THEATRE REVIEW: Memphis

There is no pressure or anything, but if you win the Tony award for BEST MUSICAL - you probably should be pretty good.

Memphis, which is still doing pretty good on Broadway (80% of capacity), won the Tony in 2010. It had just opened when I was last in New York and was on my list of "To See" shows but I never got around to it.

Memphis isn't necessarily a 'true' story, but was inspired by events of the time. he characters and story of Memphis is a fictional creation meant to embody the people and the spirit of the times. (Well, that is what the program said anyway!)

Set in Memphis in the 1950's, this original musical (not a Jukebox) tells the story of a White DJ who loves Black music and wants to bring it to mainstream America. Along the way he falls in love with a Black girl and the obvious trouble ensues.

The two leads in this touring production (I saw this in Toronto) were both original understudies for the Broadway production and are fantastic. Especially Felicia Boswell. WHAT A VOICE! I saw this production with friends who are music lovers and semi-regular theatre goers in Brisbane / Toronto / New York and decided that she has one of the best voices ever heard. The problem with these sorts of roles and shows is to over-sing, but Felicia obviously has a good singers brain (and a good musical director) and was able to create some pretty incredible sounds.

There are a couple of other standout performances by Rhett George (doesn't say a word until he sings a beautiful song at the end of Act 2) and Will Mann (great voice and for a larger man, this guy has amazing dance skills!)

The amount of sound cues that were missed was disappointing. For a professional touring production, you would think and hope they have those things sorted out. I know it is a touring production so there is no way to control this, but it would have been really good in a smaller venue. much more intimate.

The show is out on DVD and if you are browsing Amazon.com and looking for something to buy - this is worth it. The vocals and music and band are awesome. The sets are simple but very effective and it tells a really interesting story and doesn't have the ending you might be expecting. And the dancing - so slick and super stylized. There was a lot of joy and fun coming from the stage and as an audience member you can't help but pick up on that.

My way of reviewing and summary is slightly different this time round:
NO WAY = 1
PROBABLY NOT = 2
MAYBE = 3
YES = 4
DEFIANTLY = 5

Would I See It Again? YES
Would I Buy The Soundtrack? YES
Would I Buy The DVD? MAYBE
Would I MD this show? DEFIANTLY (but i don't think i am quite right)

A Tale of Two City's (Airports)

The Ultimate Payoff...

TRIP 2009 / 2010 - I flew with American Airlines from Toronto to JFK. Small plane, typical AA service - or lack there of BUT got to do customs in Toronto so going through JFK was simple easy and stress free...

TRIP 2011 / 2012 - I fly Porter from Toronto. Land in Newark airport, have to deal with customs in USA BUT get a really nice plane flight, nice seats, lovely service....

I guess that is a question for next time!

ANYWAY... So I got to fly out from the city airport in Toronto. It is a very short streetcar ride from Sam and Amanda's. Then you have to line up and get the ferry over to the island - feels slightly 3rd world - but it isn't.

Once I checked in, I was advised that we were looking at almost a two hour wait because of delays in Newark and JFK and the NYC airspace was quite full. No problems - they have free wifi in the waiting area...

HOWEVER - The security people took this as a great chance to do a full "SSSS" search on me and ALL of my luggage. They even laughed and admitted that they were only doing it because they knew it wouldn't delay my flight and they hadn't done one for a couple of hours...

I think i actually spent more time in airports on that day than i did in the air. 2.5hrs waiting in Toronto and 1.5hrs to just get through customs, I all of a sudden realised ONE of the only advantages to breaking your leg and being on a wheelchair - or even the carer of a wheel chair patient. TIP FOR NEXT TIME: Befriend an old person at the airport before you fly!

And to top it off, as we were flying in over the city i could see lots of lights... they were headlights on cars... and they were not moving... another 2hrs of driving later and I was finally checked in... quick shower and it was into Times Square to see what the Great White Way had to offer on this trip!

Toronto Wrap Up...

I am not the biggest fan of public transport in the city that I live in, so why would I use it when I was in a foreign cty.... So I walked... Alot... about 25km worth of walking in the 5 days that I was there...

Apart from the walking and exploring the city of Toronto by myself, I was also able to explore it with divine Miss Casey. Ellen moved to Toronto in March and has been waiting for some aussie to come over and for her to be the tour guide... Her first stop on the tour was a Jazz Bar...

Monday night was spent at the Reservoire Lounge... Everyone i spoke to in Toronto knew about this place and WOW they were right! Awesome cool amazing jazz bar. There was a resident band and singer who are there every Monday night. Stunning Mojitos as well! But the band was really good - even inspired me to buy their CD!

