Looking for love in all the wrong places

I apologize for the incredibly unoriginal title. I also apologize for breaking my rule and bringing POSSIBLE ANGST into this blog. I have discovered that I'm not actually very good at writing about my non-angsty passions (theater and teaching, for those that can't be bothered to read the sidebar), so I might as well pull out the stops and talk about romance. Or, more specifically, dating.

It turns out I absolutely suck at dating. I didn't know that in college: hell, for my college I was actually pretty good. In a school where boys outnumbered girls 3 to 1, I managed to have perfectly charming and attractive girlfriends for approximately 3 out of 4 years, and a few less serious encounters well worth remembering as well.

My search for love since moving to New York City has been less successful. I did okay the first year - fell hard for a girl in grad school and actually convinced her to date me for a while, but she had emotional and personal issues well beyond the scope of my abilities to heal, which, while oddly attractive to me, also made the relationship impossible.

For about 6 months after that, I was pretty much uninterested in girls. I went on one disastrous date with a friend who clearly wanted to stay firmly in the friend zone, but otherwise nada. Then I went on a few dates with a cute girl who pursued ME on Facebook (yes, Facebook). Though that ended up going nowhere, it did convince me that perhaps there was something to online dating.

So I joined eHarmony.com.

1 Year (and 300+ dollars) later, I had gone on two eHarmony dates, despite something like 500 "perfect personality matches" or whatever the hell they promise. One of the dates was with a girl who was adorable but not my type, who I ended up making out with anyway because she got me drunk. One was with a girl who I actually liked a good bit (a singer!) who ended up getting back together with her boyfriend like three days later. Oops!

OKCupid.com was my next stop, with the advantage of being free. Plus, it's matching system runs on sexy, sexy math!. I like this site a lot, and still browse it with some regularity, but it hasn't been all that successful for me either. I've gone on dates with 3 or 4 girls I met on the site, but only one of them was even remotely successful, and she was enough of a long-term failure that someday she may rate an Angsty Post all her own. But that's it. No true love.

I'm starting to think that maybe the internet isn't the best place to find love. The problem is that I am a product of my generation and literally don't know where else to turn when the internet fails me! It's not like I have "guts" or "charm" or any of those other qualities necessary to pick up girls at bars. More importantly, it's not like I can successfully vet a girl (is she smart? Can she write proper English? Will she hate me for liking "Gossip Girl"?) in such a situation either.

Where does one find love, really? What Google search, if any, will bring her to my side? This man, for one, wants to know.

Reviews: Dead Man's Cellphone and Forbidden Broadway

Dead Man's Cell Phone is the latest completely sold-out play at Playwright's Horizons, featuring the lovely and talented Mary Louise Parker as... a woman who answers a dead man's cell phone. Then keeps answering it. Apparently forever and for no comprehensible reason. This, naturally, leads her to some pretty strange adventures as she tries to comfort family members with outright lies.

Good things about this show include it's wit, style, sets, sound design, and acting. Bad things about this show include its lack of character development, nearly incomprehensible story, mixed metaphors and messages, and the general slight discomfort it inspires. At intermission, I texted my friend to say "I think I love this show." By the end of Act Two, that was no longer true. I certainly liked it, but the second act did not fulfill the potential of the first, opting instead to dabble in surreal mysticism and quasi-social commentary.

Forbidden Broadway: Rude Awakening is a rather dated version of this classic Broadway spoof show by now, having had its last major update 7 or 8 months ago. Many of the jokes fell a little flat, but the spoofs of Company (including a brilliant Raul parody called "Being Intense") and Spring Awakening were pretty hilarious. I'm glad that I saw it, but, well, it's Forbidden Broadway. Nothing surprised me.

What a week(end)

Chronicles of the week:

1) Sister was here! Yay! It was a nice prequel for when we'll be roomies in a few months.
2) Our school got evaluated for its School Qualitative Review. I had to go to lots of meetings and appear very impressive. I think it went well.
3) I decided to sing "Agony" from Into the Woods with the other math teacher in our school for our Spring Showcase (which has a Broadway theme)
4) I had my third voice lesson. Fun!
5) We saw The Seafarer. It was good, but strangely denies a review. I've tried.
6) The After Party on Friday was the best ever. Kristy Cates celebrated her birthday, many of our favorite patrons were there, and we didn't leave until the lights were on and they were counting the money. It was about 5:30.
7) I slept until 3:30 on Saturday, then watched two movies. Mmmm. Movies.
8) I completely failed to do any work today but did read two books.
9) There was some OMG DRAMA over at The Guilty Ones, which I was forced to do something about. Ridiculous but endearing. Much like high school students.

