The Richmond Playas

Since the time is almost here for the Richmond Battle of the Altar Boyz (by the way, we will be seeing both shows considering we love boy bands... a little too much...), we figured it would be a good opportunity for us to announce the newest product in the boy band market- The Richmond Playas! And the members are....

1. Scott Wichmann: Scott provides the personality of the group. He is the one who does most of the talking and joking in between the songs. He's sort of the goofball of the group if you will, yet totally rocks out on the second verse of the ballad and girls swoon over his ability to be funsitive (funny and sensitive at the same time).
2. Brett Ambler: Brett is the lead singer of the group, sort of the "Geek in the Pink" if you will. He acts like he's a huge dork yet knows he's cool... and so do the ladies. Careful girls, he's engaged!
3. Chase Kniffen: Think of Chase as the Lance Bass of the group. He has the boy band looks and can dance, but we're not sure if he's actually singing or just lip-synching. Always the best-dressed member.
4. Landon Nagel: First of all, we know nothing about Landon Nagel other than the fact that he was the Heath Ledger look-alike in Guys and Dolls, and we kind of want to date him. So in this way, Landon is sort of like AJ from Backstreet Boys. All of the girls want to know more about this mystery man. And the girls also want him to grow out his hair long and curly and speak with an Australian accent.
5. Dave Timberline: This was too easy considering the very obvious Timberline/Timberlake comparison. And we're pretty sure their names aren't the only thing that's similar about them. Have you ever heard Dave T's rendition of "Sexyback?" We thought not.

So if any of you five guys, burgers and fries are reading this, please join us at our house for press pictures and crudites.

Bye bye bye.

Nice :)

Just last week, Annie called Elyse and said, "I just got the craziest email from Swift Creek Mill Theatre. We literally have to write a blog about it." But unfortunately, this was no bloggable matter. By the way, Blogspot.com is telling us that "bloggable" is not a real word. Seriously? WTF. And it's telling us that BLOGSPOT isn't a real word, either. 

Anyway, Jennifer Procise, Director of Development and Marketing at Swift Creek, sent out an email saying that their email system was compromised. That really sucks! Like, who knew that kind of thing still happened? But, we try to find humor in everything. So we'd like to leave you with our favorite snippet of the Swift Creek Mill's compromised email. For even more laughs, read it out loud. You won't regret it:

Step 4: waiting verify by administrator , after 1day you can have 200% money , ex : you fund 10$ , after 24hour you have 20$. That gif for you for place order with shop. Nice :).

We Love a Parade

Oh my goodness, have we been away for a while! No worries, though, we're here now. But we've changed. And, no, it's not just that Elyse's hair is shorter and Annie's is red. We no longer are immature school children, pulling each other's pigtails in the yard. We have discovered the meaning of true love. And the world is now seen through two pairs of rose-colored glasses. What has caused this change? Two words. Possibly three, or maybe a hyphenated two: Varsity Fanclub. Go here to watch their performance in the MTD Parade. Focus on the guy in the trucker hat- Jayk Purdy of Las Vegas, Nevada, 22-years-old, his mom was a Vegas performer. But honestly like, we know nothing about these guys. Insert winky-face here.

So! Did we all enjoy the rest of the parade? We, of course, have our thoughts. And no, we will not be commenting on the marching bands, Chris Collins. We don't care to watch the JMU Marching Whatevers. Wonder Twin bullets, activate!

• As we watched In the Heights perform, we realized that one guy in the chorus is incredibly out of place. He is wearing an orange polo. Watch it just so you can see this guy, fresh out of Godwin High School's Varsity football team dropped into a Broadway show. It's funny because it's literally In the HEIGHTS. Like, Washington Heights. Not Downtown Short Pump Heights. 
• Just for kicks, watch the ITH performance for another reason: Tell yourself that Abuela is not actually in the show, but instead a random lady who happened to wander into the televised area. And somehow, by coincidence, she randomly breaks out into song. Trust us, it's hilarious. And listen to how Matt Lauer pronounces Usnavi (Znavee).
• South Pacific's performance... way to go, Jerold Solomon! He was legitimately on TV for the majority of the song, with a solo and everything! Yeah, and did anyone else think that the lead guy in that number, Danny Burstein, looked like Gilbert Gottfried? Finally, a few of the sailors weren't fooling anybody. It was along the lines of Harvey Fierstein singing "A Girl Worth Fighting For" from Mulan.                                                    
• A few thoughts about  The Little Mermaid- um, why does a mermaid need a scarf? And why did the scarf not look mermaid-like? Ariel literally stole the scarf from the White Christmas cast. In speaking of the performance itself, in the eloquent words of our cousin, "This would be a lot more impressive if it were an actual crab singing and not Seal's brother." But seriously, though, we know he was lip-synching, but MAN! What a voice! Words can't even express how crazy-good his voice is. 
• There really wasn't anything else noteworthy to talk about. Truthfully, once we saw Varsity Fanclub, that was about it for us. We already know all the choreography. OH, and if any of you are ONLY interested in theatre and care not for boy bands, some of these boys in the "band" were once Broadway kids (see: Thomas Fiss). Speaking of boy bands, get ready to see who's in the Richmond theatre one!
• We thought about writing a post about Rosie Live. But we sort of thought it was boring and awkward. We love Jane Krakowski and no one in the audience got the Urinetown bit. Oh well. We understood it. 

