a shortbus encounter and a little bit of marriage

my last theater event was today - for the next few days, at least. ;) probably going to head out to SF to check out the SF ballet again soon tho, their program 5 is ending this week. i've always wanted to see fancy free.


ABT's Fancy Free with angel corella, jose manuel carreno, and ethan stiefel.

today, i went to see the play, twelve angry men on tour, with george wendt from cheers fame. it was a really good play, but so unrealistic! if people are fighting so hard to defend their stance, they would never change their mind. anyways, brought back bad memories of my nightmare jury room experience. the acting in the play was superb. i'm falling quickly in love with the genre of plays, which is a fairly new genre of theater for me.

the best part was meeting alan mandell, whom I recognized as the ex-mayor of New York in Shortbus. i passed by the stage door and saw him there, looking around for his sister. he was so glad to know that I was a shortbus fan and took time to talk to me. he said the most disappointing part about the movie was that the director wouldn't let him be in the orgy scenes. ^^ he said that jay was very very sweet and everyone was really fun to work with. he was asking me if i bought the dvd and saw the outtakes - apparently a few of his scenes got cut, and I think he was wondering what was in the outtakes.

i also caved and bought the Company revival CD as I was driving home from the Josh Bell concert. I blame the postconcert traffic, which forced me right by a place to buy CD's. oh and perfect timing, this CD got reviewed by the SF chronicle today. this song is sung by the thrilling raul esparza.



"Marry me a little,
Love me just enough.
Cry, but not too often,
Play, but not too rough.

Make a few demands
I'm able to fulfill.
Want me more than others,
Not exclusively.
That's the way it ought to be.
I'm ready!
I'm ready now!

Marry me a little,
Body, heart, and soul.
Passionate as hell
But always in control."


raul esparza - he's so cute!

p.s. thanks to jenniferehle.blogspot.com for a link to my blog. i'm a bit embarrassed b/c i didn't even see COU and had the hardest time finding tickets.

ok, i thought i was bad: this makes me feel a mixture of relief (that i'm not the craziest one out there) as well as a sense of envy (that i wish i could reach this sort of achievement). check out these guys - i dream that i could strive to achieve their greatness! (as well as the depth of their pockets and the time that they have to pursue these dreams)

i've counted, and i've been to a measly five shows since the new year (white christmas, lang lang, san francisco ballet program 2, jersey boys, and sf ballet in sleeping beauty). however, it's been two shows in the past week. ;) maybe three by the end of this weekend. hehe

how many shows have you seen since the new year?


edited to add: funny how i'm not the only one to feel self conscious about my theater habits! also, my buddy while waiting in line at Jersey Boys, is not only rushing this weekend and next weekend, but also bought full price tickets in april.

good theater is, truly, food for my soul - the stuff that stirs my heart. there is no substitute for high quality theater.

i gave my last talk yesterday~! it's such a relief, i notified my lab that i'm now going into retirement and will not give a talk for a year. thanks to bt for coming!! you really made my day.

in order to celebrate, i decided to treat myself to a trip to the city. it's so nice i have weekends free to do this. it's crazy, but decided to rush for the jersey boys show in SF. i saw it once already, but it was in previews and wanted to see it really up close. ah. i've been pretty good about keeping my obsessions with broadway lately, but i feel the obsession coming on again. i stood in the crazy rush line - i updated my ipod and was prepared to read for a few hours, but met this fun girl who was just as obsessed with broadway as i was. :) talking to her about it also reminded me of how exciting broadway is. during the show, it was fun when one of the four main characters smiled and winked at me while singing to me. hehe. I guess that's what happens when you're in the front row. I met him briefly afterwards, who thanked me for allowing him to flirt with me. so cute. ok i'm gushing again.

i also got to meet up with friend whom i haven't seen in a while. she is my idea of superwoman. she's a supersmart ucsf opthalmology resident, we got to catch up on our personal lives. dating is not always easy, but i really admire how she stands up to what she knows she needs, and is honest about her feelings as well. a perfect balance of head and heart. she is my heroine. it was fun sharing jersey boys with her as well - we watched wicked together last year.

the jersey boys in SF

I *finally* got to see jersey boys! i knew that the last time I went to NY, since I went right after the Tony awards, there would be NO way to get tickets to see the Best Musical of the Year. So I've been waiting to see it on tour, even at the expense of missing out on the Tony award winning Broadway cast. Anyways, finally got to see it. The show is still in previews in San Francisco.

