Top 5 Broadway Shows

Anyone who knows me knows that Broadway shows are some of my favorite things in the world. And to get a little insight into what kind of person I am, I thought I’d share my top 5 Broadway shows and why I love them. So, in no particular order, here are my Top 5 Favorite Broadway Shows. (**SPOILERS AHEAD**)

1.     Heathers the Musical

For those of you who don’t know, Heathers is basically ‘80s Mean Girls except the main character’s boyfriend kills 3 people. While that may sound morbid, the show has amazing music, from awesome jams like “Candy Store” to power ballad duets like “Seventeen”. It’s raunchy, funny, sweet, and everyone wears shoulder pads and scrunchies. 10/10, would recommend.

2.     Fiddler on the Roof

Fiddler on the Roof takes place in a small Jewish town called Anatevka. It tells the story of Tevye and his family as his daughters grow up and get married. The story is beautiful, there is literally not a bad song, and the dance moves are iconic. This classic breaks my heart every time.

3.     A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Gentleman’s Guide tells the story of Monty Navarro, who finds out he’s ninth in line to be the earl of Highhurst. So he decides to kill the eight people ahead of him to get on the throne to impress the woman he loves. The best part about this show is that all eight of Monty’s family members – men and women – are played by the same man. Between eight hilarious different characters portrayed by Jefferson Mays, and fun beautiful songs that are sure to have you laughing until you cry, Gentleman’s Guide earns a top spot in my heart.

4.     Next to Normal

Next to Normal is about a family coping with the mom’s bipolar disorder and depression after losing their son as an infant. It is a beautiful story about family and loss, and when I saw it for the first time at camp with my friends, we all went back to the bunk and cried about how sad and beautiful it was. Not the feel-good musical of the century, but a gorgeous and heartbreaking show with important messages about family.

5.     Our Town

Our Town is the only play on the list, as you can see. The story itself is not super plot-ty (?), but more generally about small town American life. On the surface, Our Town seems like a boring play that often breaks the fourth wall and just drones on with unnecessary details. In actuality, it is more about the omnipotent view of the “Stage Manager” character, and how life in the past, present, and future intertwine. It’s a beautiful idea, and there’s a heartbreaking monologue at the end that kills me every time. I’ve been in it, my brother’s been in it, and I’m reading it in my Dramatic Literature class right now. Its simplicity is what makes it so amazing.

-- Holly

Christmas Tree 101

For tonight’s blog, I decided to discuss a controversial topic: personal preferences for Christmas tree decorating.  There seems to be as many ways to do it as there are people.  Here is a sampling off of the top of my head.

The Archivist: This person hangs and displays every ornament they have acquired since the First Coming.  This includes tattered glitter-laden construction paper creations from little Johnny’s preschool days, as well as any and all macaroni endeavors.

The Minimalist: This person buys two 24 pack boxes of shiny glass balls (usually in red and silver) and can assemble the tree in half an hour.  They are usually the ones you hear about putting up the tree on Christmas Even and wonder “how the heck do they have time for that the day before Christmas?!”

The Theme-ist: This person has one type of ornament on their tree and one type only – and don’t try to talk them out of it.  I once knew a family of scuba-divers who exclusively hung fish ornaments on their tree. And then there are the people who go with all one color.  Lots of discipline involved there.

The Memorialist: This person only hangs portraits of persons who have passed.  Morbid, meet sentimental.

The Mash-up: Perhaps the most common variety of tree-decorator, this person has bought many ornaments over the years, as well as inherited a few along the way.  They display all their ornaments regardless of type.

The Arsonist: This person carries on the old German tradition of lighting real candles on their tree.  Beautiful but soooo dangerous.

The Edible Tree: Some persons decorate with strings of popcorn and cranberries and those foil-wrapped chocolate bells and decorated cookies.  A lovely sentiment just so long as you don’t mind your ornaments disappearing throughout the holidays by opportunistic children or pets.

