to see Twas the Night Before Christmas

On November 22nd I went to see Ken Ludwig's "Twas the Night Before Christmas" at Emerald City Theatre Directed by my favorite Artistic Director Jacqueline Stone, I went with mommy and Margot. The play was about a kid named Emily (played by Kirra Silver) and her friend mouse named Amos the funny mouse (played by Alejandro Tey) who saved Christmas.

 It started when Uncle Brierly (Darren Hill) was reading Twas the Night Before Christmas and he said it was his favorite poem but when he got to the part "not a creature was stirring not even a mouse" Amos came out from his little house and he was stirring cookie dough to make cookies for Santa. And when he got to the part "while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads" Amos had the pigeon from "Don't let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" and was dancing with it because he thought Uncle Brierly said "while pigeons and sugar plums danced in their heads" which was so funny. And when Uncle Brierly left they did a dance party and then they saw a girl in the window who came into the house. The girl turned out to be a Jewish Elf named Calliope (played by Nora Lise Ulrey) from Santa's Workshop and she took them on an adventure on a plane to the North Pole where they found out that all the elves were locked in a dungeon by Sir Guy (also played by Darren Hill). Sir Guy wanted to sell the Naughty and Nice list so he could be in charge of Santa's workshop. But Calliope, Emily, Amos and Amos from Kansas found a way to save Christmas.  And Santa (played by Anthony Whitaker) gave Emily and Amos medals for saving Christmas.

The set designed William Boles was very creative. I loved how it seemed like there was just one thing on the stage, Uncle Brierly's house, but then all these little doors opened up and it transformed into Santa's Workshop. I love love loved the props designed by Letitia Guillaud especially the giant yummy candies and the amazing airplane that they flew in to get to the North Pole. I also liked the costumes designed by Rachel M. Sypniewski especially the mouse ears and tail on both Amos and Amos from Kansas.

My two favorite parts were: 1. when Amos was like "Ahhhhhh who's that? What's that?" and Emily was like "The stage Crew" and Amos said "The stage crew! Ahhhh!" and 2. When Amos said "When is this plane going to land?" and Emily said: "Amos the plane already landed you're the one still spinning."

This play taught me that the best gifts don't come in packages they come from being present and having fun.

I give this play One hundred thousand, million, billion, zillion to the infinity points because it was just so fun and funny.  And I think every animal and every person and everything in the whole wide world should see this play because it is the best play I have ever seen in my entire life.

Love,
Gunnar

to see School of Rock the Musical

On Saturday I went to see School of Rock the Musical at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in downtown Chicago with mommy. The musical by Julian Fellows, Glenn Slater and Andrew Lloyd Webber and directed by Laurence Connor was a play about a man named Dewey who taught kids in school to become the School of Rock.

Dewey (played by Merritt David Janes at our performance) loved to play his guitar but he got kicked out of his band so he pretended to be his friend Ned (played by Hernando Umana) by becoming a substitute teacher at Horace Green school. But Dewey had never been a teacher so he wasn't good at it. Dewey was late to school and asked for food and sent the kids to recess right away. But the next day he heard them playing music and he thought he could teach them how to play rock. Like the cymbals is like playing the drums and the cello is like playing the bass and the piano is like playing the keyboard. So he decided they could be a rock back and he could finally go to the battle of the bands.  Some of the kids didn't play music but helped like they were back up singers or Summer (played by Ava Brigilia) was the manager and another kid was the costume designer.

The actors were really amazing I loved Dewey the best because he was just the funniest guy I ever saw. And the kid actors were super cool because they actually played the instruments really well. My favorite kid was Phoenix Schuman who played Zach because he was amazing at playing the electric guitar.

The lighting design by Natasha Katz was excellent because during the battle of the bands the lights they were all colors around the stage and in "If Only You Would Listen" the lights would shift on each kid as they sang. The costumes by Anna Louizos looked a lot like parents and teachers and kids. The songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber stuck in our heads, mommy and I were whistling them as we are writing this.

My favorite part of the show was when Rosalie (played by Lexie Dorsett Sharp) came in to check on Dewey's class and he made up a song about Math that is called "Math is Great and a Wonderful thing." And when the battle of the bands guy, Jeff (played by Patrick Clanton) said "Okay okay stop throwing water bottles at me." And when Dewey wrote Mr. Schne...and then scribbled the rest and then made a y that was funny.  And another time they covered up the instruments with teepees and pretended they were learning about Thanksgiving and turkeys.

This show taught me that you should never stop doing the thing you love and when you teach what you love to others it spreads all over the world.

I would give this show 1 billion thousand points because I loved this show so much because it is so awesome. I would tell everyone in the entire whole seriously entire giant world to go see this because if everyone saw shows like this they might want to be a blogger just like me.

Love,
Gunnar