See What I Wanna See love

Punctuations please.

Updated On: 8/5/06 at 04:45 PM

I love see what I wanna see. I guess I didn't appreciate it as much when I saw it performed, but now I just love to analyze it. The music is beautiful and the cast is stellar. what are your favorite tracks on the cast recording?

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I love those,I'm gonna include curiosity/prayer. i just think it's really pretty.

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Oooh dear, lets see.. favorite songs:
-She Looked at Me
-See What I Wanna See
-You'll Go Away With Me (Quartet) (okay, Idina and Aaron were just... MADE to sing with eachother. I swear, I've heard VERY few people who sound as amazing together as they do)
-No More (and its ONLY that amazing because of idina's mad acting chops)
-The Greatest Practical Joke
-Central Park
-Coffe
-Gloryday
-Curiosity/Prayer
-There Will Be a Miricale
-Rising Up (UNBELIEVABLY gorgeous and heartwrenching)

and, you know, those are just a few lol

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Updated On: 8/6/06 at 12:17 AM

I can't even begin to describe how much I love this show. I think that it is one of the most touching, smart, and powerful scores of the past five years. I think it is LaChiusa's most accessible score. I couldn't even begin to try to pick out a favorite or even favorite songs because to me they all are amazing. I had heard the title song before the show came to NYC because of Audra's recording on her CD (yes, Jazzy I too was very bummed when I heard Audra was not bring it to NYC and would have killed to have seen her do it in Williamstown but alas Idina was great in the role and I'm sure her take was very different from Audra's but just as valid)
I remember I had heard the first 30 seconds or so of Kesa on Itunes and that just really hooked me and I was so excited to buy the album. I also kept watching the video of opening night on Broadway.com. I didnt' have a whole lot of money and so when I saw that it came out on Itunes before it hit stores I just couldn't control myself and I bought it. I really should have waited to get the actual CD and I wished I had because I fell in love with every part of the score. It just is so amazing and very hip and sexy and fun in the first half with songs like See What I Wanna See and She Looked at Me. It also has my favorite "angry" song, No More. As others have said, I too love the "Look at her Eyes/ Her Devil Released" part and got chills when I first heard it. It just instantly hooked me and i couldn't believe how kick ass the cast was. How refreshing to see a whole new side of Idina and man does she sound great on the recording. It wasn't until after a few listenings till I really appreciated it but gosh dang does Coffee really pack a punch! Aaron Lohr is quite the talent and really shines on numbers like Curiosity and You'll Go Away with Me and as others have said he sounds incredible with Idina! Marc Kudisch again proves to me why he is one of my favorite actors of the musical theater. He just really hits it out of the park tackling two very different characters. His song in Act Two is feirce and his energy and passion just really comes through on the CD. Mary Testa gives one of her best performances and it is such a shame that she didn't get some kind of award for it because man she was just a hoot as the medium and still a hoot as the Aunt but man does she just break your heart in There Will be a Miracle. Henry Stram is also very endearing as the Janitor and very touching as the distraught priest in Act Two.
I absolutley love the Finale (Rising, Up) It is just so beautiful when they all sing together and the way it just builds. Such incredible music. I really wished that they would have found a way to move this to Broadway (I realize that everything nowadays transfers it seems but this show deserved a longer run!) to like a really small house. I also think it is complete bullsh*t that this didn't win any awards. I think that it is easily EASILY the best score of last season (although it had really tough competition with Bernarda Alba which wasn't even nominated!) I just hope this will be produced quite a bit regionally which I think it will and I hope that it has lots of success and gets Michael John's name out there. I also was really glad to see that there were many people who went to see it just because of Idina and walked away with a whole new appreciation of a new kind of theater. It's a great show and I treasure the cd. There is also a great video seminar on the show at american theater wing's site.

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It's a wonderfully experimental, exiting show. It has a terrific score. It's a shame it didn't transfer to Broadway, although it probably would have done quite poorly, even in a small house.

Ditto what everyone said. Stunning show.