It is now 8:25 p.m. My sleep schedule is screwy enough that I'm actually contemplating going to bed right now and waking up at 3 a.m. to do work. Woo.

One New Voice Worth Hearing

Tonight was the latest version of Scott Alan's Monday Night New Voices (mentioned earlier in the blog, possibly more than once). The guest composer was Jeremy Schonfeld, and there were several singers.

Most of them were kind of eh. Forgettable. And while I liked Schonfeld's songs, none of them stuck with me very much - I'll give his CD a listen, but I don't promise to buy it.

The girl in the clip below, on the other hand, blew me away:
She started the night with a performance of "My Funny Valentine," which is one of my favorite songs. Awesomely enough, Aaron Lazar insisted that she sing it from the top of the piano, and in fact lifted her up there; she was clearly surprised at this, but went with it and took direction like a pro. But most importantly, she sang gloriously. Her voice is luscious and rich, as you can probably hear in the clip above, and worked so perfectly.

The girl's name is Addi McDaniel. She graduated from Penn State last year, same class as Natalie "She's everywhere!" Weiss. I think I may like Addi more, but what an impressive pair by any measure.

Review: The Adding Machine

Bleak music. Bleak sets. Bleak lighting. Bleak story. Bleak costumes.

Bleak, but brilliant, show.

Voice Lesson the Second

I had my second voice lesson today. I actually learned some stuff! I was a little worried, because the first one wasn't as productive as I hoped, but today was much better. Guess he was just getting to learn my voice and figure out what I needed work in.

Also, he somehow had me hitting high B's with comparatively little strain (also, comparatively little prettiness, but he assures me that will come later) which is cool. I don't think I've ever actually sung a high B (other than in falsetto or in a pop-music scream, like the beginning of "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night). So that's neat.

Getting better at something I enjoy doing is much fun. I think this "training" thing is going to be a good adventure.

Ohmigod you guys!

I stayed up way too late last night and the night before, and MUST go to bed, like, right now. But there's a primary on! And it's very exciting! Still, must sleep.

Right now, though? Check out that excitement! Perfectly dead heat in Texas, Clinton leading in Ohio, VT and RI split Obama/Clinton. It might be a good night for a Hillary fan after all. I hope so!

Catch you all on the flip side.

Edited Wednesday Morning, 8:40 a.m.: Woohoo! Go Hil!

Review: NEO with Adam Gwon and Timothy Huang

Tonight I went to a show at the York Theatre, a tiny little theatre underneath a church at 54th and Lex. The church is built with some very strange, memorable, ultra-modern architecture; it seemed like a place that might be famous for it for some reason.

Anyway, this show was the first in a series for "New, Emerging, Original Artist Songwriters," with two hour-ish shows. The first one, Reach the Sky - Songs by Adam Gwon, was the primary reason I wanted to go since, as I mentioned several posts ago, I really like his work. You can listen to several of his songs on his website, http://www.adamgwon.com - I especially love "Don't Wanna Be Here" and "I'll be Here" from his musical Ordinary Days.

From the first moment, I loved his show. He wrote and sang a new song explaining the process that led to the show, including a moment where he was intimidated by association with Larry O'Keefe. In the midst of the song, he introduced his performers: Jill Abramovitz (apparently of Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, Jared Gertner (of the most recent Spelling Bee cast, or what I think of as MY cast), Michael Hunsaker (apparently involved in lots of previous Gwon readings), and Natalie Weiss (SHE'S EVERYWHERE). Then they proceeded to sing many other Gwon songs, most of them from Ordinary Days. I loved all of the performers except for Hunsaker, who mostly hovered on the edge of okay. Some of the songs didn't really work for Jared's vocal range, but his emotional range made up for it. Natalie (duh) and Jill were fierce, which was good, as both of my favorite Gwon songs are for girls, and they blew them away. Having seen Natalie so many times in such a short period of time, I find myself wondering about her expressiveness, though; I don't think I've ever seen her sing songs in anything but variations of the same character. That's not to say that she can't; I'd have to see her sing a song that's completely outside of her character comfort zone to judge, and that just hasn't happened yet.

