What a lovely cure, it's a medical miracle

So I finally gave in and decided to start a blog. I was thinking of starting a video blog...but my camera's broken and I don't own a webcam, so that's the end of that idea. I'm not sure how well this blog will work out either, I usually get distracted and end up forgetting that I'm writing about events. Oh well, I'll start it anyway. Hopefully I'll get a camera for my birthday (and by hopefully I mean I know my dad already ordered me one) and I can start a video blog. Assuming I still feel like it.

I'm probably just going to use this to rant about shows.

So, I saw Next To Normal on Sunday! It was such an amazing show: I went in not knowing what to expect but it was still nothing like I had predicted it was going to be. (If you haven't seen Next To Normal yet and don't want to get spoiled I'd skip to the next paragraph). I went in expecting it was going to be about a dysfunctional family where the mother was bipolar and only paid attention to her son and never to her daughter. Which is...y'know, kind of correct. But still, finding out Gabe was dead was such a mind fuck. Which it's supposed to be, but I still haven't quite wrapped it around my mind. I literally had a double take when Natalie said that her brother died before she was born. I had just heard my friends talking about Gabe and how Aaron was so amazing and about different people playing Gabe that I totally had him in my head as a solid character before the show, even though I knew nothing about it. So to find out that he wasn't actually alive was such a revelation. ANYWAYS, it had been so long since I went into a show not knowing what would happen, and I couldn't be happier that it was Next To Normal. The shock and plot twist are what make it so affecting, I think. I really want to go back a second time (for more emotional rape) to see it again because I think now that I do know what is going on, it'll be a lot clearer and I will be able to answer a lot of the questions that have been floating around in my mind since I saw it.

On more technical notes, the performances were incredible. I want to write a full review of the show, I may do that this weekend when I have more time. But every performer in the show was so solid and really stood out to me and made me feel what they were feeling. I think my favorite performance was a tie between Alice Ripley and Aaron Tveit. Aaron's voice blew me away; I'm Alive was just so amazing and i was sitting about 10 feet away from him in the box seat and I totally felt all his energy and how he was so passionate about being alive. It's strange that his performance was my favorite, because I actually really ended up hating Gabriel. I sympathized with him during some parts, but I spent most of the show wishing he would just dissapear. I wonder if this will change when I see it more though. And as Jeff Bowen said, "Alice Ripley? She's fierce!". Her performance was so spot on and moving. You could totally see that she put 150% into her character arc, and what Diana was feeling was always so clear. You could always feel her pain and frustration and I was totally lost and confused with her. Her hatred of taking medicine and all these different cures that were being thrust at her was so raw, and it was just a brilliant performance. She really deserves to take the Tony this year.

In school news, I am so busy this week. I have a ten page paper due next friday (our teacher pushed it back five days...it was originally due next monday. Thank god, I haven't even started it yet). I have an english essay in two weeks, a smaller english paper due next week, and a hundred other things. And I need to start looking for a job/internship over the summer. I've applied to a couple, but most places want college kids and it's just been really difficult. Maybe I'll end up doing community service over the summer instead. It's just- I really want to work in theater over the summer. It doesn't have to be anything big, fuck, I'd run errands for cast members if I had to. I'll probably just end up doing community theater or something though.

I'd better go, thank god I have a half day tomorrow.

LoVe