Fin. 

Stay Tuned...

Swift Creek Mill's email system COMPROMISED.

Two different groups of Altar Boyz, ONE Richmond theatre boy band- who are the members?

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade serves us Broadway performances, Santa, and a new obsession for the Steingold sisters entitled: VARSITY FANCLUB. 

And much more.

STAY TUNED. Oh, yeah, and don't be surprised if we change the subject matter of this blog from theatre to Varsity Fanclub. We're not kidding. Who are these guys? They're amazing and we are determined to meet them.

See you soon!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year... Kind Of

THE MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER! This is seriously one of our favorite events of the year - others include Christmas, when the Starbuck's cups turn red, Passover (for the food), and anytime we wake up before 10:30 and are able to get fast food breakfast. All of the performers were announced, and we're pretty darn excited. Elyse is kind of peeing her pants about White Christmas, Annie's peeing her pants about In the Heights, Mom's peeing her pants about South Pacific, and Dad is peeing her -er, his- pants about James Taylor. Just kidding, he's peeing his pants about The Little Mermaid. 

Thanksgiving morning, we always wake up to the smell of pancakes, and when we get downstairs and realize it's noon, we go through this horrible 1-minute period of panic that we missed the Parade. Then, we realize we taped it and proceed to fast-forward through every band, balloon, and helicopter tour (except when it was given by Bob Saget- remember? He was hilarious!), and we watch the Broadway performances obsessively. Have you realized by this point that we have obsessive personalities? We thought so. 

All we can say is we're very glad How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang AREN'T performing this year. Seriously, both of those performances kind of freaked us out. Unfortunately, Mary Poppins actually is performing again this year, which is annoying- their performance last year freaked us out. 

Finally, look out for the dueling Wicked women, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, each performing solos on different incredibly random floats- Idina on the "M&M's on Broadway float" and Kristin on the "Care Bears Winter Funderland" (seriously) float. Don't you like imagining the disputes they had over who got to perform on which float? 

Can't wait to see what everyone thought of the performances this year! And again, how have we not gotten better at ending our posts?

Watch More Television!

The world of theatre has crept its way into a new frontier - TV! You have to look out for two particular shows, because no one gets a kick out of theatre jokes as much as theatre people!

There is a new show on television called Summer Heights High that everyone has to watch. It comes on HBO, Sundays at 10:30 PM, but we're pretty sure every episode is on YouTube. It basically is a mockumentary about an Australian public high school, focusing on three characters: an exchange student, a bully, and a drama teacher. The catch? All three of them are played by the same guy, Australian comedian Chris Lilley. It is absolutely hi-larious. The show is basically Waiting for Guffman, if Christopher Guest had an Australian accent and also played Parker Posey and Eugene Levy's roles. Below we have a clip of Mr. G, the drama teacher.

We know South Park can be lewd and sometimes a little weird (and sometimes REALLY weird), but this past Wednesday, their episode called "Elementary School Musical" almost had us rolling on the ground laughing. Annie called Elyse at the first commercial break during the episode and literally said, "Isn't this killing you?!" You can watch the episode here; you just click "Full Episodes." You're going to love it and most likely agree with everything they're talking about.

Watch them- we promise they're worth it.

Where are You Taking Me?

So, this past Monday, Annie and Chase K. came up to DC so we could all go see "Where Are You Taking Me" at Georgetown University. Basically, it was this collaboration between Georgetown and Arena Stage, and they performed songs from work-in-progress musicals from around the country. The show was really cool, and we'll talk about that later, but the whole night was an experience that needs talking about.

