Welcome

Hello and Welcome!
My name is Janine I am 24 yrs old and live in Amherst NH. This blog will document my work on the Riverbend Youth Company Youth Theatre Production of Annie Jr. The show opens at the end of January and I am very excited about working on it

Enjoy and remember You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile

Janine

Week 1 SYTYCD Season 6 Results

Season 6 So You Think You Dance 1st Show Summary
Missed the first three couples so we will start with couple four.
Since the results were given at the end of the show I will start with those
Girls: Arianna went home
Boys Brandon went home (Billy Bell's replacement because he lef the show due to illness.. there goes one of my top choices)
My top choices that remain the compettion are: * Channing *Russell *Mollie
Couple Four Russell and Noelle
Rating 4
Noelle had to sit out due to injury so the choregrapher took her place. Russell was impresive but apparently didn't please the judges because he made it to the botoom 3.
Couple 4: Bianca and Victor Genre Contemp
Rating 8. Very powerful and sensual.
Couple 5: Karen and Kevin Genre Hip Hop
Rating 9 One of my favorite performances of the night... yay for songs from the Glee soundtack! They complement eachother well
Couple 6: Elenior and Ryan Genre Contemp
This dance is in close contention with Kevin and Karen's number for my favortie dance. Out of the chreographers Sonya is rated highly among my top favorites. This dance was the most powerful piece she has ever choreographed.
Couple 8 Pauline and Brandon Genre Waltz
As I mentioned above Brandon was Billy Bell's replacement because he suddenly left the show due to illness. Him and Pauline were very evenly matched however I don't think Waltz was a very strong genre fro Brandon at all.
Rating 4
Couple 9: Kathryn and Legacy Genre Hip Hop
Very interesting..not my favorite dance however.
Rating 3
Couple 10 Mollie and Nathan Genre Disco
What a way to top off the night and what an amazing song choice for Gloria Estefan's Turn The Beat Around. They had a lot of refreshing energy and I can't wait to see more of their performances.
Rating 9

Next week I will have a complete summary.


Upcoming Perfomances I Will Be Viewing
October 3oth- My sister's senior dance performance at SHS
October 31st NEC Carriage Theatre Ensemble's Fall Production of Seasonal Help
November 21st SHS Fall Play One Acts

So You Think You Can Dance Season 6 Off and Running

So I think So You Think You Can Dance Season 6 is going to be about 20 times better then Season 5. They have added a new genre this season.. tap and that is pretty exciting.
Tonight was basically a showcase of all the different talents that all the dancers have and they are really diverse... much like last season. I will definitley miss seeing Evan and Melissa on the show from last season's group and wish I had gone to see the performance when it was in Manchester last month. :(
I'll split the top 20 list up by Genres.
Contemporary (2 groups- out of the two chreographers Tice is my favorite)
If bold it means I think they will make it to the top 10
Victor
Noelle
Billy
Katherine
Nathan
Arianna
Jason
Channing
Hip Hop
Russell
Legacy
Kevin
Tap
Phillip
Bianca
Peter
IT is hard to tell who over the latin group will make it in because they are all pretty good and i think it's pretty hard to split up a husband and wife pair.

Stay tuned for the first Rating entry of Season 6.


Update Dec 9th I was very wrong when I said that this season would be better than season 5. It has certainly had its good points but overall Season 5 was a lot better.

Solo CD

A discussion board topic on Broadway Space asked for each of the responders to pick seven songs they would put on a two disc solo cd. This would actually be a neat thing for me to do in reality if I had the right connections and strong enough confidecne about my singing voice.

Disc One
1. You Can't Get A Man With A Gun Annie Get Your Gun
2. Hopelessly Devoted To You Grease
3. On My Own Les Mis
4, This Is The Moment Jekyll and Hyde
5. Think of Me Phantom of The Opera
6. Maybe Annie
7 I Get Lost In His Arms Annie Get Your Gun
Disc 2
1. Cabaret Cabaret
2. Somewhere That's Green Little Shop of Horrors
3. And All That Jazz Chicago
4. Gorgeous The Apple Tree
5. What I Did For Love A Chorus Line
6. Castle On A Cloud Les Mis
7. How Lovely To Be A Woman Bye Bye Birdie

Perhaps some of these songs are too loftily ambitous. If in reality I were to make a solo cd I don't know how many of the above listed songs would actullay fit my voice range... which is low soprano/high alto.

Latest Milford Cabinet Article

Laugh a lot at The Foreigner
By Janine Leffler

Imagine a fishing lodge in Georgia on a pristine lake. Then imagine some quirky characters including one from a foreign country staying there. The scene has been set for the fall mainstage production for the Milford Area Players The Foreigner by Larry Schue.


