Hello, everybody! I'm popping in to answer and ask some questions.
My first "Broadway" musicals were actually West End shows. I didn't see New York until after I graduated from college, but while I was a sophomore in college my mom took me to London. We saw Sunset Boulevard WITH Patti LuPone, thank you very much; Les Miserables; Crazy for You; Blood Brothers; and Miss Saigon. Also, in high school I saw POTO at the Kennedy Center. My theatre/band geek friends and I were obsessed with it at the time, and my friend Heather and I sobbed through the entire thing. I would never go see it now, here in New York, but every time I see the buses with the "Remember your first time?" ads for it, I think about that first time in DC.
Der Brucer, to answer your question about the "adult" camp at which DH Noel is teaching (and leaving me to sleep alone with the roaches tonight, I might add): when we were at the musical theatre version of this camp a few years ago, we were joined by another group of campers who called themselves "The Sucasians", and I have no idea if I'm spelling it right. They get the name from the Spanish expression "Mi casa, su casa" (someone who speaks Spanish, please correct me if I've misquoted that). They are essentially peace-lovin', free-love-sharin', grass-smokin' hippies who get together and share their love all over the country, and perhaps the world. They were there having a get-together, and we hung out with them and they came to see our final performance. Wonderful, lovely people. I'm certain that much shedding of clothing was done in their bungalow.
As for us musical theatre campers, at some point in the week we went skinny-dipping, and the moment that DH Noel dropped trou and jumped into the pool was the moment I knew he was the man for me.
And now I have a question for BK and everybody else:
What IS it with the five-and-a-half octave range claim? The entire canon of opera music, from basso profundo to coluratura, only encompasses about four and a half octaves. So how is it that Jessica Simpson's father/manager can claim that she has a five-and-a-half octave range? If she can go from a C below middle C to the C above high C, that would be an extremely wide range, and possible (although it wouldn't be pretty), but that is only four octaves. It is just not possible, and even if it WAS possible, she would never record anything that encompassed that range. Not even close. The widest range any pop singer, excluding Mariah Carey with her whistle tones, is probably about two and a half. So what gives?
This claim by Jessica's father (in Vanity Fair last month) isn't the first time I've heard this little slice of ignorance. My stepmother took me and my sister to an agent in Phoenix who heard us sing and remarked on how we were such great singers because we can sing "in that fifth octave".
?? What is WRONG with these people?
