The UNM Brazil Club had their first annual “Fatter Tuesday” A Carnival Extravaganza tonight. I was expecting more costumes, but, there were few. Two organizers were the best dressed for the event, and also the young woman in the last photo who painted her face. They had a band and percussion ensemble so the party was loud, festive, and the dance floor was crowded. The moon was stunning this evening. We had the pleasure of watching it rise on the way home.
After we finished the studio portion of our photo session, I took Nicole out to the river to do more photos on the Rio Grande with the Sandias in the background.
Mama Manx was sitting on the top of a 10 foot pole this morning. The moment I started photographing her she began stretching and rubbing around on the pole, performing her kitty version of pole dancing for my camera.
We went to the opening night of The Wedding Singer directed and choreographed by Devon Frieder. The show was fantastic, and I would encourage anyone living in the greater Albuquerque area to go and see it. The show dates and times, ticket prices and the location are available on my Happy New Year post.
The show is at the Musical Theatre Southwest Black Box Performance Space, which is a small, intimate theater where the performance space is larger than the space allocated for seating (about 100 seats), which gives the allusion that the number of performers are about equal to the audience members. When the full cast is on stage dancing and singing the intimacy, activity, variety of colors and the performers expressions are so exciting that it all becomes almost overwhelming trying to decide who to watch — you can’t take it all in at once like you can in a larger theater.
The story is about Robbie Hart, a singer/song writer, who plays for weddings with his friends Sammy and George. Julia Sullivan is a waitress who becomes engaged to a successful broker, Glen Guglia, but she and Robbie fall in love and everything seems to go wrong for them becoming a couple.
The music and choreography are fun and were delightful to listen to and watch. The comic lines are delivered flawlessly, and the acting was superb. Most of the cast play multiple characters and they play them well. They wouldn’t have had to name the stars and famous people they portrayed, as even I, the no TV, cultural misfit that I am, recognized all of them. Although I don’t usually care much for musicals, I throughly enjoyed the performance, was taken in by the story and characters, and I even fell for the romance and wanted to see Robbie and Julia get together and be happy in the end.
2012 ended with a beautiful sunset. Laurie walked by the window and said “Oh! The base of the Sandias are on fire!” I grabbed my camera and made the 1/4 mile dash to the river bank just in time to get the red as it faded with the last sunlight of 2012. As I walked out of the bosque, the last sunset of 2012 was quite dramatic, as was the morning light offering beauty and promise for 2013.
I start the new year with my 600th consecutive post on WordPress, and 908th consecutive post since I started on CaringBridge in July of 2010. According to WordPress’s annual report, I had over 10,000 views in 2012 from people in 83 countries, — the US, the Netherlands, the UK, Canada and Russia were the top five. Thank you all for a great 2012 and I look forward to an even better 2013.
One of the first things you can put on your calendars for 2013 is the musical comedy, The Wedding Singer, presented by Devon Frieder and Warehouse 21 Productions. It starts this Friday, January 4th, and will run for two consecutive weekends. The show is directed and choreographed by Devon Frieder, with musical direction by Erik Joshua Clack. The Wedding Singer is based on the book by Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy with music and lyrics by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin.
The shows will be presented at the Musical Theatre Southwest Black Box Performance Space, 6320 Domingo Rd. NE Ste. B, Albuquerque, NM 87108 (Central & San Pedro by the Fairgrounds). Show dates and times are:
Friday, January 4 at 7pm
Saturday, January 5 at 2pm & 7pm
Sunday, January 6 at 4pm
Friday, January 11 at 7pm
Saturday, January 12 at 2pm & 7pm Sunday,
January 13 at 4pm
Admission: $15 Adults, $12 Students. Special Front Row VIP Seats for $25.
