Award Show Round Up: Tonys 2016

As long time readers know, the Tony Awards are very important to me, as they combine two of my main loves: theater and award shows. Theater, musical theater in particular, is almost therapeutically important to me. So, though a night of celebration may have been tough for a lot of people in shock and mourning about the horrific events in Orlando this weekend, I (and a lot of other people on Twitter), really needed a night of connecting to the amazingly creative, positive, and loving part of human nature. OK, slightly preachy preamble over. Here are my highlights (I tried to keep it to 5, so I have 9):

James Corden was a delightful host, and you could tell he’s just a big theater nerd like the rest of us:

I really love the “Rose’s Turn” breakdown. I have a weird soft spot for that song…

All of my favorite winners were from Hamilton, of course. But I mean…

Renee!

Daveed!

Leslie!

(One time, he favorited two of my Tweets in one day. This was months ago, I still buzz a bit when I think about it.)

And of course, Lin, summing everything up:

And on that note, Frank Langella’s speech was pretty amazing too:

Also, non-Hamilton shows I want to see now include, Waitress:

and The Color Purple:

James Corden’s best bit of the night brought in one of my other pop culture loves, Law & Order

And, while I loved the opportunity to see “The Battle of Yorktown” play out, my favorite performance of the night was saved for last, “The Schuyler Sisters” in street clothes:

I love how they knew they would win, so they just said, stay on stage at the end and sing.

There were also pretty dresses:

Adrienne Warren in Alberta Ferretti

Heather Headley in Badgley Mischka

Saorise Ronan in Stella McCartney

Michelle Williams in Louis Vuitton

Sara Bareilles in my new dream wedding dress designed by Gomez-Garcia

Lupita Nyong’o in Boss

 

 

 

Weekly Adventures: First Week in NYC

I meant to write like 3 separate posts this week, but it’s been 2 years since I’ve worked 9-5 and remembered to blog. Most nights by the time I’m home I have the energy to lie down in front of my fan and watch clips of John Oliver (and The Bachelorette – and my British soaps). But that’s because I’ve been having so much fun exploring the city. I’ve been visiting New York since I was in middle school, but in the past few years I haven’t been here as much and I’ve never been here for longer than a couple of days at a time before. So, I took advantage of that full force in my first week. (And caught up with a couple of my favorite people who are here now too!)

Highlights include:

Catching the final day of the Poetry Project’s Beats and Beyond poetry festival, including a reading from Michael McClure, who was one of the other poets to read the night that Allen Ginsberg first read Howl.

It was pretty awesome.

On Friday my fellow Tenement Museum summer interns used our free entry to museums to visit the Whitney. Their new building is beautiful, and right now they have a great exhibit of portraits from their permanent collection spanning two floors. It includes traditional painted portraits and street photography (my favorite), and more experimental pieces, like this one:

Called Standing Julian, by Urs Fischer, this piece is actually a gigantic candle, that burns all day (it’s extinguished at night), and allowed to melt down.

There was also a exhibit dedicated to Stuart Davis , whom I had never heard of before (because my art history knowledge is completely selective), but I really loved. Especially his use of color.

 

Super Table – Stuart Davis (1924)

Afterwards we got tacos at Chelsea Market and walked the Highline, which was both super touristy and very pretty.

For my other main adventure of the week, I went with Hanna and a few of her Princeton friends to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, which was the best. Although, we missed the peak flowering season for a lot of the sections, the Rockefeller Rose Garden was spectacular:

You can see a lot more pictures I took at my flower-centric Instagram @Itaketoomanypicsofflowers

Then on the way home, I happened upon the Hare Krishna Festival in Washington Square Park, which was so vibrant it was overwhelming.

Also, I’ve lost the Hamilton lottery a bunch of times.

An Adventure Filled Month

I just realized that it’s been a month since my last post! And what a month it has been: I graduated from UT, drove across the country in a minivan with my parents…and all of my furniture, read a lot of books hanging out at both my parents’ house in New Haven and our lake cottage in the (fictional sounding I know, but very charming) village of Higganum. (Hilariously, spell check wants me to change that to Michigan.) As usual when I have a crazy long hiatus, I’m not going to do a full play by play of my May. Instead…photos:

Going away party in ATX. One last round of probably too drunk for photos photo shoots at our hidden wine bar on Rainey.

Feeling official right before convocation with my parents (and the couple in the background who is in every single one of our pictures.) (And yes, I know I look like my mom.)

Post ceremony we met the Cassetta women to watch Joe (on the right here) and his crazy good blues band Matthew Robinson and the Jelly Kings at Antone’s

Day after graduation, rolling out, with tons of extra space

This country is pretty I guess (I think this was Virginia, but honestly it all sort of runs together in my brain)

Words of wisdom from Amy Poehler

Connecticut is particularly pretty (but I may be a bit biased)

Salt always looks upset in pictures I take of him. But, he likes me, I swear

Parental planning session at the lake

#lakelife

More back porch reading

Oh, yeah…I live in New York now