 daughter starred in this in HS as Adelaide!!!     🙂

“Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now” – Hairspray — I’ve just seen the movie

“Agony” – Into the Woods — only seen the movie and we own it too.

“Pulled” – The Addams Family — haven’t seen the musical, have seen the TV show.  The HS just did this this spring, so it makes sense that they would reprise one of the songs.

“Bring Him Home” – Les Mis — seen it on stage, but haven’t seen the movie yet.

“Do You Hear the People Sing?” – Les Mis — (see above)

“Stars” – Les Mis — I think they maybe liked Les MIs?

“For Now” – Avenue Q — maybe?  Haven’t even heard of it.

“100 Easy Ways to Lose a Man” – Wonderful Town — yep, haven’t heard of that one either

“The New Girl In Town” – Hairspray

“Button Up Your Overcoat” – Follow Thru — I just learned (in researching what musical this came from) that this muscial was on Broadway in 1929 and the movie verion in 1930 was one of the first movies in Technicolor.

“Defying Gravity/No One Mourns the Wicked” – Wicked — seen it, would see it again, read the books.

“The Impossible Dream” – Man of La Mancha — heard of it, haven’t seen it

“Lost in the Wilderness” – Children of Eden — hadn’t heard of it

“This is the Moment” – Jekyll & Hyde — haven’t seen it.

I have seen a very long list of musicals over the years.  But it seems, based on this list, that there are a whole lot I have yet to see.  If only…  if only… Carousel Dinner Theater hadn’t closed… I’d still be seeing 6 musicals a year.

NYC in a Weekend

We took a quick trip to New York and Connecticut over the weekend.  Here are the highlights.

After the 8+ hour drive and getting stuck in some fabulous traffic trying to get through NY and onto Long Island, we arrived at an old friend’s home.  By old, I mean my age, but that I hadn’t seen him since 1981!  Yes, we were just babies.  We had a wonderful time dining and visiting together that night.  On Friday we took off for NYC via the train with instructions on how and where to transfer.  We had a map of the town and map of the subway in our hands.

 

In NYC we opted to not pay for any of the “hop on-hop off” tours and to just walk and see what we could not really having an agenda.

So… we started out from Penn Station and headed towards Times Square.    We pass this restaurant:

Which Wayne tells me is referenced in “Guys and Dolls” so I take a photo for Abi.  Of course, in double checking my sources, I find out that in G&D it was referred to as “Mindy’s” and that the original restaurant referenced is no longer there that this is actually a new one.

 

Moving on towards or past Time’s Square down Broadway we come across this “sweet” store.

We did not go in as we didn’t really NEED any candy and it would be much cheaper just purchased at Walmart.  But, I thought the building was cool.

 

On Time’s square we were practically assaulted by everyone trying to convince us to get on a bus tour and then by “characters” like Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Spidey and others.  They thought I wanted to get my photo with them… um… NO!  If I wanted a photo with Mickey, I’d go to Disney, thank you.

We didn’t actually go up to any of the theaters on Broadway/near broadway but we did see several marquees.  I didn’t take any photos of them.

At this point we stopped to look at the map and try to figure out where we wanted to go.  Since I sorta wanted to go to the Natural History Museum to get a photo for the kids since it was in the “Night at the Museum” movies we decided that we weren’t that far and that it would be fun to walk through Central Park.

Through Central Park we walked.  It was  a beautiful day!

We did pass Tavern on the Green and use their bathrooms, but didn’t get any food there.   🙂

Then we got to the Museum.

 

We were told that it was free admission.  But it wasn’t.  Well… it was “suggested donation.”  However the line to get in at a lower price was long.  We asked a security guard if we could just go to the gift shop and she let us in to do that.  The gift shop did not have a pennant (what we were looking for) and we were on a different floor than that security guard, so we looked around a little bit.  We didn’t find Sacajawea but we did see these Dinos.

 

 

After leaving there, we took the subway clear down to then end of Manhattan to Battery Park so we could get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  We would have liked to have gone to either or both of those places, but the cost was prohibitive and we didn’t really want to take the time.

My grandfather came through Ellis Island when he was 2 or 3 years old.

 ‘

From there we walked to Trinity Church.  Of course, Wayne had to see some churches.  This one was very cool with some really old gravestones outside.

It also has a nice story about its part in the September 11 events and recovery.  As well as being in the “National Treasure” movie.  Wayne wanted to see the catacombs but there was not a tour.   🙂

 

From there it was just a short walk to the September 11 fountains and to see the new building.

It was crowded around the fountains.  Beautiful though.

We continued walking through this part of the city where there is LOTS of huge cranes and construction.  So many of the churches & buildings are undergoing renovations both outside and inside.  Outside, I’m assuming some of that is still removing residue from 9/11.

I’m not sure what the building in that second photo above will be, but it was definitely unique.  It had wings on each side.

 

That brought us to St. Paul’s chapel.  Again, it has great history and history related to 9/11.   You can see the spire is covered in scaffolding for the restoration.

This bench is from 9/11 when the rescuers slept on the pews and scratched it all up with their gear.

After that, we weren’t sure where to go, so we decided to cut across to the shore and went to South Street Sea Port.

On the way is this little light house.

 

There are tall ships in the harbor there.  Very cool!

You can also see Brooklyn Bridge from there.

One of the little shops there is “It’s Sugar”… again we did not go inside because we didn’t need any sugar and didn’t need to buy the kids any expensive sugar.

From South Street Sea Port we had to walk a ways to find a subway station to take us back uptown.  We finally found one that took us into Grand Central Station.

Our goal was to walk to the Rockefeller Center and possibly go up in it.  We got distracted (by “we” I really mean Wayne) by St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  It was undergoing renovations INSIDE.

However, as Wayne made his way down the aisle to sit for a minute, the grand pipe organ started playing “Ode to Joy” and he got to be a part of the beginning of the worship service.  I went outside to sit down for a bit and enjoy the crowd… and by enjoy, I really mean to wonder at how there could be so many people in one location.

We then continued on our way towards Rockefeller Center.

 

Imagine those 2 photos together.  🙂

We did not take the time to go up in it as we decided we were getting tired, having walked almost 5 miles.  So we just headed ourselves back towards Penn Station.

That took us past the library.

The Empire State Building

Macy’s

And the American Girl Store.  Again… no stopping.  We have enough AG stuff to start our own store.

Back at Penn Station, we catch our train back to Long Island .

We have another lovely evening visiting with my friend and his son.

In the morning we headed out toward Connecticut to see some Wanake friends.

Gotta cross the Throgs Neck Bridge.  Which we had to research on the way in because that is just a weird name.

It is named after the Throgs Neck portion of New York which is named for John Throckmorton who settled there in 1642.  Throg is just a corruption of “Throck.”

 

In Connecticut we just had a relaxing, low key visit with our friends.  We did take a mini trip to the World’s Largest Dairy Store.  Very cool store with interactive stuff for the kids as you shop.

We also took a visit to a pet store for one of the kids to enjoy some doggy time.

We had a wonderful meal and more catching up and visiting.  We were only there overnight, we left the next morning.

It took us until 7:20pm to get home.  We did get to see the sun set over Akron on our way home.

It was a nice trip.  I can now say that I have been to NYC.  I don’t know that I NEED to go back.  Sure, seeing a show on Broadway would be nice, but the tickets cost so much.  I wouldn’t mind seeing those friends again… maybe in less than 10 or 33 years.