2019 was a great year, definitely better than I ever would have expected or imagined. Some of my all-time favorite memories from my life so far happened last year. My best day ever happened in 2019, so it's honestly going to be hard to top 2019.
In 2019, I got to meet so many wonderful people. I got to see some amazing shows. I fell in love with the magic of live theater. I got a job that finally makes me feel needed, useful, and appreciated. I got to spend quality time with family for the first time in forever. I got to do new things and have new experiences and so much more. But here are my favorites from 2019:
Being a West Side Story Insider for Lyric Opera of Chicago
I wrote an entire blog post on my experience as a WSS Insider, so I won't go into too much detail about this, but it was truly a wonderful, amazing day and experience. In case you haven't read my blog post about this, I was chosen to attend the final dress rehearsal of Lyric Opera of Chicago's West Side Story and had the opportunity to live tweet the show and go on a backstage tour of the iconic Lyric Opera house at the start of May.
West Side Story has been one of my favorite movie musicals since I first watched it in high school, but I hadn't gotten the opportunity to watch a stage production until last year. Even though my first stage production of WSS was a dress rehearsal in which no one had to do the show full out, there was no evidence the cast wasn't performing at 100% (I saw the show a total of four times, so I'd know by now if someone was underperforming), and it was the best musical production I'd ever seen. Everything about the show was amazing, and what was even better was the opportunity to tweet all about it and then stand on such a big stage and see what it's like for the performers. Also, considering I've now been on Twitter for just about 10 years, being chosen to tweet a musical I love felt so cool, especially because there are very very very few opportunities to tweet in a theater!
Meeting Corey Cott at Lyric Opera's West Side Story
After every official performance of Lyric's WSS I attended, my sister and I went to the stage door after the show in hopes of meeting some of the cast members, mainly the actors playing Tony and Maria: Corey Cott and Mikaela Bennett. We did get to meet Mikaela after the first official show we saw, which happened to be the day after her birthday, so we got her a little present. But Corey didn't stagedoor the first two official shows we saw. So the fourth and final time we went to see the show was our last chance, and the best was definitely for last!
My sister Ashley had already met Corey before when she stagedoored Bandstand in New York but I hadn't met him yet. Also, we're both much bigger Broadway and musical theater fans now than we were when we saw Corey in Bandstand. After waiting at the stage door for a little while, Corey finally came out of the stage door to a bunch of fans waiting to say hello.
Time for a funny story. the third time we saw WSS, we could have caught Corey at the stage door, because we did see him come out of the door and he passed through the crowd of people waiting at the door, but no one said anything to him and Corey just left. When I saw Corey coming out of the stage door, I nudged Ashley since she was in front of me so she could say hi or something, but she panicked and Corey left. Ashley tweeted about it later that night, and Corey replied to her, thanking her for coming.
I hate myself for being too starstruck to speak up and say hi to @NapOnACott at the stage door tonight. 🙃— Ashley Rosario Wijangco (@wijangco12) May 25, 2019
When we did finally get to meet Corey, it was the start of June and the day before the show closed, and Ashley did not freeze or panic. She was the first person to address him as he exited through the stage door. She told him about her tweet, identifying herself as the person who freaked out, and then lots happened. Ashley gave him a gift, leading them to bond over their love and basketball and Broadway, and I told Corey that Ashley calls herself the fangirl version of Troy Bolton, which led to Corey giving her a high five. He took pictures with both of us and signed my Bandstand Playbill, putting a lot of effort into it because the silver Sharpie he was using was not cooperating well. We also told him we'd been to the show four times, which everyone finds impressive when we tell them.
This whole moment was mostly interaction between Ashley and Corey, but I jumped in here and there, knowing it was a good idea to help her out a bit since I knew she was internally freaking out, and then when our conversation ended, which was after a few minutes (sorry not sorry, everyone else at the stage door that day), he gave us both hugs (I still don't really know why he gave me one since I was a small part of the conversation) and we left, happy we finally got to meet Corey but sad this stupendous production was closing.
ACE Comic Con Midwest with Taron Egerton
If you're reading this and don't already know I met (Golden Globe winner!) Taron Egerton in October for my birthday, I'm not sure how you got here, because I've made it very clear on every social media platform that I met Taron. I mean, my picture with him is my Twitter and Facebook profile picture and on my Instagram. (It's also the lock and home screen on my phone.) Plus, I wrote an entire blog post about it, because of course I did ― it was the best day ever! So I'm not going to write five paragraphs like I did with meeting Corey.
