we had a set with two small turntables

did you also have a microphone?

It was where it's at, for sure.

did you also have a microphone?

Well played.

Despite the evidence of my iTunes library, I have deeply mixed feeling on musicals, but I fucking LOVE Les Mis. I have the "dream cast" album (you could tell who had which cast by where they breathed when a half-dozen of the theater nerds were singing in the scene shop in high school. At one point, I knew all the words except a bit of the wedding song, where I couldn't understand what they were saying.*), and it is the Right And Proper cast (Although, I have a vague desire to learn French at some point and then to get the original album).

I expect that, since my family has an abrupt increase in free time on Christmas Day this year, we will be seeing it then.

I've worked on a few shows with turn-tables. One of them did not use it effectively (it was just a way to do a 3-way set change), but the one with the circus theme worked pretty well (I think the turn-table was recycled from the previous show on that stage).

It's kind of sad that the staging of Les Mis has become cliched at this point. I was...I don't even remember where...and there was a "tribute to Broadway" medley stage show thing (think theme park), and they did the marching triangle with 6 people. It was to laugh.

* I know I'm not the only one who had that t insert period of time where I listened to "On My Own" on repeat and cried a lot. Show of hands for teenaged angst.

Hobbit will be our Christmas movie for the next three years. Hopefully this time around with the Jackson Holiday Tradition there will be no heart attack for the apres theatre event.

I have never heard/seen/read Le Mis. It wasn't one of the musicals I sought out, don't ask me why. But I do want to go see the movie.

I know I'm not the only one who had that where I listened to "On My Own" on repeat and cried a lot. Show of hands for teenaged angst.

Oh, yeah. I lived the cliche, baby.

Jilli, I've been meaning to ask you if you have seen the Addam's Family musical and if it is any good?

And thus, as is true for so much in life, is better when sung by a cross-dressing rabbit and a hunter with a lisp.

And "Kill the wabbit!" would definitely lose something in the transalation to Italia, German or French.

Theatre and choir geeks were low on the totem pole at my high school. The jocks and cheerleaders were the popular kids. Which led to a huge culture shock for a friend of mine who moved to our school her junior year from a school where the performing types were the kings.

Our high school theater setup was pretty lousy, too. No fly space at all, minimal wings and a fairly shallow stage all placed in the gym of the old high school building across town. They hadn't even bothered to incorporate a theater space when the built the town's "new" high school in the 70s, nor added one when they expanded the building in the 90s.

I was stage manager my senior year and had to coordinate scenery getting carried to and from the stairwells off the wings during set changes due to the lack of space.

* I know I'm not the only one who had that where I listened to "On My Own" on repeat and cried a lot. Show of hands for teenaged angst.

Oh yeah, that was me. Still can't hear that song without tearing up. (Outside of that vid someone linked to months ago with the doofus Jonas brother mugging it up as Marius.)