Dvann562

Chocolate, Oranges, and Season Packages

Next week will be the Orange County premiere of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA. I’ve got my golden ticket ready for opening night, May 28. Well, it’s actually white and orange with a few other colors. There’s no gold on this thing at all.

It won’t just be a normal opening night either. SCFTA will be hosting an event in the lobby called…

Is Chicago’s Hamilton Coming to LA?

Chris De’Sean Lee, José Ramos, Wallace Smith, and Miguel Cervantes (Joan Marcus)

It has been revealed on Playbill that the Chicago production of Hamilton will be coming to a close after a 3-year run at the CIBC Theatre. Final performance is scheduled for January 5, 2020.

When the Pantages Theatre announced their 2019-2020 Broadway Season earlier in the year, they showed us that Hamiltonwil…

For those who celebrate, I hope you had a great Easter weekend. I spent my Easter Sunday seeing a production of Singin’ in the Rain by McCoy Rigby Entertainment at the La Mirada Theatre. It was my first time attending the 1,251 seat venue. Because of the smaller size, your seat is never too far away from the stage and you’ll never be seated too far to the side where you end up watching a…

I Sold My Nikon

I’ve been thinking of switching systems for a while now. A lot of my photographer friends have traded in their DSLRs for full-frame mirrorless bodies. Many of them have switched over to Sony. Last week I sold my entire Nikon gear to my local camera store, Tuttle Cameras. I sold them my D600, battery grip, charger, flash, Tokina 24-70 2.8, 50mm 1.8, an older version of the 50mm 1.8, and a 35mm…

Musical Theatre West 2019-2020

Early in the year we got announcements for the 2019-2020 Season at the big southern California theatres. Now it’s time for the smaller local theatres and companies and it looks like Musical Theatre West in Long Beach, CA. (my hometown) is the first to announce their 2019-2020 season.

Welcome to the Renaissance… The season kicks off with Something Rottenin October. It’s a musical comedy set in…

I’m Singin’ in La Mirada

Way before I was even into the live stage musicals, there were two movie musicals that I have always been a fan of, Grease and Singin’ in the Rain. I was introduced to it through TV. It was on one day and it was the scene where Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont were filming the first talkie for Monumental Pictures. I think it was the first time a classic movie made me laugh. Many years later…

Aladdin’s OC Debut

Last night I went to go watch Aladdin at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. This was show number four in Segerstrom’s 2018-2019 Broadway Season and my second time watching it. I saw it last year while it was at the Pantages.

There was a change in the main cast compared to the Los Angeles stop. Clinton Greenspan, who was in the ensemble last year, is now Aladdin. Lissa deGuzman, formerly a…

Center Theatre Group (CTGLA) has finally revealed their 2019-2020 Season lineup for the Ahmanson Theatre. If you want to see John Leguizamo, Mike Birbiglia, and Sting in Los Angeles, then this is the season package for you. Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Songis no longer part of the Ahmanson lineup. I don’t know what happened. I’m not an insider with information. However, a new show will be announced…

Since “SoCal” is in my tagline, I might as well include this too. I don’t live in San Diego. I have been there a few times. First was an 8th grade field trip where we sailed down there. The last few times in my adult life was for San Diego Comic-Con. I shall return one of these days.

If you live down in SD and don’t want to deal with the 100+ mile drive to Los Angeles or Orange County, then the

With all of the excitement coming from the Pantages and Segerstrom recently, I forgot about the Ahmanson Theatre. I feel a little bad about not remembering them. It was at the Ahmanson where I had my first theatre experience in 2017 seeing Jersey Boys. That show at that location was what turned me into a theatre geek.

At the moment, Once on This Island and Torch Songare the only two shows…

Segerstrom’s 2019-2020 Broadway Season Revealed

Finally. SCFTA has revealed their lineup for the 2019-2020 Broadway Season and it looks to be a good one. They were killing me the past 10 days with their haiku clues. Some were show specific. Some were puns. We even had a geographical one. There are 7 or 8 of the 10 shows that I am interested in seeing. So heck yeah, I’m going to renew Anyway, here it is.

As usual, there are shows here…

Aladdin Back in SoCal

Aladdin, the hit Broadway musical, makes its return to southern California on March 6, 2019. Prince Ali Ababwa, or Abubu if you’re Jafar, will be doing 23 performances at the Segerstrom Center for the Artsin Costa Mesa, CA. Tickets are available for purchase now starting at $26.50 if you want to sit in the back and/or the edge. I have my ticket ready for the 2pm matinee on March 7th. Am I…

A Romanov in the Bronx

The daily haiku clues keep on coming from SCFTA. On the second day the haiku about a Romanov girl is pretty obvious that Anastasia will be coming to Costa Mesa. The third clue was one I couldn’t figure out. When I saw Yankee I was thinking Damn Yankees. I was wrong. So wrong. Based on comments left by more experience theatre geeks, they figured out that it was A Bronx Tale. This is great. I…

I bought a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 a few weeks ago. I was in need of a new laptop for editing my photos in the hotel room after the con. Previously, I've been using a Lenovo Z575 that I purchased back in 2012. This wasn't a premium laptop so when I used it on the road at SDCC 2014, it was already feeling slow and outdated. It was time for a change.

My reason for going with a Surface Pro 3 over the Surface Pro 4 simply came down to price. As a matter of fact, I bought a used SP3. Total price came out to $591. There was no way I could afford a new or even a refurbished one of either on my salary. Other than some signs of wear on the back, this thing is a perfect machine. The screen is bright and sharp. The battery life still holds up. It even came with a Type Cover. The best part is that I was looking for the Intel Core i5 version with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It was even listed as a Core i5. It's actually a Core i7.

I've been trying to figure out where to go and what to shoot on my days off, but I get lazy to do anything. Luckily, I've been keeping my RAW files now ever since I bought a big external hard drive. For some weird reason, the only way to successfully export RAW to JPEG is to export them to my Desktop. Can't export them to a folder. It's not a problem, just an extra step. But overall, The Surface Pro 3 is still a very capable photo editing laptop in my opinion and I look forward to using it at Las Vegas during the Star Trek Convention at The Rio.