In case you somehow didn't know, Taron Egerton is my favorite. Favorite actor. Favorite singer. Favorite celebrity. Favorite Golden Globe winner! So when I found out he would be at a comic con only an hour away from where I live, I had to go! And I did. Even though I didn't get a VIP package or an autograph opportunity, I got a photo op with Taron, which is the number one thing I wanted. It was a photo op, not a meet and greet, so I didn't even spend a minute with Taron, but it was literally the best moment of my life. There was literally no time for me to freak out because it all happened so fast, but he made me smile and was so kind and sweet and lovely in the 40 seconds I was with him. And he called me darling, so I'm just done. Goodbye.
(Also, if you haven't seen Rocketman yet, please watch it. It's amazing, and I'm not saying that only because Taron's in it and won a Golden Globe for it.)
December trip to New York City
My mom and all of her siblings decided to have a sibling reunion in New York last December, and when my mom first told me about it, she said my sister and I could come, so we did. Our mom and aunts and uncles mostly did their own thing in New York since we had already done a lot of the touristy things they were doing, so Ashley and I took advantage of every minute we had in New York.
Normally, I'd do a blog post all about this trip, but December was such a busy month for me that I didn't have time to, and now I'm about to leave on another trip, so I'll just talk all about it in this blog post. You can also watch my New York Instagram story highlights for more.
We saw something Broadway related every single day we were there. On Sunday, after getting settled into our hotel and walking around the theater district, we went to a cabaret show, Broadway Breakup Playlist, at Feinstein's/54 Below, which is located in the basement of the legendary former nightclub Studio 54. It was awesome seeing so many Broadway performers sing, especially since we'd never seen any of them before, and we got to hear a lot of new songs. Plus, we got to support and meet one of our favorite people to follow on social media, Abby DePhillips, who produced the show. Abby is the friend we aspire to be and wish we had. Then we got to reunite with musical director Ben Rauhala, who we met in August 2018 at the Broadway Princess Party in Schaumburg. We gave both of them gifts, which they loved, which we loved!
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| with Abby DePhillips |
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| with Ben Rauhala, the Fairy Godfairy himself! |
At night, we saw the famous Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring the Rockettes. The show was nice, but I would've preferred more Rockettes and Clara/the Nutcracker and less Santa. After we left Radio City Music Hall, we were in need of a snack, so Ashley decided to take me to Schmackary's, a cookie shop right in the theater district and therefore popular in the Broadway fandom that I've been wanting to try since she had it two years ago. Since we were then pretty late and relatively close to closing time, everything in the store was buy one get one free, so that was awesome! We bought a few different cookies: funfetti, red velvet, The Super "C", and the classic chocolate chip. They were all delicious, but my favorite was funfetti. I'll have to go back and try cookies and cream, though, because they were out of that when I went.
And since Schmackary's is in the theater district, just 100 feet or so away from the Al Hirschfeld Theatre to be exact, I decided to take (another) picture in front of Aaron Tveit's pillar there because I love Aaron Tveit. (Tripp van der Bilt is a jerk, but I don't blame Serena. Enjolras and Mike Warren however can stay.) He's not my Broadway fave (that's Stephanie Styles), but he's definitely my fave male Broadway performer. Funny story time: I first took a photo with this on Sunday. Then when we were going back to our hotel from Schmackary's, I took another, because why not since it's right there? I posted those both to Facebook, and for some reason, those two were my most-liked photos from my New York trip so far. I wondered why (I guess my Filipino relatives just love Aaron Tveit?) and jokingly decided I was going to make this a daily thing while I was in New York. So then I did. I took a picture with his pillar for Moulin Rouge! every day I was there.
Tuesday was the only day we were in New York that was up in the air. We knew we wanted to see a Broadway show but didn't know what to see. We entered the lotteries for Hadestown, Moulin Rouge!, Mean Girls, and Frozen but lost all of them. So then we had to decide what to see and how to get the tickets. We could opt for rush tickets and try to buy cheap tickets the morning of. There's the tkts booth in Times Square that sells discount show tickets the day of. But we were scared we wouldn't end up with any tickets, so we browsed StubHub. The number one show I wanted to see was Moulin Rouge! while the top show Ashley wanted to see was Hadestown, so those are the shows we looked at. Moulin Rouge! ended up being more expensive, and Ashley was paying, so we went with Hadestown.
Tuesday was the only day we were in New York that was up in the air. We knew we wanted to see a Broadway show but didn't know what to see. We entered the lotteries for Hadestown, Moulin Rouge!, Mean Girls, and Frozen but lost all of them. So then we had to decide what to see and how to get the tickets. We could opt for rush tickets and try to buy cheap tickets the morning of. There's the tkts booth in Times Square that sells discount show tickets the day of. But we were scared we wouldn't end up with any tickets, so we browsed StubHub. The number one show I wanted to see was Moulin Rouge! while the top show Ashley wanted to see was Hadestown, so those are the shows we looked at. Moulin Rouge! ended up being more expensive, and Ashley was paying, so we went with Hadestown.
