01420: Diversity Saturday Round-Up

Well today has been quite the strange roller coaster - and I'm talking some pretty major ups and severe downs here. And on a Saturday to boot. But it can't be helped - things are still relatively complicated (or at least complex, if you get my implied difference). So let's focus on the good shall we?

I sort of spent time with Ryan and John today, but it was more like just spending time with their dog Scarlet since they were still asleep. So Scarlet and I read books while we waited for everyone else to wake up. At least I got to rest after my shift and before heading out for the rest of Saturday.

The highlight of today was finally catching the Upstart Productions staging of Forbidden Broadway. I had missed the first run of the show earlier this year due to conflicts with other engagements and so when the very limited repeat run was announced, I knew I had to go. And I wasn't in the mood to watch the play alone so luckily I was able to drag Nik with me to see the production.

And things got even better at the start of the show when we got a free seat upgrade! At first we were weirded out that they were taking forever to open the house and when they did they only opened the orchestra doors. At first we were waiting for an announcement for Loge and Balcony sections to begin seating, but nothing was happening. So finally I walked up to the desk to ask what was going on and was promptly informed that we were being upgraded to orchestra center for free. I figure it was because of underbooking for the show, but I'm definitely not complaining. After fussing over the value of aisle seats versus center seats, we eventually got new tickets a lot closer to the stage than our former Loge seats.

The production itself was a lot funnier than I had expected. I knew the play would parody other hit plays and poke fun at big theater names, but I was worried that I might miss the references or not know some of the characters. But thankfully that was not the case and I guess my theater geekery really came through today.

Case in point, the photo to the left depicts the number "Into the Words", which was a bit jab at Stephen Sondheim's often verbose lyrics that even included a sing-along challenge for the audience. As much as I love Sondheim so much, even I was laughing from struggling to keep up. And they poked fun at a lot of great plays like in different ways such as the celebration of tragedy in productions like Les Miserables or how you don't even get to be human anymore because of shows like Cats. And of course there was a "tribute" of sorts to the campier types of plays such as all those jukebox musicals and even laughing at theater merchandising.

So yeah, Nik and I had a fun time.

Of course being in a theater for so long meant that we had no idea how bad the rain had gotten. I initially attempted to go home via MRT but given how crazy the crowds were and cabs were equally sparse, I eventually shifted gears and caught a bus home instead. That took a day and a half with horrible old Filipino comedies playing on the on-board TV, so I'm glad that I had my Kindle along for the ride.

Despite not having any sleep since the night before my work shift, I ended up agreeing to meeting up with a geek friend just before going home. It sort of made sense since I was still awake and I was pretty hungry anyway despite the lack of sleep. But I'm glad I went since it meant making a new geek friend and it's crazy how long we ended up talking about different 1980's cartoons. I bet had any non-geek tried to listen to our conversation, the constantly shifting topics would not have made much sense. Too bad for them, hehe.

We geeks have to stick together after all in this big scary "normal" world. Fandoms are always meant to be celebrated.

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