Super-Set Birthday!

A couple weeks ago one of my co-workers had her Birthday Party at The Garage and instead of just playing music on an iPod there were Acoustic Performances throughout the night.  Talk about an awesome idea and it was the perfect opportunity to do a Live Performance and work on some music stuff.

Neil and I got together a couple days before the Performance and figured out what we wanted to sing and we decided to do 3 Super-Sets of Songs.  We had to figure out which key the songs were in so they could flow together seamlessly and at least stick with a similar theme.  Once we had practiced some songs and put them in the right key, we put together each super-set and practiced it as a whole.  In two hours we finally had a show.  The next day we rehearsed the sets all the way through, learning harmonies and our parts and a couple hours later, we were exhausted but felt like we had covered a lot of ground before the performance the following night.  The day of the Birthday Party we got together one last time to go over all the songs, completely through twice.  For putting something together in 2 days and just a few hours I was proud of our hard work and dedication!

Neil & I after our Performance at The Garage!

The night of Angela's Birthday in The Motor Club at The Garage, there were tons of acoustic performances and singers; it was such a fun and different way to bring music to a Birthday Party!  Around midnight, Neil and I took the stage, and started the first song of our Three Song Super-Set which was 'Summer of '69' by Bryan Adams and that flowed into 'Baby One More Time' by Britney Spears, and everyone joined in with us.  The last song in that set was an original by Neil, called 'Dizzy' which is one of my favorite songs.  The Party seemed to enjoy the original but we were happy to jump right into another song they could sing along with us, so our next Set started with Mr. Big's 'To Be With You' which everyone knew.  We slowed it down with U2's 'With Or Without You' and the Acoustic version of 'Livin' On A Prayer' by Bon Jovi.  I think that might have confused everyone because they knew the lyrics but couldn't figure out what it was right away.  The last Super Set started with a more recent song that had everyone singing and dancing, which was 'Call Me Maybe' by Carly Rae Jepson.  Neil and I took a queue from David Cook and did Mariah Carey's 'Always Be My Baby' which he sang on "American Idol" and we closed out our entire set with 'Don't Stop Believing', the "Glee" version so everyone could sing along with us!

This was definitely a creative way to play music and get everyone at the party involved with songs they may want to hear or dance to.  We all have our guilty pleasures and Neil and I were able to perform 9 of them in just under 20 minutes!  We both had a lot of fun and we'd definitely like to do our Super-Set again for our friends at a show :)

'Rudolph the Red-Nosed ReinDoors'

This Sunday I went to see 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindoors' (the classic story with music from The Doors for a modern twist) put on by the Troubadours at the Falcon Theater in Toluca Lake and what an experience it was!

Ready and waiting for the show to start!

Andy invited me to the show and I'm so glad that he did because it was an absolute blast!  The Cast came out caroling a few Christmas songs and when the show was about to start, something happened with the video play-back and they had to Improvise through it but it was actually more funny without the video.  Donner narrated the whole show and really had a tough job of keeping the show upbeat and moving forward and he did an awesome job!  The Cast brought so much energy to the show it made it so much fun for the audience.  Each member of the Cast played different roles throughout the show with multiple costume changes and it really made me miss doing Theater and the excitement of playing to a live audience and how each show is different.  What made this show even better was that there was so much Improv and how they worked with the elements to make it special for each performance.

My favorite parts of the show were the group numbers because at one point there was an Aerial Dancer doing tricks above the stage, my friend Andy, was juggling while on top of a ball that he rolled across the stage, and there was even an acrobatic stilt walker that was a dude and kicked higher than some of the cheerleaders on my college team!  The music really brought life to the Play and I realized I knew a lot more Doors songs than I thought!  Another favorite part was the snow falling throughout the audience during one of the final scenes and Rudolph flying all over the stage and also reciting the whole 'Rudolph' story that we all know and love.  The Cast got the audience involved by having us sing along, they called people out and joked around with them too.  I loved when Andy played a Mini-Elf and almost fell out of Santa's Sleigh!

It was a really great show and I'm so glad that I went; not to mention that doing something new like going to see a Musical/Play is one of my Resolutions this year!  I will definitely see more shows at The Falcon Theater put on by the Troubadours because this was very special, so different than anything I've seen since I've moved to LA and it makes me really enjoy being an Actor and making people laugh and smile :)