Hadestown was amazing and tells such a great story. We love Eva Noblezada, who plays the female lead of Eurydice. We actually got to see Noblezada in Miss Saigon in 2017, which was the first Broadway show we saw. Everyone involved in the show, from the cast to the musicians to the tech people and production team, are so talented. After the show, we stagedoored as usual and got to meet Eva, Reeve Carney (who plays the male lead, Orpheus), as well as a few others, including fellow Filipina Kay Trinidad!
Before the show that night, we went around Manhattan to a few different places, including Sticky's Finger Joint (a chicken finger place Ashley went to a lot when she lived in New York ― I could live off chicken fingers, so I had to go) and Posh Pop Baskeshop, which is a cute little bakery in SoHo that is so me (it's all pink and floral inside with art of Vogue covers on the walls).
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| with Eva Noblezada! |
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| at Posh Pop Bakeshop |
After some breakfast and a little break to warm up and dry off, Ashley and I headed to the flagship Dylan's Candy Bar so I could go to the Dana's Bakery Mac Bar. Then we walked around that area for a bit when we realized there's a Serendipity right down the street. We went inside and decided to have a famous frozen hot chocolate there because who knows if we'd ever get the chance again? So it turns out you have to spend like $12/person at Serendipity, so we couldn't just split a frozen hot chocolate, but that turned out to be alright. We got a frozen hot chocolate and a piece of their blackout chocolate cake. The frozen hot chocolate was fine. I don't understand the hype and thought it tasted just like a frozen hot chocolate I could get from Stan's Donuts back home in Illinois. But the cake was really good and chocolatey! It wasn't too sweet, and it had little chocolate bits in it. So we ended up liking the cake more, which made the $12/person thing worth it.
Before heading to the Broadway Theatre for West Side Story, we went to The View Lounge at the Marriott Marquis right off Times Square for dinner. So we were 48 floors high in a revolving room that for a 360 degree view of Manhattan. It was a buffet, but it was definitely one of the smallest buffets I'd ever seen. The food was good, though. I particularly liked the chicken and salmon.
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| Frozen hot chocolate and chocolate blackout cake from Serendipity III |
Then it was off to Broadway for a modern revival of the classic Romeo and Juliet-inspired musical. (I hadn't seen enough Tony and Maria in 2019, right?) Going into it, we knew it couldn't top Lyric Opera's West Side Story even though it would be a very different production. The revival cut "I Feel Pretty" and the "Somewhere" ballet. It also is only one act and has different choreography that is much more contemporary. It's an almost completely reimagined retelling of WSS, but we were open to the changes and really wanted to see the show, especially because we're fans of quite a few people in the show: Ben Cook (Riff), Ricky Ubeda (Shark/Bernardo understudy), Jacob Guzman (Chino), and Jarred Manista (Jet swing who was in Lyric's WSS!).
I thought the WSS revival was alright. Even though I love Jerome Robbins's original choreography, I still enjoyed the new choreography and thought it fit the score well (although there a little too much of a lack of choreography/movement at the start of the show during the prologue). The music and singing itself was good. Cutting "I Feel Pretty" and the "Somewhere" ballet didn't take away too much from the story, but I would have preferred them to still be in the show. "Officer Krupke" felt too out of place as the only comedic, very upbeat song in the show since there's no happy, playful "I Feel Pretty". The set is very interesting as there isn't really one on stage and instead has a big video screen with cameras recording things to be shown live on the screen. Then there are smaller sets behind the video screen as the screen opens up in certain places to reveal places like the dress shop or Doc's. The video screen was sometimes too distracting for me, and I didn't know where to look.
Shereen Pimentel (Maria) and Isaac Powell (Tony) were both wonderful and had a good connection. "One Hand One Heart" was my favorite part of the show. It was so pure and really exuded the loving energy and overall love you should get from Tony and Maria's relationship. Yesenia Ayala (Anita) was a scene stealer for me and was one of the best featured actors in the show. Overall, though, I didn't get the same powerful feeling that WSS usually gives me, whether I'm watching the movie or if I was watching Lyric's production. The show is still in previews and has yet to be finalized, though. The show will definitely be different by the time it opens in February and is probably already different a month later, but it was cool to see a different and modern take on WSS because it really is very much a relevant story to this day.