To Reserve Tickets in Advance, Call (505)-216-6014
The last five photos are from a promotional photo shoot I did for the show last week, and Three Guys and a Guitar I posted on December 28, 2012 was one of the photos from the session. From the 10 minutes of rehearsal I saw before the shoot, and my interactions with Devon and the cast, The Wedding Singer looks like it will be a fun-filled production with lots of music and dance, and a friendly cast of whacky, colorful characters.
No wives were bothered in the making of the photos of this dress rehearsal (see Inspirations).
I helped out in three of the five services at Central United Methodist Church yesterday: I played accompaniment for Silent Night at the 1:00 pm service and discovered the fuses were missing from the spotlights when they wouldn’t come on for Jerri before the service. One of the maintenance men called around and found fuses, and ran out and purchased them, so the spotlights were working for the evening services. I ran one of the spotlights and took photos for the 8:00 pm service, and then ended up running both spotlights at the 11:00 pm service. Jerri got the idea to add guitar and castanets for a Spanish song the men’s ensemble performed at the 11:00 pm service, so I also played guitar and Laurie played castanets with the piano on “From a Distant Home”.
A different couple played Mary and Joseph for each service, and Jerri or someone else who knew how to dress the couple got them in costume for the first 4 services. I was in the chancel area when Ronzel, the sound tech, came up to me looking quite desperate and asked if I had photographed Mary and Joseph in costume in an earlier service, because he was trying to get the couple playing Joseph and Mary for the 11:00 pm service dressed and he didn’t remember what all they had on. Fortunately, I had photographed one of the couples in costume, so I ran back to the dressing room with Ronzel, and we were quite a pair looking at the screen on my camera, finding all the pieces of the costumes and getting the couple properly costumed.
We got them ready about 4 minutes before the start of the service, then the couple asked me when they were supposed to start walking up the aisle with the elements for communion — since I didn’t know (all the services were different) I ran up and asked the pastor, ran back told the couple, then dashed up the stairs to the balcony to run the spotlights for the candlelight portion of the service. After the lights came back on, I walked around to the front of the church and slipped in with the choir, and acted like I was singing on a couple of the hymns before playing on “From a Distant Home”. Then I slipped back out, helped Mary and Joseph out of their costumes, and then hung up the costumes and accessories. Laurie’s brother and parents commented after the service how they thought it was funny how I kept appearing and disappearing during the service.
We went to fabulous performance of Stella Nuova by Música Antigua de Albuquerque tonight.
We were working out the lighting for the Christmas Eve services, and while I was practicing following people walking down the aisle, I photographed Jerri with camera in one hand while tracking her and manipulating the spotlight with the other hand. I guess all those “drive-by-photos” have honed my skills at taking photos while doing other things.
On Christmas Eve there will be three services at Central United Methodist Church with music and drama in the 8:00pm and 11:00 pm services — I’ll be manning one of the spotlights at those two service. I’m playing guitar for the first service at 1:00 pm, and the fact that I only have two arms that are each a little less than a yard in length, playing guitar at one end of the sanctuary and operating a spotlight from the balcony at the opposite end of the sanctuary stretches way beyond my ability to multitask, so whoever shows up for the 1:00 pm service with only get the added drama of listening to me improvise while the congregation lights their candles, then I’ll play accompaniment for “Silent Night,” which, by the way, was written for guitar.
A clarinet and xylophone duet played for St. Martin’s Hospitality Center’s Holiday Breakfast as part of the NM Philharmonic Orchestra’s gift of music for the homeless and disadvantaged members of the community. I was invited to drop by photograph them playing for the breakfast. The music was excellent, and the place was packed and swarming with activity. I managed to put together a panorama of the activity, but it was one of the most difficult panoramas I photographed and successfully stitched together because of the constant activity, the room configurations, and the extreme differences in lighting from on side of the building to the other. But I think the resulting photo show the activity and how many people St Martin’s was feeding this morning. St. Martin’s is just one of a handful of shelters and churches that feed and clothe the homeless and other people who need help in the Albuquerque area.
Off Center & Not Even 