Back to the subject: Ordinary Days is supposedly coming to the York Theatre sometime soon in a fully produced form, though I'm having a hard time finding any information about it. Keep an eye out - it seems like a nice story, and the music is very pleasant.

The second half of the show, Short Story Long - The Songs of Timothy Huang, left me more disappointed. The singers, pretty universally, were only okay. The songs had pretty words, but left no melodic impression. There were a couple of good moments, but generally I found myself nodding off a bit, and couldn't tell you much about any of the songs mere hours later. I will not be on the lookout for this composer - nothing in the show was offensive or bad, it just didn't strike me as all that good.

And now it is past my bedtime and I got no work done today. But, hey. Musical theater!

Review: Next to Normal and The After Party with Marty Thomas

So tonight, finally feeling noticeably less sick, I made it to a performance of Next To Normal at the Second Stage Theater. Now, I had heard buzz about this show ever since Anthony Rapp and several of the cast members from Spring Awakening were involved in workshops last year, but happily managed to avoid any real information about the plot: I knew it was a new rock musical, that Jennifer Damiano - the youngest member of SA's original cast - was in it, and that Charles Isherwood of the Times had been warm but not raving. I love going into musicals cold, ever since I saw Spring Awakening with no real expectations and had my mind and life completely reshaped.

Well, I wasn't reshaped, but I liked it very much. The show deals with some very "heavy" topics but, thankfully, manages to skirt the edge of cheesiness through most of the shows. There were a few moments, especially in the first act, where my eyes rolled at the repetitive lyrics, the predictable plot structures, or the overuse of power ballads; however, the catchy rock score, completely unpredictable plot twists, and sheer talent of the performers, led by Alice Ripley, meant that I was enjoying the show at intermission. Upon realizing that it was only 9:15, however, I was shocked: the first act felt much longer than 75 minutes, and seriously needs to be edited somehow to reduce its drag.

The second act was much better. The score became more complex and less one-note. The lyrics, though still occasionally repetitive, toyed with brilliance a few times. And the story grew much more interesting, with no silly songs about Costco (yes, the first act has a song about Costco) to ruin the flow. And I'm not 100% sure I understand the ending, but I still, somehow, liked it. Maybe because the last song was ridiculously catchy and feel-good, and who doesn't like it when a musical ends on a high note?

As far as performances: Jennifer Damiano's voice is mindblowing - I still can't believe that she's only 16 - and she seemed to be chanelling her character perfectly. Brian D'Arcy James is a pleasure to watch on stage, with a consistently beautiful tone. Aaron Tveit plays his character with exactly the right combination of charm and sinister seduction. Adam Chanler-Berat is occasionally annoying but usually adorable, and Asa Summers is hilarious. The show rides on Alice Ripley's performance as Diana, however, and I have mixed opinions. On the one hand, her emotional range was phenomenal; the audience had no problem reading her face as she sunk into depression, and watching her rebuild her life in the second act is both affirming and suspenseful. On the other hand, there were several moments, at least in this performance, where her voice failed to fit the music. When she was good, she was fierce, but there were definite moments of screechiness and brassiness that brought me out of the groove. I heard others in the audience commenting on it as well. It may simply have been a bad night for her vocally, however, as I haven't read anything but raves about her performance from others.

So it wasn't the best rock musical I've ever seen, and there is definite room for improvement. But with some streamlining of the lyrics, some carefully chosen cuts (like, say, the song about Costco), and some clarification of the less obvious metaphysical points, it could be a big hit. I hope this isn't the last I hear of the show.

The After Party with Marty Thomas
As per normal, after the show my best friend and I went to The After Party at the Laurie Beechman theater to hear some cabaret. We have been there often enough that we've begun making friends with the regulars and sat with a few of them. Unfortunately, the host Brandon Cutrell wasn't there tonight, but his replacement (whose first name was Ben, though I've forgotten his last) was pretty good: funny and a good singer. The special guest tonight was Marty Thomas of Xanadu, who I heard sing a couple of weeks ago. He was phenomenal, singing a few songs I didn't know but loved, followed by one of the funniest and most endearing versions of "Love You I Do" I've ever seen. He then the '80s ballad "Alone" with Alysha Umphress, much like in this Youtube video, only with live music instead of a terrible backing track. It was fantastic. We left after he sang, though, not feeling like a terribly late night.