Showing posts with label Hamilton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hamilton. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 05, 2016

This will be hard to beat

We’ll celebrate our 25th anniversary next September. We’ve thought lots about what we’ll do – but after our celebration of #24 two weeks ago, I’m thinking we should just hang up the celebration shoes and count it good for the rest of our anniversaries.

Yes. It was that good.

We went to the Big Apple and saw all the major sites – The Statue of Liberty, the Freedom Tower, 9/11 Museum, Rockefeller Center, The Empire State Building. We walked the Chelsea High Line and miles and miles and miles of the city’s sidewalks. We rode the subway from north to south and back again. We packed in so much in three days that we needed a break from our break.

And did I mention we saw this show – maybe you’ve heard of it:
OH MY WORD WE SAW HAMILTON AND I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I ACTUALLY SAW IT WITH MY VERY OWN TWO EYES.

Okay, y’all. I am not one to jump on bandwagons. Usually, if I know something is popular I will be less inclined to like it. When my mom took me shopping as a kid, the kiss of death to whatever clothing she was trying to get me to buy was saying, “This is so in!” Back to the rack.

I say that because there is nothing so popular, so hot, so on-freaking-fire right now as Hamilton. This does bother me a little, but I console myself by remembering that I fell in love with the show long before tickets cost a kidney.

Thankfully, Sean got our tickets months ago, before they were as obscenely expensive as they are today. But you know what: that show is worth whatever pretty penny you pay. The choreography, the score, the costumes, the staging – this show is going to revolutionize musicals. Revolutionize. Don’t want to take my word for it? How about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s – you know, the guy who did this little show called Phantom of the Opera:

Just seen #Hamilton; it raises & changes the bar for musicals. Brilliant lyrics, staging, cast. Creator/lead @Lin_Manuel is special. ALW.*

Oh, y’all. So, so good. And I got to see two of my favorites from the Broadway cast recording, Okieriete "Oak" Onaodowan (Hercules Mulligan/James Madison) and Thayne Jasperson (Samuel Seabury/ Ensemble).

It’s been two weeks and I can’t stop thinking about how amazing that show was…

So that was three hours of our three days. Here’s a look at what we did the rest of the time;

 
What would a Duffy vacation be without a visit with some shiny sheet metal? Cadillac recently moved their marketing headquarters to Manhattan. Sean has a friend there so we visited the offices and got a look at the cars on display in the lobby.

A trip to Trinity Church was a must for this Hamilton devotee (the man this time). Right next to Hamilton's grave was this one, which Sean thought was wonderful:
Robert Fulton. His memorial was erected by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

And here's Hamilton's and his wife Eliza's:
:

We had a celebrity sighting - Steve Higgins of Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show fame:

We visited NYC's first Chick-fil-A!

We struggled to get this selfie. We are not good at the selfie.
I got to catch up with my first college friend, Scott!

The Empire State Building at dusk - gorgeous! (We did better with this selfie.)

At the Grange, the house Hamilton built for his wife.





















Our step-counter for Day Three:

A few final shots of the stage at the Richard Rodgers Theater:




GO SEE THIS SHOW! 



*The grammatical mistake in this tweet makes me a little crazy, but I guess even the best of writers can be grammatically challenged after seeing Hamilton. It is that good. 








Thursday, March 03, 2016

What the heck, America?!

So, Rebecca, Amy and I are a bit obsessed with the musical, Hamilton. It’s taken Broadway by storm and won this year’s Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. Tickets for the show are sold out until next January. Unless you want to spend anywhere from $800 - $1200 for a ticket on the secondary market. That’s the price for ONE ticket.

I did put my name on the list to get info when tickets are available, though...

Anyway, the show is all about the life of Alexander Hamilton – yes, the Founding Father Hamilton. One of the songs is between Hamilton and Aaron Burr, after Burr won the New York senate seat formerly held by Hamilton’s father-in-law. Here’s the exchange:

[HAMILTON]
Burr?
Since when are you a Democratic-Republican?

[BURR]
Since being one put me on the up and up again

[HAMILTON]
No one knows who you are or what you do

Rebecca stopped the song and said, “That sounds like Trump. He’s just doing what he thinks will get him votes.”

Now y’all, if a 16-year-old who’s just dipped her toe in the waters of national politics can get that, why can’t grown men and women who’ve been swimming in electoral waters for decades?

And who are these Trump voters? Seriously? Other than Ann Coulter, who the heck are they?

Please, please, please, I am begging the Republican powers that be to figure out how to provide a united front and end this Trump nonsense. Otherwise, the donkeys will stay in Washington four more years.

(Wasn’t that polite of me to say “donkeys” and not “asses”?)



Listen to this at your own risk. You won't be able to stop. There. I've given you fair warning. (Also, there are some bad words - not in this song but in some of the others.)