This show is, by definition, a hit in every sense of the word. Meticulously and smartly written to a tee, it transcends time and circumstance (in contrast to A Chorus Line), no matter if you grew up watching the Four Seasons (which I suspect, most of the audience has b/c I was the youngest one I think in the audience by about 40 years) or not. The setting and subject matter is so unique that if someone described it to me, there would be no way that I would be interested in seeing it (Frankie who?). Yet somehow the show takes a singing group that's long past their prime, and makes their story relevant to touch and tickle every audience member. You know that the fact that this musical won a Tony for Best Musical, that its influence extends past the baby boomers who grew up in the Four Seasons era. To me, that is what makes this such a great musical. So many laugh out loud moments, and so many moving moments as well.

"I remember thinking at the time there's something a little off about this guy. I mean, this was the sixties. People thought Liberace was just, y'know .. theatrical."

I think Jen told me this next story - A story that remains with me about JB is that an elderly gentleman was watching Jersey Boys with tears streaming down his cheeks almost the entire show.

"Our fans didn’t have flowers in their hair [like the Beatles' fans]; they didn’t try to levitate the Pentagon. They were the ones working at the diner, pumping gas; they were the ones who understood our music."

get on the shortbus!



i finally got on the shortbus! people kept on raving about it here, here and here and finally got to see it last night. it's interesting how everyone sees something slightly different - not sure if i remember the definition correctly, but a shortbus a metaphor for where the freaky and the strange people live, but perhaps in actuality, that's where everyone lives. as i watch on the screen of people who are profoundly depressed (james), sweetly optimistic (ceth), desperately hanging on (jamie), the truly deranged (photographer who lives across the street from the jamies), the lost who's seeking (sofia), it's weird each and everyone seem so extreme and it's easy to be voyeuristic and judge them, yet at the same time, be so relateable. because they're so easy to relate to, it's painful to watch sometimes. easily one of the funniest movies of the year, as well as the most touching. the one scene that stood out for me was the conversation between ceth and the old mayor of new york - i think i held my breath through that entire scene. i also liked the star spangled banner scene. ;) justin bond has such amazing screen presence. to be honest, i still haven't decided if i like sook yin lee or not. not sure why. maybe i'm too similar to her? haha. just kidding. calm down everyone.

i saw tony-awarding winning play doubt today . it was a fascinating play, something i'm still mulling over. it's really true that doubt really drives human beings crazy - it's like we NEED to know the truth, or be convinced of the answer. this play really does a great job of skirting the line so the audience is left wondering, did father flynn really do it? did he, or didn't he? why did he act so guilty? but he was really good at convincing others of his innocence... and on and on and on. any guesses if father flynn is guilty? innocent? does anyone know the playwright, and can ask him for us? please? thanks.

it's been a busy two days - i probably drove around 300+ miles in 48 hrs, but it was a great time. on thurs night, i went to SF to see jeremy denk perform with the SF symphony and michael tilson thomas. it was great - i loved jeremy denk's transparency and his love for music - he completely embodied the music. it was also a treat to see michael tilson thomas play the piano. i had some problems with the programming (trying to capture mozart's life in two hours?) but in general, it was great to get a sampling of mozart's choral works as well (and to watch a few choral members falling asleep during the orchestral moments...). i also realized how mozart was really great with the clarinet, out of all instruments, listening to the woodwind serenade, in combination with the famous one and only clarinet concerto he wrote. after the concert, i also got to meet jeremy denk - what a treat! it's always fun to tell someone how much you enjoyed their performance, the only fear is, of course, sounding like a giddy gushing fan and not as an intelligent human being. ^^ i told him how i loved his hilarious story of the "I love NY" umbrella he accidentally bought. probably every new yorker's nightmare, the horror!