Tuesday we spent exploring the fancy end of town. Pretending we had a lot more money than we actually did. Fancy shops and restaurants everywhere and then the biggest walk of them all... Walking back through the University the whole way down to Sam and Amanda's...

Wednesday was wet and rainy and YUK!... It didn't stop Sam and I meeting for Wings for Lunch... You can not visit Toronto and not have Ribs, Wings and Poutine and some point in time... so now, all of that was sorted.

When we walked through the underground shopping centre the other day, a lot of stuff was closed. So I went on another exploration through this underground maze of shops and buildings and subways. This is crazy town!

But anyway, by the end of all this walking it was time to head back... if i could... but i found my way back to the subway and against all my internal urges, I used the public transport system to get back home... IT WAS RAINING - I HAD NO CHOICE!!!!!!

And then it was Thursday and time to fly to "The Greatest City In The World"...

Fun... Food.. Friends... Freezing... Fondue...

This is dedicated to the many awesome Canadian friends I now have...

So... although we were still recovering from an amazing lunch, Dinner was still to be had... Matt and Megan and The Burger Cellar - really good burgers, but The Burgers Are Better At Home... Nth America love their sugary bread rolls and only a token amount of salad... still prefer a good Grill'd Burger...

In my next post i will be able to justify all of the food but let me continue...

Sunday was a day full of secrets and suspense.. Sam and Amanda had decided that they weren't really going to tell me anything we were doing until about a minute before it happened. I went to bed Saturday night only knowing that we would be Ice Skating at about Lunchtime tomorrow - that was it...

We all know a good Sunday morning involves Yum Cha (or Dim Sum if you are a Crazy Canadian). Mark and Meredith, and Rob and Laura joined us for this. Laura even brought Pumpkin Muffins that were freshly baked... but then proceeded to share stories of her cooking disasters... but the muffins are awesomely yummy!

Then it was off to Ice Skating. Brian met us here. Brian will feature more later as he will be joining us for the Skiing adventures in week 4! Special mention to the expert tuition from Meredith - i was almost good by the end of it! I managed not to fall over at all while I went round and round the open air skating rink. It was a major flashback to the late 90's with the music that was playing though...

You know how almost ALL Nth Americans think we ride Kangaroo's to school... well I thought that when they talked about skiing to school it was the same sort of joke... turns out it is true!

Anyway, after the awesome epicness of skiing, it was time for the next secret... well we just started walking and I didn't know where until we arrived at The Christmas Markets. The Christmas Markets (although being politically correct I think they are called the HOLIDAY markets...) are in the old brewery district. There is lots of small art galleries and it seems to be a little bit of an arts hub (somewhere to check out more on the next visit) in this area. There were ACTUAL Reindeer there. as well as street vendors with all sorts of things: Maple Cones, Mulled Wine, Chocolate, Stocking Stuffers... etc... so much Christmas cheer packed into a couple of street blocks.

After eating our Maple cones and drinking our Mulled Wine to warm up, we were back onto a street car to the next mystery location... SO.MUCH.SUSPENSE...

Mark and Meredith's house! AND Cheese Fondue for Dinner! AND more Canadians that I met at Sam and Amanda's wedding! AND a crazy dog!

So that was my amazing day of Fun, Food but most importantly Friends!

Celebrating a Once In A Year with a Once In A Lifetime...

Yes, it was 6 weeks ago but this Birthday Present was worth the wait! TRUST ME!

In an effort to escape the cold on our walk back to the "condo" (look at me being all Nth American) we took the tunnel that went past the CN tower... only to stop at the entry to the CN tower and to be told that this was my Birthday present... Lunch up on top in the revolving restaurant...

After heading up to the top of the world, we sit down and order our cocktails and Sam and Amanda give a guided tour of the city as we take our 72minutes to do a full rotation. Perfect sunny day conditions and we were able to see right through to Niagara Falls... well, not the actual falls but the building there. Apparently in the summer you can see the spray from the falls...

AND THE FOOD... WOW! It was all kinds of yum! You would think that because of the 'Novelty' aspect (tall, revolving restaurant) that the food would be good but not great, because you can cover it with the novelty... but this was good, really good.

This really was an amazing birthday present and experience and such a perfect day with two very awesome people.

Baby It's Cold Oot-side!

I know that two days before I left Brisbane, it had it's coldest December day in almost 120 years... but that still doesn't quite prepare you for the onslaught of 0 Degrees when you step out of the airport in Toronto...

Toronto / Nth America might do Winter and Christmas better than back home, but they do not understand traffic... My TAXI driver told me that he calls peak hour from 3pm to 8pm (but it goes to 9pm on a Friday) SO arriving at 6pm on a Friday after it had been snowwing in the day was probably not the best time to arrive... anyway...