What I don't understand is why, since there was not a Pulizer Prize given to a play this year, it wasn't given to this show?! I truly think it deserved it in every way.

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Funny thing about this show. I was actually disappointed when I heard Idina was gonna be in it. I was soooo hoping Audra would bring it to NY. So I went inspite of Idina. I hated her in Wicked. But I LOVED her in this. She was def an asset to the cast. However, I walked away saying OMFG Mary Testa. She's a freakin beast man. I'd never seen her live before. She really needs to be working in NY more because she is ferocious.

sorry, this is from a while back but it reminded me of something. I am SOOOO happy that idina did this show, especially after wicked, because although I will always absolutely positively adore her in wicked, I think this proved to all those who DIDNT like her in wicked that she is SO much better than even that. I mean, wicked showed off her unbelievable vulnerability, but other than that I actually dont really think it shows off TOO much more. I think she's way BETTER than wicked, and see what I wanna see proved that. Because, sure, she has an amazing belt, but there's MORE to her voice than just pop belting songs. And sure, she's better at being vulnerable than anyone else I can think of, but she also kicks major ass being fierce, like in No More. So.. yeah, basically, I think this show showed off everything she can do that Wicked DIDNT (and what it did, because coffe was idina vulnerability at its very, VERY best), and I just wish more people could have seen it just so they could see that. Because I think wicked is just so... mainstream, and people dont like that, and people autoomatically think that what she did in wicked is the best she can do and its NOT :) not even CLOSE

oh and yeah, please dont let my ramblings about idina fool you into thinking I liked her more in this show than the rest of the cast. I ADORE the rest of the cast, especially Mary

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Updated On: 8/6/06 at 04:20 PM

So I just did some research on this and I'm kind of annoyed. Apparantly the Pulitzer prize for drama is a big joke. NOt really but it should be NOW.

SO first anyone can apply for a Pulitzer. There's some paperwork and materials required to send it in. So SWIWS was def eligable for this past year. So either someone from the board has to recommend it or someone from the SWIWS camp had to put it in. So apparantly it wasn't on the radar. Or the board just didn't like it (I'll get to that in a moment). Now why was there no award given this year? Well this comes from their guidlines:

According to The Plan of Award "If in any year all the competitors in any category shall fall below the standard of excellence fixed by The Pulitzer Prize Board, the amount of such prize or prizes may be withheld."

So I guess there wasn't any plays or musicals worthy of the award on the radar of the drama board last year. Sound like Bull****? That's because it probably is. Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter, Christopher Durang's Miss Witherspoon, and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow by Rolin Jones were all nominated but no award was given. Now I looked at the board members for the different catagories. Most of it is as you expected. The fiction has novelists and professors and A critic. Music has composers musicinas and A critic. History has history professors etc. What does drama have?! 3 critics, 1 English professor and 1 actress/playwright/professor of drama (yes all that is one person). My question is Why are critics basically responsible for giving out the award? Why is it that only ONE person who really does theatre is on the board? The chair of said board is Linda Winer chief theatre critic for Newsday. 1 or 2 critics ok maybe. But 75% of the board don't create art and can't know what that's like...I find that a bit odd. Like someone reviewing a score without any knowledge of how to construct one. No wonder musicals hardly ever win these things.


END OF RANT

Updated On: 8/6/06 at 05:33 PM

I couldn't even begin to try to pick out a favorite or even favorite songs because to me they all are amazing.

Same here! I start to name songs that are my favorites and I end up naming every song.

I can't begin to describe how much I love this show, either. I could just talk about it non-stop. It is so brilliant! I can't begin to talk about it because I just wouldn't stop. I love the whole "missing A" motif. Just... brilliant.

Plus, I can't begin to top what gustof777 said.

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i haven't heard enough of the show to like it or not but i'm hoping to see the production the Lyric Stage will be doing here in Boston. maybe it'll change my doubts :)

I'm going to have to add to the SWIWS love. It's been on a constant loop on my cd player until last week when it was dethroned.

by Bernard Alba.

theme, much?

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