We have two trees in our home.  The “main” tree (a real tree, of course!) exhibits all of our ornaments that we have acquired over the years.  Admittedly, we do have themes within the tree.  And sometimes, we even group and hang them accordingly.  There are the family heirlooms; they somehow have managed to survive many years of packing and unpacking, lugging up to the attic and down, and at least one felled tree.  Then, there are the ornaments we have taken to purchasing on our vacations.  Each year brings a new crop and hanging them for the first time in December serves as a visit back to wherever they were purchased that year.  Then there are the ornaments we purchase annually for our kids.  Each year we get them each a new one, reflective of some accomplishment that occurred that year.  It is fun to see how their interests and efforts evolve over time.  Also, our son has taken to collecting ornaments that look like little woodland creatures.  They usually gather at the bottom of the tree. Our last ornament trend is White House ornaments.  Each year, a new one gets created.  They are always interesting and rooted in American history and tradition.

You are probably wondering by now what we put on our secondary tree.  On this tree, blue and silver ornaments dominate.  This is an homage to the Jewish branch of our family and is quite lovely.

So there ya have it.  I would love to hear about your personal preference in tree decorating and feel free to post a picture.  It is all in good fun – just so long as we remember the reason for the season.

-- Eve

A Trip On The Time Machine

Take a second to imagine your younger self.  The kid you were in elementary school.  Do you remember how you looked?  How you dressed?  The things that excited you as a kid.  Imagine your favorite elementary school class.  Was that third grade?  Fifth?  And now think of your favorite elementary school teachers.  The ones that “got” you.  The ones who looked inside the younger you and saw something special.  They saw the potential in you and they nurtured it.  Their teaching inspired you and got you excited about learning.  These were the teachers that “made a difference” – for you and for many other students that came before and after you. 

Now consider the person you are today.  You’re all grown up.  Decades apart from that younger version of yourself.  A million different experiences span the gap of time between the two versions of you.  If the you of today had the chance to go back to elementary school and see the teachers who made a difference, what would you say?  What would you want them to know?

A few years ago, through the wonders of Facebook, I re-connected with two of my elementary school teachers who made a difference.  We liked each other’s photos and postings on Facebook.  They saw images of my family, my children.  We shared news and vacations.  While it was “nice”, it didn’t feel like enough.

This past summer, I got it into my head that I should take the teachers to lunch and have a real conversation with them.  My lovely wife encouraged me to see it through.  I mentioned my scheme to a few friends from “back then” and they loved the idea.  We set a date and booked a table at a local restaurant. 

By the time the day arrived, my friends and I were very excited.  It had been nearly 40 years since we sat in these teachers’ classrooms.  Think about that one for a second.  40 years.  How could that possibly be? 

Everyone arrived and greeted each other with big hugs.  A few more “smile lines” than we used to have, maybe a little less hair, but everyone was the same as we remembered.  Both teachers arrived that day with the class photos from when we were their students.  One even had a note and a poem I had written many years ago.  Once we got started talking, we really didn’t and couldn’t stop.  Our lunch, which started at 1pm continued long into the afternoon.  I think we finally disbanded around 6pm.  We had a lot of years to catch up on.  Lots of stories about our respective journeys from age 11 or 12 to today.  Lots of catching up on other teachers and students who had fallen out of touch.  It was such a special and extraordinary experience.  My friends and I were so thrilled we did it.  Both teachers followed up with notes thanking me for pulling it together.  We plan to make it an annual thing.  And as other friends have heard about it, many of them expressed interest in joining next time.

The experience made me wonder about the fact that we have high school reunions with our classmates, but as a general practice, we really don’t have organized reunions with our teachers.  We should.  Especially with those that made a difference in our lives.    

-- Frosty

Weathering My Experience At All-State

This weekend I participated in NYSSMA Conference All-State Choir. I had to audition in the spring, and only the best singers in the state get in (not to toot my own horn). Needless to say, it was an amazing experience. For 3 days, I spent about as many hours sleeping as I did rehearsing (about 6 hrs of each), and I made friends and had Christmas song jam sessions.