Toronto customs people are so nice. I didn't have to explain what Vegemite and Tim-Tams were... the guy was jealous that he wasn't getting any of them.

Sam, Amanda and Simba have moved from the Penthouse and are now living right on the lake. Across from the Ice Skating Rink and across from Shoestring Joe's Sports Bar - which is where I met them. They were catching up with a friend and his dad, so i joined in and sat down to a well deserved glass of Red Wine - I had arrived in Toronto!

After quickly unpacking it was time to eat. And any good Canadian knows that when you are in Canadia - you eat RIBS and WINGS...

After eating what felt life the worlds biggest serving of Ribs, it was back home to settle in for the evening - it had been a long day...

The next morning was spent exploring the St Laurence Market area. Lots of fresh food was for sale here - breads, meat, cheese, fruit, and the biggest apples I ever did see!. Breakfast was a traditional Peameal Bacon Sandwiches... another Canadian tradition.

After exploring the market scene, we headed indoors to the Bay shopping centre, which is basically an even more giant version of MYER in the city... The main reason for this was to get out of the cold, but also to start the trek through the series of underground shops. It is 27km of connected shops. Check out PATH on Wiki for more info about it - it was really long... we didn't walk all of it because we had to stop for Lunch... And as you will know, food is very important to me...

4 Seasons In One Day...

4 Seasons, 3 Countries, 2 Flights, 1 Day

In the theatre we have a saying; 'Never work with children or animals'... I have decided that this concept works very well when dealing with long distance flights...

SPRING: It's all about the 'new life' in Spring... well, there was lots of 'new life' on this plane...

OK, so i mentioned previously that I may have been suffering from partying a little too hard prior to my flight... SO you can discover my joy at the amount of strollers and baby seats that were greeting me at check in! 12 hours of almost continual crying... I think the kids hand formed a gang and decided that they were going to take it in turns to cry. There were about four or five of them and it was like a relay...

SUMMER: When all you want to do is watch the cricket...

There has never been so much joy for one person, when on the menu on the plane for lunch was a Meat Pie, Mushy Peas, Mashed Potato and Gravy! So so SO GOOD! I would almost go as far as to say BEST.PLANE.FOOD EVER!

AUTUMN: The boring season when it isn't summer anymore but isn't cold enough to wear your nice warm clothes...

The guy sitting next to me got all excited about 5 hours into the flight. He turned to me and said "only another hour or so to go until we touch down. I had to explain that this was a 12 hour flight and we were only coming up to half way... he had read his ticket wrong and through that the 6am arrival in LAX was actually meant to be 6pm and he didn't fully realise about time zones etc... So the next 5 hours he fidgeted all the time. Combine crying, hangover, fidgeter and SO MUCH TURBULENCE (Seatbelt sign was on for at least 80% of flight) it turned out to be a rather long Autumn...

WINTER: Where it gets cold and all you want to do is sleep

The painful 4 hour stopover in LAX... First Starbucks Hot Chocolate of the trip to try and keep me awake... watch some tv on my laptop... then it is finally time to board the flight... You have read of how excited i was to have a meat pie, well then next most exciting thing happened next: I HAD THREE SEATS TO MYSELF! Guess who got to have a little nap on the flight into Toronto!

4 Seasons... 3 Hours Sleep... 2 Flights... 1 Very Tired Traveler!

Come Fly WIth Me...

Well you could fly with me but I think the flight is booked out - I overheard that today is one of the busiest days to fly. I think it is because tomorrow all the air fares double!

Waiting in line to go through customs I had the pleasure (?) of standing in front of a newly married couple. I think they were only about 16.... well they were older, but not much... I knew they were newly married because every second sentence from her was "OMG, I can't believe that we are actually married"... However, my favorite comment was "Mum has had so many people tell her how amazing we look together and we are so, like, the perfect couple"... Well, that was my favorite until this classic one came "I think we should start adopting kids straight away, the first one should be about 3 so we can get use to a kid and then we can get younger ones once we know how to deal with them, because we may not even like kids".... Why am I sharing this with you? Because universe, I DO NOT WANT TO SIT NEXT TO THEM ON MY 14 HOUR FLIGHT......

Anyway, second time round this flying overseas thing is so much easier, I packed in record time, breezed through check in, found the coffee club and am stealing the free QANTAS Wi-Fi... If i have forgotten anything I am going to be blaming Kaitlin Bell - she was meant to call out all sorts of things I should have packed while i packed yesterday....

Was trying to make some witty comment about the size of the QANTAS check in compared to the Virgin one - something along the lines of not getting the memo, but am slightly suffering from a work function last night

Short but sweet this time, I am sure I will have some stories to share after the flight.

Rock On...