The play is set in 1982 at a run-down fishing lodge in Georgia which is owned by Betty Meeks (Cheryl Giffen). The show opens with Froggy Lessuer (Bill Mauser) and Charlie Baker (Dave Kulvette) entering the lodge. They are staying at the fishing lodge because Betty is a friend of Froggy’s and she asked him to come visit. Charlie is rather uncomfortable in social situations so he and Froggy devise a plan…Charlie will pretend that he is from a foreign country and does not speak or understand any English. This way, he does not have to speak to anyone during his stay. The other characters in the play are easily fooled. As the first scene progresses, Ellard Sims (Weston Kulvette ) attempts to teach English to Charlie, who catches on quickly learning the new language. It is never outwardly stated throughout the play which country Charlie is supposedly from. This fact makes his character all the more interesting to the others on stage as well as members of the audience.

This show is a non-stop comedic romp. In one scene, Charlie tells a story to Betty, Ellard and Catherine (Kristen Lawson). His character truly comes to life with exuberance and energy as opposed to earlier when he is reserved and quiet. Another funny scene is when Charlie is trying to teach everyone the language of his home country. Everyone willingly participates except for Owen Musser (David Ducharme) who is annoyed by Charlie’s presence and thinks Charlie should not be staying in the house. Tension fills the fishing lodge, creating humor and a sense of good vs. evil.

Will Charlie come out of this story a victorious hero? You'll just have to wait to see the show to find out.

Stay tuned for the next Milford Area Players production which is a combined effort with the Riverbend Youth Company in December of A Christmas Story.

Word on the street

I will be on the production staff of a Youth Theatre production of Annie Junior at the Souhegan Valley Boys and Girls Club in Milford. At this time I do not exactly know what my job will be yet. I will be creating a SEPERATE blog documenting my work on the show which will be including photos and videos of what is like to work on the show. BE SURE TO FOLLOW IT!!

Upcoming Milford Cabinet articles

• Review of The Foriegner
• Preview of My Fair Lady put on by the Riverbend Youth Company

Upcoming Performances

• Seasonal Help Carriage Theatre Ensemble Fall Production 10-31
• SHS Fall Play

Another Favorite from the NLBP video vault

Double whammy of emotions here... first this song is very beautiful and truly represents my Barn Playhouse intern company as I am sure they've gone on to do amazing things since we've been away from the Barn. Secondly it makes me miss everyone and really makes me wish I had stayed in contact with more people :(

Random Theatre Ranting- non related to reviews

I have a bit of time to kill before I have to head to school for a meeting so I have some reflecting to do... not related to shows or reviews just general thoughts. The next review I will be posting will be for the Milford Area Players production of The Foreigner which opens on Friday.

Yesterday I was looking through my livejournal from NEC for nostalgia's sake. I drew a relevant connection between how nervous I was that certain people from Carriage Theatre Ensemble did not liking me and how nervous I was in the interim time after I left the New London Barn Playhouse and that they were going to forget about me and etc. In both cases the key thing I realized about myself was that in both situations I was overanxious for no reason which may of course have lead to people formulating a negative image of me that I was obsessed which at the time I may have been but am not anymore. What I realized was that I was wicked insecure about myself in both cases and I should not have been so insecure about myself. I also might have been too concerned about what other people thought of me. I was like that for the first two weeks at the Barn Playhouse too before I got to know everyone I was working with. I remember one of the many late night chats I had with Will Porter after rehearsal for Annie Get Your Gun and he told me that I shouldn't compare myself to other people. Of course we had many late night chats and I couldn't pinpoint which one that was exactly but that particular conversation helped me to realize that I really needed to stop being so insecure about myself. Thinking back to that particular conversation made auditioning for the plays senior year a little bit easier. I don't really know if insecurity was really a big issue when it comes to moving on from the Barn Playhouse...what I think was the bigger issue there was the fact that I thought people were going to forget about me and obviously that hasn't happened.... memories haven't been forgotten either nor will they be. At this point where both situations are in the past I realize how foolish that I acted. I have gained a new sense of maturity recently and realized that it pointless to focus on such trivial things for such an extended amount of time. In what I am calling my revitalization period I am trying to focus more on important things.. like what is happening on the here and now with school,work, keeping current friendships strong, meeting new friends and my relationship with my boyfriend instead of trivial things that don't matter such as pushing people away from me because of being so focussed on stuff related to the Barn. As I said no one I worked with has forgotten about me or the memories we had that summer and it was stupid for me to worry about that and drive other people crazy in retrospect. Looking back on borh of these situations I realize now that what I really should have done is look at the big picture because I honestly think I was really quite shallow and narrow minded. Instead of stressing myself out about such trivial things I should have stepped back and realized that people do like me and care about me. I think that is the thing I really had a lot of trouble realizing. The people liking me part relates to the Carriage Theatre Ensemble issue because at that time I thought that there were three girls in the theatre troupe I was picking up bad vibes from and thought did not like me. Looking back at those livejournal entries I realize that my issue was my own immaturity about not being able to confront those particular people about how I was feeling. The more mature thing to do would have been thing would have been to talk to them about it instead on constantly worrying and living with the fear that they did not like me. The people caring about me part I have already talked about in regards to thinking that people from my Barn Playhouse intern company forgot about me which obviously hasn't happened. Distance between a majority of us is great as we are all spread out but the memories from our summer at the Barn are non-withstanding and will always stay with all of us.