            Although I could write about many awesome things from my experience, the thing I most want to talk about is the actual program for the concert that the choir I was in performed. Our conductor, Dr. David Fryling, selected 7 pieces for us to perform, all with a common theme that we as a choir talked about during rehearsal. All of the songs Dr. Fryling selected were related to cloudy skies, day and night, light and dark.

The first two songs were about shade coming into the light, and the next three about night and a sort of metaphorical “drowning” in rain. But the 6^th song, my personal favorite, was called “Cloudburst” by Octavio Paz, arranged by musical genius Eric Whittacre. The song itself is about a drought and about the rain coming and washing everything into new life. As the choir discussed it, we noticed that the first five songs all seemed to have this common theme of cloudlessness being a good thing, and shade and the absence of sun being bad. I mean, there was literally a song called “Unclouded Day”. But in “Cloudburst”, there was another layer to this theme, saying that while generally rain was darkness, with loud, percussive thunder, it could also be beautiful, and even replenishing.

“Cloudburst” was an entirely different look on the whole comparison of light and dark. The message that sometimes, although they can be harsh, rainstorms can wash away the bad and clean the slate for a new day, like rebirth. This was reflected in the song that followed “Cloudburst” called “Light of a Clear Blue Morning”. “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” starts off by saying that after a “long, hard night” there’s a “brand new day a-dawning”.

With the seamless connection from the only song that shed a light (no pun intended) on the positives of rain washing away the old for the new, to a song about the light after a storm, a beautiful arc of a story was told in our songs.

When asked why he chose these songs, Dr. Fryling said that he thought about our group, and where we are in our lives right now (juniors and seniors in high school). I can totally see how while right now might be a difficult time for most of us (they call 11^th grade “hell year” for a reason), there is a light at the end of our rainstorm, as we venture out into the real world. Or at least into college.

-- Holly

Where Have All The Mensches Gone?

To paraphrase Wikipedia, a “mensch” is a Yiddish expression describing someone to admire and emulate; someone of noble character.  The key to being a real mensch is character, dignity, a sense of responsibility and doing what is right. 

There was once a time, not too long ago, when our political leaders, corporate heads, sports heroes, actors and news anchors (among others) recognized the heightened visibility of their respective statuses and governed their behavior accordingly. 

Our standard bearers were people of integrity.  Honesty and accuracy were important to them.  They actually did what they promised to do.  Whether you agreed with them or not, you understood they honestly tried to do the right thing, and take actions for the greater good.  They worked hard and earned what they received.  They shared credit.  They recognized and appreciated how fortunate they were, and used their elevated status to help others.  They had a smile, a warm handshake and a kind word for strangers.  They treated others with dignity.  They embraced the differences of those dissimilar from themselves.  There was mutual respect.  They exuded a sense of goodwill, and didn’t feel the need to lower the status or reputation of someone else to elevate their own.  They believed in being fair, and encouraged competition and differences of opinion.  They understood what it meant to “respectfully disagree.”  When they messed up, they admitted and owned their mistakes instead of blaming others.  They promised to learn from their errors and lapses of judgment, and committed themselves to be better going forward.  This was the American ideal and by and large, we were a country of mensches.  These values made us proud to be Americans.

Obviously, not everyone conformed to this ideal.  But those that didn’t were outliers – they were exceptions to the rule.

Seems to me that more and more these days, we are presented with examples that make us feel like this paradigm has been flipped on its head.  Our leaders and others believe they are above the law; immune from the rules of decency.  They make statements that can’t possibly be true.  They deny things that can’t possibly be false.  They view disagreement as disloyalty.  They take from others to benefit themselves and their friends.  They touch the bodies of others without permission.  They take credit for everything good and blame others for problems.  They sew fear, insult our differences, encourage distrust and eschew goodwill.  Still feeling the pride?

Where have all the mensches gone?

-- Frosty

Culture Clash

I once read a book called Random Family.  It is about a Latino community in Bronx, New York where pretty much everybody in the community either processed drugs, dealt drugs, took drugs, was living with persons who took drugs, and/or knew somebody who had in some way touched drugs.  It was just a part of this community’s daily life. 

