Marvel

April 4th-6th, 2014

You see what I did there? Because last weekend's post was DC? Heh. If you don't get it you don't read comic books, and that's alright, too.

Besides that, Friday was the release of the second Captain America movie, Winter Soldier. No spoilers, but my inner fangirl broke out in an excited squee when the teaser clips after the credits rolled. I freaking love superheroes. During one of the earlier fight sequences in the movie, I also realized I was the only one who seemed to be vocally reacting to the genius of the fight choreography, so I thought it'd be in my better interests to stop.

I tend to watch superhero movies like sports fans watch the Super Bowl.

Refraining from yelling "YES! TAKE HIM DOWN!" at the most American uppercut you'll ever see did not stop me from shaking my roommate at key moments throughout the movie to make sure we were on the same page of crazyawesomefandom excitement. I'm glad she was cool with it or that could've been awkward for the both of us.

Saturday was it's own series of adventures. I walked down to Beeker Street, which is a very lovely, bustling place in the nice weather, and also where the Magnolia Bakery is located--huge tourist trap, and from what I understand, it's with good reason because their cupcakes are legendary. If I ever make it back there and brave the line, I will definitely let y'all know if those rumors are true.

I walked to Amy's Bread and met up with a woman who once worked for Penguin, but now works for Simon and Schuster. She was connected to me by a mutual friend who goes to my church back home. And, she's an extremely awesome lady who not only purchased my coffee, but we chatted for a good couple of hours. She is willing to take a look at my resume and maybe send it out, too, which is amazing! There's hope I won't be jobless post graduation yet!

Later that evening, I went out to see SHOW #10, everyone! The challenge is officially met! I have seen TEN whole shows while in NYC this semester, and I'm not totally broke! Nearly, but not yet.

THE 10 SHOW CHALLENGE

1. Peter and the Starcatcher 

2. The Disinherited

3. The Glass Menagerie

4. Cinderella

5. 50 Shades!

6. Aladdin

7. La Soiree (the sexy circus)

8. The Witchelor

9. Bindlestiff's Cavalcade of Youth Circus at Coney Island

10. Man of La Mancha

And I still have the comedy show that's prepaid since the first week of the semester, plus one of my friend's final performances. But let's talk about Man of La Mancha.

I went with a musically inclined housemate who plays piano, and we got balcony seats at this university in the Bronx for $12. They were some pretty good seats, actually, and the whole auditorium felt more like a Colosseum the way it was designed.

The technical design behind the show was amazing! I am forever ruined by my theatre education to notice the tech in every show I see, but truthfully I'm not complaining. This set has a drawbridge you can kind of see in this picture, it's up now, but the front is on two chains attached to the fly lines up top, so all someone has to do is lower one baton and the stairs are set down into the prison for the Spanish Inquisition to come and go as they please. 

The lighting is harder to explain, so you'll have to take my word that it was fantastic. The windmill scene, the most memorable moment from Don Quixote (this musical is based on his story, for those of you who don't know--a man who is delusional into believing he is a great knight, and the windmill scene is his thinking it an ogre and attacking it. When he loses because he was jousting a building, he swears is arch nemesis the evil sorcerer in the last minute transformed the ogre into a windmill), was executed with rotating gobos. A gobo is a metal plate with a design cut in it that you put in a light fixture so you get the lights to make shapes on stage. A rotating gobo is exactly what it sounds like, and so the windmill "wings" were actually moving around, and went out after the battle ended. 

The singing was clear and pretty, the characters enjoyable--my only distraction was the woman playing the leading lady (a whore who is mistaken by Don Quixote as a fair and virtuous highborn lady) chose a most unfortunately rigid posture for her characterization that to me didn't seem to fit. Her singing was very lovely, though her speaking held more fire than her singing.

The TECH, though!

Sunday was a beautiful, lazy day. I went to Panera with my roommate, and actually was semi productive today. Like blogging. That was good. 

The evening finished off with the final session of our World of Darkness game that ended with heroism, death, destruction, FEELS, hope, resurrection, and overall badassery. Really my roommate is a great storyteller and Game Master and I had a ton of fun. The best part about these role playing games is to play exactly how your character, flaws and all, would do it--because even though you know some of your character's actions is a mistake, it makes the game way more interesting and fun for everyone. Great game!