So with this awareness I have gained by comparing these two situations I realized that in order to mature one thing I need to do instead is stop worrying about pointless things. In the long run it is not worth it.

Dream job and a variety of talent

Browsing through the wrier's block questions on livejournal I came across a question called what is your dream job and do you think you will ever acheive it? Here is my answer-

If you have been following this blog for a long time or a short time you can tell that I am truly passionate about the arts espescially threatre. Every since I could remember I have loved going to see plays especially musicals. My ultimate dream like i'm sure many people would have would to act on Broadway... that would be a vast impossibility due to my very limited acting resume and the fact that I don't have a lot of training in singing or dancing. I interned at a theatre two summers ago in New London NH and still keep in touch with quite a few of my coworkers. I suppose I could live my dream vicariously through them because they have gone on to do quite amazing things national tours, off-broadway shows etc. Whole singing and dancing my not be my forte the main reason I have started this blog was to share with people the reviews of local shows that I go to see. I am hoping to somehow make a career out of that. While I may not achieve the goal of living in NYC as that would be my ultimate goal I want to bust out of this small town of Amherst NH and move to an area such as Portsmouth or Boston where there is more of a theatre secene.

So that is my dream when it comes to theatre.... I hope there is some way to achieve it at some point.





This weekend was the annual Pumpkin Festival in Milford. I haven't gone to it much because of being in school. This was only the second time i've gone to it since I've been out of school Last night was the third annual talent show and I was blown away by the variety of talents that all the participants had. There was a variety of singing, dancing and other talents by local youths. The funniest number was Daniel The Latte Boy performed by Julie Harris and Daniel Schwartzberg.
The show opened with a rock band from Milford called The Natural Twenty which did a cover of the song Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. Brought me back to Strictly Music junior year at SHS.. I think I still have that cd somewhere too. My two favorite numbers in the first act were Only Hope sung by Emily Getchell Lacey of Milford Marrisa Russell of Londonderry who played the piano and sang Human by John Mclachlin and Aly McKnight and Andi Aiken of Amherst who sang For Good from the Broadway Musical Wicked. Other acts in the first half included Conor Sandin of Brookline beat boxing, Emily Langdon of Milford doing some acrobatics, Andrew Krotroubus of Lydenborough playing Cello, Daktoa Barron of Amherst glow stringing (was that supposed to be sticking?) and Denis Riendeau of Nashua singing Somewhere from West Side Story. After a 20 minute break the second act opened up with Albert Francis and Glen Cavanaugh of Milford doing a cover of Twist and Shout by the Beatles which made me want to get up and dance.. don't know why I resisted that urge. There a vast variety of genres covered singing wise as Caitlin Gillam of Amherst sang At Last by Etta James Sarah Tello of Milford sang I Feel Lucky by Mary Chapman Carpenter Taylor Morin of Hudson singing All The Way by Celine Dion and Patrick Quinn of Milford cloased off the night with excellent charm singing Sway by Michael Buble. Other acts in the second act included juggling by Chris Merra of Amherst, Amanda Shaw of Amhrest performing a self-choreographed dance, Kristopher Brown of Hollis playing the piano, Shea Vacarro of Wilton doing acrobatics and the musical comedy number Daniel The Latte Boy which stole the show performed by Julie Harris and Daniel Schwartzberg of Amherst and Bedford.

All in all it was a very much enjoyed talent show. Congratulations to all the winners! I look very foward to next year's talent show.




Upcoming Performances
The Foriegner Milford Area Players Stay tuned for the review I am going to write for the Nilford Cabinet
Seasonal Help NEC Carriage Theatre Ensemble

and tomorrow I am pretty sure I am going to go see The Laramie Project 10 Years Later at Yellow Taxi Productions in Nashua.

Reccomondations

So my boyfriend and I are planning another trip back to the city in March. We are planning to taking my friend Rachel to a show as part as her 21st birthday present. Her birthday was actually last month and we were originally planning the trip for Christmas time but budget and work schedules got in the way. We are considering letting her pick the show but I am looking for people's opinions. I am leaning toward Bye Bye Birdie but I have no idea how well that's been doing or what else is playing right now.

So blog readers... I leave the floor open to you to make suggestions.