The Little Mermaid

I have a serious obsession. It would worry me but I am like this all the time.

I see a musical. I buy the music. I listen to it until the death (or until the next musical obsession comes along).

The first time that I saw The Little Mermaid, I didn't have time to get obsessed with it. I saw Wicked a week later and promptly got obsessive over such numbers as 'Defying Gravity' and so on. Oh, do I LOVE Wicked!

When I saw Billy Elliot a few weeks ago with Mum that kind of threw all thoughts of Wicked right out of my head. The only thing that has stopped me buying the CD is the bad language. That kills me because I think that the music is just so good!

Now, it is The Little Mermaid's turn. Things have changed since I watched it in January. Was that REALLY January? Seems like yesterday! There is a brand new Ariel - Chelsea Morgan Stock replaced the original Ariel, Sierra Boggess. There is also a brand new Prince Eric. Oh, is there ever! Drew Seeley is in the show for 12 weeks until August 30th. Yes, I just linked you to his Twitter page. Is that weird? Drew Seeley stars in Michella's ultimate favourite film, Another Cinderella Story. She just adores him....... 'Joey Parker'. The other day she was running off quotes from the movie in the car. So funny..... and a little scary. He is also Zac Efron's singing voice in HSM (just 1, not the other 2. Apparently the Efron could sing by then. Weird.).

The other difference was that I actually had some company with me this time. Beth was staying with me in NY for a week. She wanted to go and see either The Lion King or The Little Mermaid. I'd already seen The Lion King twice so it was The Little Mermaid that we plumped for.

We stood in line at TKTS in the RAIN (apparently it is impossible for the weather to be even half decent when I am lining up to buy Broadway tickets!), all the time hoping that two tickets would be available. I would have had a hissy fit right there and then if there hadn't been.

Well, there were, so we went. Duh! We had great seats - Orchestra section row 5. We were off to the side somewhat so we could see into the curtains backstage! It didn't matter. I mean, when you can see the veins in Ariel's arm, you know that you are close!

I was so excited that the same kid was playing Flounder, Brian D'Addario, as when I had seen the show before. I had been going on about him all day to Beth about how AMAZING he was etc etc. I actually started to worry that he was going to be awful. Of course, he wasn't. He was perfect. AGAIN! This boy can do no wrong. He has such a huge stage presence and, yet, such a little voice in 'real life'. More about that later.

I was blown away by the performance. Really. Not just Flounder, of course, but everyone. It makes me weepy just thinking about it........ which might explain my reaction when at the show. I cried from around the quartet 'If Only' until after the final curtain had fallen. And, no, I don't mean just sniffles. I mean, actual sobbing. It would actually be really embarrassing if I didn't have a good story to go along with it.

Let me go back around about 16 years to when I was 6 or 7. My Mum took me to London to see her Uncle Donnie in hospital. We also managed to go to see Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (longest name of musical ever?!). I was SO excited! I had been so jealous when my Dad had gone to see it when Jason Donovan was in the lead role. When I went Philip Schofield was Joseph. He had been one of the presenters of my favourite Saturday morning TV show, Going Live. Ah! Gordon The Gopher. I can still see how they announced in the show that Philip was going to be the next Joseph. I thought it was the funniest thing! Joseph was AMAZING. I can still see the part where he is in the pit and the camel. The finale too. Awesome. Anyway, I cried during the finale. I just did not want the show to end! I was CONVINCED that Philip Schofield was waving to me during the ending scene because I was crying. I mean, he was the only person that I was looking at so, naturally, he must be looking at me, right? Like I say, I was absolutely positive that Mr Schofield was waving at me. He wasn't. My Mum went along with what I was saying though. She didn't want to hurt my feelings by saying, 'Duh! Joanna, how can you be so totally and utterly ridiculous? Do you know how many other people were in that theatre that night? He was waving at them all, doofus!' She's nice like that, keeping what she is really thinking tucked away safely.

So why in the world are you telling us this ancient, boring, totally unnecessary and irrelevant story, I hear you cry. That's right, I heard you. No need to be ashamed but you are wrong. About it being irrelevant that is. It is totally relevant to what I am about to tell you. this paragraph may, in fact, be totally irrelevant. I'm just proving a point that the previous story was not ancient, boring, totally unnecessary and irrelevant. Gosh, aren't you glad that you read my blog! :^)

I'm must be tired.

Anyway, at The Little Mermaid I cried and cried and cried. I physically couldn't stop. Just as the curtain was about to fall after the finale, Robert Creighton, who plays Chef Louis, spotted me crying my little heart out, waved at me and blew me a kiss. WOW! I hear you, you are repeating what my Mum said in her head after the Joseph incident. Well, how about this......

We left the theatre and decided to wait by the stage door to get autographs.

Beth with Chelsea Morgan Stock who plays Ariel.With Drew Seeley. Can't tell that I'd been crying AT ALL! Hmmm....Beth and Rogelio Douglas Jr who plays Sebastian. This is my favourite picture. Just look at his face! Beth dislikes this picture intensely. But tough, it is MY blog!This is Brian D'Addario. He is so stinking amazing. I love him. He was so unimpressed with us. He is 12 years old after all! Such a small voice when not on stage........ or maybe he was scared that we were going to kidnap him!This is MY chef, Robert Creighton. To conclude my story, he walked out of the stage door, came straight over to me and said, 'Oh! I saw you in the audience!' and gave me a huge hug! Ha! That totally makes up for the Philip Schofield thing! He was so sweet.

So, Beth and I both got our playbills signed. I also got Drew Seeley to sign the poster of him that Beth had bought me.

What a night! Truly awesome!

........ I started to feel really guilty that I hadn't got my girls an autograph from Drew Seeley. He is Michella's favourite after all! The two bigger girls love him too. What to do about that?

Beth and I decided to go back. No, not to see the show but on Tuesday evening we waited outside the stage door again. I had bought the girls a copy of Another Cinderella Story and we took that with us. Turned out that we should have taken our playbills too because Norm Lewis, who plays King Triton, came out the stage door which he hadn't done on Saturday. We didn't have anything for him to sign but we did get a picture with him.

I love his expression. He is just so smiley!

This was the security guard. He was not at all menacing. He was so lovely. Selena Gomes, who is also in Another Cinderella Story, was at the performance that night. The security guy (I wish I'd gotten his name! I don't like calling him 'security guy'!) motioned to me that she was coming out of the doors. I tried to go catch her but missed. Shame.

Oh well, still got Drew Seeley!The DVD says: To Alex, Julianna and Michella. Love Drew Seeley.

I don't need to tell you that they LOVED it! Alex said, 'You got us Another Cinderella Story. I knew it. I didn't even have to look.' To which I replied, 'Well, look.'

They watched it twice this weekend. I'm sure they'll watch it a lot!