it's time for musicals

Breaking my hiatus to put on record that I saw Beetlejuice the Musical LIVE!

It was everything I thought it would be.

My life is complete.

Love the costumes, the hair, the staging. Enjoying the fullness of their sound.

Trying to be reasonable and not buy a last minute plane ticket to see this limited run 😬

For my fellow Will Blum stans - his expression here makes me laugh! O__o

I love the commitment to acting in the background!

"Sit Down, John" - Will Blum and company of 1776 at Paper Mill Playhouse

Edit: There's a YouTube version! With a horizontal video! You get to see more of the room that way. This is where YouTube will always reign supreme for me.

Alex Brightman sings a snippet of "Piss (A Love Song)". Link to full convention video on YouTube - song is at 30:58 mark.

The Hazbin Hotel: Live on Broadway version we never got.

I dream of a day, when we'll have a live Piss (A Love Song) with both Cherri Bomb and Sir Pentious voice actors. For now, we have this and our imagination.

With the context of the episode, it's soooo gross. The fixed, unyielding gaze. The lick of lips. Why so creepy, Gabe!

Only a hyperfixated fan would be like, wow, great acting choices. Bravo! Excellent job on being creepy, good sir!

A classic series. A great episode. Storyline really captured parasocial relationships and the grey lines of the internet.

Alex, though gosh. He does gross and creepy well. I felt so uncomfortable with this character and his intentions. And at the same time you kinda feel sorry for him, against your own will. A++ acting.

Here's Alex as Gabe, with a beard. Followed by Gabe, about to make bad decisions.

Then inexplicably, the beard disappears and we have baby faced Alex as Gabe the paralegal turned lawyer.

I love court room scenes. Particularly when there's a satisfying turn of events or gotcha moment. Daredevil and My Cousin Vinny spring to mind. I want to watch to the Lincoln Lawyer series too. This one had some solid, twisty moments to it, when it leaned towards the defendant then swung towards the prosecution. Felt satisfying.

Look at that intense look on the 2nd close-up shot, with red-rimmed eyes. For a self professed stage actor, I think Alex's acting excellently for the small screen! There's a small moment where he licks his lips and it was such a tiny movement BUT SO CREEPY for the character. I can't bring myself to clip it, it gave me the heebie jeebies.

Filmed during covid times - they used the reflection of a plexiglass divider that was placed in the courtroom to transition the shot between two people who were facing each other. Genius. Here's an example of it with the wonderful Eva Noblezada, who played Zoey the victim.

And lastly, here's Gabe getting arrested. Poor deluded guy. Conflicting feelings between Alex appreciation and creepy Gabe. Alex- I mean, Gabe got apprehended 3 times in this episode.

Crisp enunciation ✅

Sweet dance move(ments) ✅

Vocals 🔥

Riffs galore. Crystal clear and tenory. Such a difference to his slightly gravelly voice of now. This performance is so joyous and hopeful. Makes me happy to watch.

The reason why I wanted to share it? I just looked up the lyrics after 3 weeks and finally found out he's singing "jet wings" and not "jeggings". Also figured out why the song is called "Boy With Dreams". Derp. I'm a goose. Lyric blindness strikes again!

SALLY AT THE WATER PARK from TEN BRAVE SECONDS - performed by Will Blum and Carson Stewart

Okaaayyy good sir! Sing your ass off! I have uncontrollable stank face right now. This performance is so good!

There's so much ear candy in this one song. The riffs. The emotional story telling. It builds up so good! His voice has such warmth and depth to it.

And then them forearms. I don't mean to objectify. But who doesn't like some good looking folded arms, accentuated with rolled up sleeves.

That aside, I also particularly enjoy the lyric, "'You should know I like it fast' and I was like 'ok'. She didn't mean what I thought she meant" Teehee.

At the moment, I'm digging into Will Blum's repertoire as a side quest. I love his singing voice and his portrayal of Beetlejuice is fantastic. That's the beauty of theatre, that each performance is different and each performer gives their own take.

Here's a fun two-fer - an interview with Will Blum, talking about one of the times he had to go on mid-show for Alex (this is the food poisoning one). Story starts around 16:30 mark.

So confession time, I say I love musicals but only in a Top 40's music kind of way. I like the popular ones that appeal to wide audiences. I mostly enjoy the modern-ish sounding ones (with some exceptions).

This to say, I'm not super familiar with Cabaret. The closest I've gotten is Chicago, with the Bob Fosse dance moves.

So I watched this song with the fresh ears of a babe and thought it was going to be in a cabaret-style. Obviously I was mistaken and it was from Cabaret (with a capital C). However I really enjoyed it because I'm a huge fan of acapella! I had a really intense collegiate acapella phase that started during Glee Season 2 (real ones know why).

It's a performance of "Is This Love" (by Bobby Cronin) with Allison Case and Alex Brightman from August 2009. So this would've been baby Boq!Alex.

My honest thoughts - it's a live performance. The voices get a bit pitchy to my ear. Or their voices don't blend? Maybe it's the audio mix? Any which way, it's not smooth.

But I'm a sucker for a duet. This song is like a meet cute or about falling in love, and it feels very sweet.

Obviously, layer on my blatant Alex bias.

I love how Alex sings "wait that's not fair, that's not fair, don't you knoOow it".

The next is a wonderful combo of his delivery and just the beautiful lyricism of the words: "her hand was so close, how I want to hold it~~".

And then when he chooses to option up with, "This must be love and now I knoooow IIIIIIIIIIITT!"

Here's a fun fact I learned today - Alex was meant to be on The Broadway Cruise 2025. He didn't end up on the final listing or setting sail with it but dang, that would've been fun.

I hate boats and have made it a mission to never go on a cruise. However, I'd probably reconsider my life choices very seriously if the opportunity came up again...

And still choose not go. But I'd totally waver.

I decided to add Helluva Boss (which I haven't watched yet) and a variety of Alex's songs on various musical projects (which I loosely group as his concert era). I'm less familiar with these songs (less than 10 plays each).

Big mistake. Huge.

Worked fine as usual until I got to the new songs. I struggled through one paragraph over 1 hour because I kept looking over to see what song it was (Mean To You), who else sang on it (House of Asmodeus, Stars of David), rewinding to hear something (Goosebumps, Why Must We Tell Them Why, The Ballad of Sara Berry) or zoning out to guess the Alex parts (all the above & more).

I guess I'm not ready for these new (to me) songs. Will need to put them aside for the weekend, when I can give my Alex musings my full attention.

Let's start with his lovely crystal clear, angelic voice. One of my favourites is his Boq from Wicked.

Here's a recent, quality audio of it with Lewberger.

That enunciation. The emoting. The crystal clear tenor-yness. The juxtaposition of the young Boq song with Alex's greying hair hehe.

Let's daaaaaaaaaanceeee!