i was hoping to take it easy on friday (it's been a hairy week) but ended up going back to my alma mater again, to go to the stanford shopping center and to the church which i wasn't able to visit earlier. memchu (as it's known to students, short for stanford memorial church) is definitely on my list of my favorite places. so many memories there as well.


a place of prayer, esp before organic chemistry midterms...

friday night, i went to see my sister in King and I again for the second time - the performance was just as charming the second time around, and I picked up on a lot of things that Sarah had told me about, the inside jokes, of secret snickering in the back, etc. ("et cetera, et cetera~") there are two casts of children in the show who play the royal children, and five child actors who weren't performing that night were sitting in the row behind me. they preempted all the actors' lines about 2 seconds before it was said on stage, giving everything away. miguel told me i should have punched her out. ;) my favorite part in the play is the ballet of uncle tom's cabin - maybe i do like dance better than musicals after all??

it's such a joy to watch my sister in a great theater piece, but surprisingly, it was just as fun experiencing the joy of the audience in the people around me, as they enjoyed the performance just as much as i did. The two women next to me cried during "We Kiss in the Shadows". i also made a brief appearance at the cast party afterwards before driving home in a record time of an hour and twenty minutes.



the evil simon of legree (danced by michael balderrama) in the ballet of uncle tom's cabin

what a great weekend. reality set in when as soon as i woke up this morning, i got a call from work saying that i need to go in right away while i was in the middle of making myself a big batch of pancakes made from scratch. i guess my "weekend" had to end sometime.

i'm going to steal jen's blog muse. muhahaha

it was hilarious meeting up with r - one of jen's good friends, when we first met, his face was flushed for a full ten minutes and he couldn't take his eyes off my face b/c he thought i looked so similar to my twin sis. i don't think he blinked for ten minutes. i was trying to convince him, "I am Jennifer". haha. I don't think we're that similar. I'd heard so much about him that i felt like i'd known him for years, and he might take me for my first time clubbing in castro this weekend, if i can bring myself to drive out to the bay area again.



see? we're not that similar.

a lot of theater in the past few days - i finally saw sarah's much anticipated show in san jose, king and I, starring debby boone (singer of the 70's hit, "you light up my life") and the hilarious francis jue. it was so fun, and so odd to see it when your sister is in the show... i kept on scouring upstage at the ensemble members to try to catch a glimpse of her. it was a really great show, but the best part was the cast party afterwards - i really thought i'd be really bored at the cast party, taking pictures etc. but i had the best time. i talked to broadway insiders and gossiped about broadway stars and who are the divas, who aren't, etc. etc. oh so much fun! there was a guy who had danced in movin' out, and i got the skinny on rasta thomas from him. he calls rasta the only true ghetto ballerina (ballerino?). i would have loved to have seen rasta thomas in movin' out.

then more locally, i saw sweet charity with molly ringwald tonight. the fosse-esque dancing was amazing (how do they hit the poses like that?), and my favorite is "Hey Big Spender". just tons of fun. i really really love how actors from broadway come as locally as our neighborhood, so we get high quality theater here as well.

jeremy denk in san francisco on thurs - finally getting to see michael tilson thomas conduct the sf symphony. looking forward to a dash of mozart -

i love fridays

so relieved it's friday. maybe castro did a number on me? it's been a good week tho - getting good work done in lab, still laying the groundwork for groundbreaking discovery (i hope). my boss is expecting his child next week so he'll be gone for a bit after that...! wonder how things will be in lab after his second child.

it's going to be a full day tomorrow! driving back down to the bay area to see my siser in her big production of King and I (apparently a staple in every Asian actor's muscial theater resume, according to A Chorus Line). Very excited to see good theater again, with a cast party thrown in for good measure. Maybe an opera or two on Sunday, a coffee with some old friends that i need to catch up with, and some shopping at H&M thrown in for good measure??

random read of the day: quoting from Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot:

"Say something," Didi quietly pleads.
"I'm seeking," Gogo replies.