We'd never stagedoored anything in previews before and weren't sure if anyone was really going to come out, but we did it anyway. There were no formalities at this stage door whatsoever — I don't think the theater staff expected so many fans to stagedoor this early in previews. There were no Schubert Organization barricades or even a line. It was just a crowd of people. But then we all tried to organize ourselves and made and aisle down the middle for people to walk through. Most of the cast who came out didn't formally come out to meet fans but did sign or take photos if asked politely. We met Shereen (whom we gave our Sharpie to because she didn't have one) as well as Jacob Guzman (a former Newsie and fellow twin), who plays Chino, and Ricky.
It was actually Ben Cook's birthday so his friends (and then a bunch of us stagedooring) ended up singing him happy birthday when he came out. I knew people would be all over Ben at the stage door because he's such a popular and talented Newsie, but I was too chicken and socially anxious to try to meet him when all the other fans left and it was pretty much just us and the cast members with their friends. I'm sad about the missed opportunity, but again, I'm fine and over it. It's not like I missed my chance to meet Taron Egerton.
Last, but definitely not least about WSS is something controversial. There are multiple reasons people don't want to see this revival, whether it be the lack of "I Feel Pretty" or just complete disinterest in a modern take on the classic, which is totally understandable. But perhaps the biggest reason some theater fans aren't interested in seeing this revival is the casting of Amar Ramasar, who plays Bernardo. Long story short: he was involved in a sexual abuse/assault scandal while at the New York City Ballet but was reinstated and has performed in Broadway shows including WSS and Carousel despite that.
I definitely don't support the decision to cast him in the show and wish he weren't it in (I didn't clap or stand for him during curtain call — I'm so sorry, Ben Cook and anyone else who shared curtain call with him), but I didn't want him to ruin this for me. That might have been my only chance to see Ben Cook, Ricky Ubeda, or Jacob Guzman perform in person. I wanted to support all of the other people in the cast and crew who didn't do anything wrong. His being in the show shouldn't take away attendance for the rest of the cast. And while I know attending the show doesn't stop Ramasar from getting money, which is the big thing producers, directors, and investors seem to care most about, it does let the other people in the show know that I want to see them. I signed a petition to have him removed from the show and let people know supporting abusers isn't the way to go because his actions should have consequences and it really isn't fair to everyone else in the show to have him ruin this for others.
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| with SYTYCD 11 winner (and our SYTYCD 11 fave!) Ricky Ubeda after West Side Story |
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| with Jacob Guzman after West Side Story |
Last, but definitely not least about WSS is something controversial. There are multiple reasons people don't want to see this revival, whether it be the lack of "I Feel Pretty" or just complete disinterest in a modern take on the classic, which is totally understandable. But perhaps the biggest reason some theater fans aren't interested in seeing this revival is the casting of Amar Ramasar, who plays Bernardo. Long story short: he was involved in a sexual abuse/assault scandal while at the New York City Ballet but was reinstated and has performed in Broadway shows including WSS and Carousel despite that.
I definitely don't support the decision to cast him in the show and wish he weren't it in (I didn't clap or stand for him during curtain call — I'm so sorry, Ben Cook and anyone else who shared curtain call with him), but I didn't want him to ruin this for me. That might have been my only chance to see Ben Cook, Ricky Ubeda, or Jacob Guzman perform in person. I wanted to support all of the other people in the cast and crew who didn't do anything wrong. His being in the show shouldn't take away attendance for the rest of the cast. And while I know attending the show doesn't stop Ramasar from getting money, which is the big thing producers, directors, and investors seem to care most about, it does let the other people in the show know that I want to see them. I signed a petition to have him removed from the show and let people know supporting abusers isn't the way to go because his actions should have consequences and it really isn't fair to everyone else in the show to have him ruin this for others.
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| the Christmas tree at Rockefeller |
Christmas
The last time my family had a big, legit Christmas celebration was three years ago when I was still in school. So to have a bunch of family and a lot of my cousins, nieces, and nephews come over to celebrate was heartwarming. Christmas is my favorite holiday, and it never quite feels like Christmas unless we have a big family get-together. This year, we had Christmas at my house, and it was a lot of fun. Some of us played the plastic wrap game where a bunch of random little gifts are wrapped in a big ball of plastic wrap and you have to try to unwrap it while wearing oven mitts. That one was definitely funny and a lot of fun to watch. Our big gift exchange was white elephant, and I enjoyed that as well even though the first two gifts I chose got stolen from me. My niece and nephews played the 5 Second Rule board game, which definitely made us laugh (and sad at what their generation knows/doesn't know/finds normal).
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