Summer Vacation: Nashville Part 3

Clearly, you all know by now that I got the chance to visit Nashville.  My first experience in Nashville on the historical Studio B tour.  Then I got to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.  Today, let's talk Broadway!

Yes, Nashville has a street called Broadway, too.  We spent a good bit of our time there stopping in different places for food and drinks, to buy souvenirs, to hear live entertainment, and, of course, for me to sing karaoke!

Our first stop on Broadway was a place called Tootsie's (the purple building).  There were three different floors, and because it was quite early in the afternoon, it was pretty much deserted.  Empty or not, it was still a pretty cool place, so we had a drink and listed to a little live music.

  Then we had a super yummy lunch at Rippy's BBQ.  Scott and I chose to eat up on the second floor.  We ordered their sampler, which is supposed to be an appetizer.  I'm pretty sure, though, that if you made the mistake of ordering anything else to eat on top of that, you'd be taking A LOT of food home.  The sampler had ribs, wings, onion rings, pork chops, and sausage.  It was a feast, and I can promise you that neither of us left there feeling hungry!  There was also live music.

Later that evening, we went to one of the karaoke bars on Broadway.  The windows behind the stage are open to the street.  Every now and then a passerby would poke a head in to listen.  This picture is me singing "Good Girl" by Carrie Underwood.  Unfortunately, not long after I sang, I wasn't feeling very well.  So we called it a night, but we did head back out the next day.

This band was playing at a place called The Stage.  I wish I could remember the name of this band because this girl was AMAZING.  I could've stayed to listen to her all day, but we had to go put more money in our parking meter.  Haha.  We also had to head out for our ghost tour, which I will tell you more about tomorrow!

After the ghost tour, we hit up another karaoke bar on Broadway.  I really enjoyed this one.  It was on the second floor of a building, and they had a camera that projected performances to a TV down on the street level.

This place was also deserted when we got there.  I probably sang 4 or 5 songs before anyone else even showed up!  After things got busy, I still got to sing a lot.  So I was pretty much in heaven.  :)  In this picture, I'm singing "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood.

I hope you are enjoying my vacation posts!  Coming up: Ghost Tour, Grand Ole Opry, Mississippi, New Orleans.

Music Monday: Musicals I Love (Part II)

A couple of weeks ago, I shared two of my favorite musicals!  I promised that I would share my favorite musicals I've performed in, but last week, I just HAD TO SHARE about The Beatles special that aired on CBS on February 9th.

I LOVE performing in shows, and I miss it so incredibly much.  I started performing in Christmas musicals at my church when I was a kid, and I've gotten to be a in a few musicals over the years in middle/high school and college.

Middle/High School
6th grade- Annie
7th grade- Damn Yankees
9th grade- West Side Story: "Francesca"
10th grade- Fiddler on the Roof
11th grade- My Fair Lady

College
Children of Eden: "Yonah"
In the Beginning: "Mavis"

That used to sound like so many.  I can't believe I haven't been in a musical since my senior year of college....

ANYWAY

I can say that I truly loved performing in each and every one of those shows, but I definitely have my favorites:

4. West Side Story

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My director pretty much made up the name "Francesca" for me.  He wanted me to be a part of the "I Feel Pretty" scene, and so he created a name for my character.  This was the first time I felt somewhat important in a musical!  So it was very exciting for me!

3. My Fair Lady

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I will admit, this did NOT start out as being one of my favorite shows.  There were three of us who had to keep singing and reading and singing and reading for the part of Eliza.  The director really had a difficult time making his decision.  I will never forget the day when he announced the parts during chorus.  I was totally and completely devastated that I didn't get to be Eliza.  I must have cried off and on for the rest of the day.  In the end, though, I had SO much fun.  I was in every scene that was not just the three main characters.  I had quite a few different costumes from a maid's costume for the Servants' Chorus to a fancy dress for the horse races.  I literally had to do costume changes so fast, I had girls waiting for me after certain scenes to help me change!  While I still don't think I could say that I'm glad I didn't get the role I wanted, I can definitely say that I had a great time!

This is still one of my most favorite songs from a musical...even though it's much harder to hit that high note at the end than it used to be, but as one of the maids, I got to be in this scene with Eliza.

2. In the Beginning

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This is not a very well-know show.  In fact, I'm lucky that I even found this image on Google!  I couldn't even find any of the songs on YouTube, but it was so much fun!  It was the musical my senior year of college, and I had one of the leading roles.

1. Children of Eden

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You may not have heard of this show either, but it holds an incredibly special place in my heart.  (This show was written by Stephen Schwartz who also wrote Wicked.)  I had a rough start to college.  My freshman year, I was placed into an "overflow triple" (aka my college accepted too many students, didn't have space for all of us, and I was roomed with two other girls in a room the size of a closet).  After about a month, these girls HATED me for reasons that I still don't understand.  My boyfriend and I broke up that year, and it turned out that I also hated being a music education major. I was SO ready for a new start my sophomore year.  While it was going better, most of my friends had auditioned for and were accepted into the prestigious choir on campus.  I was terrified of the director and was under the impression that everyone was boycotting the choir and staying in the chorale.  I was clearly wrong.

I was encouraged to audition for this show, and landed a leading role for the first time ever.  I made and grew some amazing friendships, and the choir director asked ME to audition for the choir after seeing my performance.  So many things changed for me because of this show, and I honestly do not think that any show will ever bump this out of my top slot.....unless, of course, I ever get to be Sandy in Grease or Elphaba in Wicked.

This video is a little long, but it features my two most favorite songs from the show: "Stranger to the Rain" and "In Whatever Time We Have".  

Do you have a favorite performance??

Music Monday: Musicals I Love

One of the things I miss the most about being in high school and college is performing in musicals.  I had so much fun doing shows, and it practically kills me to go see them sometimes because I miss being a part of them so much!!

Today, I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite shows with you!

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I fell in love with the movie Grease when I was pretty young, and it is still one of my favorites to this day.  Of course, I was only allowed to see the TV version for a long time.  In high school, I bought an anniversary edition on VHS.  It had a mini copy of the script and the "Grease Mega Mix" CD with it.  THAT was when I saw the full version for the first time.

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Years later, NBC hosted a show called You're the One that I Want.  It was a competition to cast Danny and Sandy for a revival of Grease on Broadway.  I was very happy with the winners, and we went to New York to see the show when it opened! 

This is probably not surprising, but here's my one of my favorite songs from the show:  "Hopelessly Devoted to You" sung by Olivia Newton-John as Sandy.

One of my other favorites is sung by Stockard Channing who played Rizzo--"There are Worse Things I could Do."

 

One of my other favorite musicals is Wicked.  This show debuted when I was in college.  We "music people" were (and still are) in love with it. 

Two of my favorite songs from the show are "Defying Gravity" and "For Good".

I believe that this video is from Kristin Chenoweth's last performance, which explains all the emotion in it (as if it's not an emotional enough song).    I was also fortunate enough to see this show on Broadway!  I saw this one with my college roomie, Diane, when we took a bus trip to NYC from our school.

What are some of your favorite musicals?  Have you seen them live?

Next week, I'm going to share some of my favorite shows that I've BEEN in!  :)