There were government-funded programs set up to help people get on their feet and hopefully transition out of this dangerous lifestyle but it seemed like nobody ever really escaped the lure of making a good living – or even an above-average living.  Many members of the community had done time, were dating somebody who had a rap sheet, or had a family member in prison.  Simply a part of life. 

From society’s perspective, this is obviously not an ideal situation.  I think it is safe to say we all want less drugs on the street, less drug-related violence, and less people populating our prisons.  The question is: how do we change this aspect of this culture? 

Interestingly, a few years back, I was in Tanzania.  In Tanzania, there is a significant population of people who live in what is commonly considered a primitive style: they live in huts strewn together with twigs and mud.  They do not use banks or even cash – instead their preferred form of currency is cows.  If they need something, they sell a cow.  If they have a lot something, they trade it for some cows.  Even dowry’s are transacted in cows.  (The running rate for a wife is 10 cows, in case you are interested.)  No cell phones, indoor plumbing, TV’s or shopping malls.  Yet to be clear, this community is not in duress.  In fact, it runs quite smoothly and balanced and people seem happy.  

Nonetheless, the local government officials view these people as not progressive enough, and even vulnerable, so the officials are taking steps to change the culture. 

This is how they are doing it: Each week, the school-aged children of the community are taken to a nearby boarding school for their education.  (They get to return home for the weekends.) The boarding school provides the students with mainstream clothing; the kids live in buildings with four walls and a roof and basically are encouraged to absorb the creature comforts of modern day living.  

The theory behind this process is that the kids will no longer want to live like their families do and thus the culture is changed -- in just one generation.

Will it work?  I think so. Life is undeniably easier with creature comforts – not necessarily better, but definitely easier. 

Now, back to the situation in the Bronx.  I can’t help but to wonder if the Tanzanian approach to changing a culture would work in this community.  Putting aside the ethical and moral issues tied up in the whole concept of messing with a culture, would removing the kids from this drug-infested environment (and then ultimately giving them back, of course) change anything?  Would the kids want and know that they could have a different life?  Or would they go right back into what they grew up knowing?  As I mentioned, there already exists some social support, but that really functions to pick off the outliers – those that somehow manage to go against the tide. That social support does not seem to have the ability to change the direction of the mainstream.

And so I leave you with this cultural conundrum.  If anybody has any insight into this issue, I would love to hear it!

-- Eve

We Did It!

Hello and Happy New Year!  Hard to believe that another year has come and gone.  Feels like just yesterday that I was writing the blog entry on January 1^st 2016. 

Today marks the end of our latest Holidailies challenge – where the family and I committed to write a blog every day for the month of December.  This is our 5^th year in a row attempting this and I have to say that I wasn’t sure if we’d pull it off this year.  Everyone in the family is so extraordinarily busy this time of year that it’s kind of crazy to think that we say “let’s add one more new daily obligation to December just for the fun of it.” 

I’m really proud to say that we did it.  We updated the blog each of the past 31 days – amidst Hanukah, Christmas, New Year’s, final exams and papers, holiday concerts, year-end work deadlines, and travel to different time zones.  We didn’t miss a day.  Sometimes we changed up our batting order to cover for each other when someone was especially busy on his/her day to write but we did it and I’m really proud of my family for sticking to it.  The truth is that the blog is fun and we all enjoy going back in time each year and seeing which blog entries get the most views and even which ones end up being our all-time highest ranked blog entries from the past 5 years.  They frequently serve as a time capsule or snapshot in time.

Most of us can agree that 2016 left much to be desired.  The world lost a lot of very talented people.  We elected a woefully un-talented (under talented?) President (and just for the record, by “we” I do not mean me).

For all that is lacking, 2016 brought lots of good things too.  Everyone is healthy and thriving in their respective school work and activities.  I’m very proud of them and all they continue to accomplish. 

Here’s to 2017 and hoping that it brings you and your loved ones health, happiness and all that you want.  See you next December! 

-- Frosty