Once we got past the incoherent parking attendant, we arrived on the Georgetown campus starving, so we stopped in the nearest snack shop called "Hoya Snaxa," which we found hilarious. After that point we had to add "-xa" to the end of anything we bought, which was really amusing to us, mainly because when you're walking around in the cold you giggle at everything. Apparently Elyse's Diet Coxa was refreshing. HA! 

At this point we had about an hour to spare, so we decided to find coffee. We figured since we were on a college campus there had to be at least 10 coffee shops near us. Wrong. So we had to ask someone. Well, by that time we were all attempting to talk in British accents and thought it would be funny to ask a student where the coffee was in said accent. So Annie stops a guy and asks him where the nearest coffee shop was. Kid you not, the guy was British. He literally was wearing a track jacket with the England flag on it. When he spoke, Elyse and Chase absolutely lost it. Elyse literally guffawed out loud, and left Annie alone, trying to keep herself together. We found coffee about 45 minutes later.

When we got to the theater, we went to the bathroom and Annie dropped her ticket in the toilet. When does that happen? The show itself was really good - Elyse liked every song pretty much - with songs from shows like Vanities (you know, the new one with Lauren Kennedy and the girl from That's So Raven?), Rooms, Giant, and Emma. But it sounded like some of the performers were sight-reading the songs as they went along... not cool. And some of the songs were just not all that catchy. But, it was neat seeing the producers and composers of the shows. We all now want to be friends with Michael Friedman, composer of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. On a more serious note, it really is interesting to think about the direction musicals are heading, and it's always interesting to look at the subjects discussed in the musical- Andrew Jackson? Really? 

After the show, we went to M Street for some Italian cuisine. Before we decided where to go, we were standing outside of a restaurant reading the menu when this crazy woman got out of a cab acting crazy; she was screaming at cabs and collapsing onto the hoods of cars, so we tried to stray away, taking a lap around the block. When we came back, we were looking at a different restaurant when she literally comes barreling towards Chase, missing him by about an inch. Once she was passed we practically ran into this Italian place that Chase highly recommended. The dinner was delicious, but the atmosphere sort of random. The decorations were ridiculous - it looked like a much, much tackier version of the reception of Tony and Tina's Wedding. While we were signing the check, Chase kind of jumped and told us he had just seen a mouse scurry across the floor. Again- really??

Suffice it to say, it was a very interesting evening. Tickets in toilets, mice, real British accents, and snaxas.... eureka! I think we just came up with the premise of a new musical! Georgetown and Arena, sign us up! 

Kitty Minky.

Yet another random story pertaining to a Day in the Life of a Steingold. As some of you might know, today Annie officially got all of her rubber bands taken out! These past weeks she was wearing temporary bands, but now, there are none at all! Hip hip....! .... ....

Hooray? Anybody? Nobody.

And another thing that some of you might know is that Annie has a cat named Kitty Minky. Minky is an adorable cat who slightly resembles Ivanka Trump (in the eyes), but sometimes, she can be a bit of a pain in the neck. She's very opinionated (Minky, not Ivanka; but come to think of it, Ivanka is also opinionated).

So, today being the first day that Annie could sing, she decided to let loose, alone in the comforts of her house. Now remember, she had not sung in about seven weeks. So she picked up Kitty Minky, cradling her, and started singing.

Kid you not, as soon as Annie started singing, Minky literally meowed so loudly that it might actually have been a shriek, scratched Annie on the shoulder, spastically jumped out of her arms, and glared up at her from the floor.

Thank you, Minky, for making Annie feel worthless. She will no longer sing while in your presence... not for another 6 weeks, at least. 

Free Twinkies!

First of all, we have to say that right now we are really, really pissed off at Annie's cat Kitty Minky. She literally stepped on our computer and somehow managed to CTRL-A, then delete everything we had written. And thanks to stupid "Auto Save", when we refreshed our blog, all we had was a backslash. We are literally having to rewrite this post. So basically Annie and her cat are no longer on speaking terms.

Friday night, we got the chance to see tick, tick... BOOM!, Stage 1 Theatre Company's Inaugural Production- so exciting! Chase Kniffen, in his Letter from the Director, stated that starting a theatre company during these economic times is perhaps "the craziest thing anyone has done... ever!" You're so right, Chase. What you did is SO ZANY and OUTRAGEOUS! No one in the history of the world has ever done anything that crazy.... ever! Except maybe when people bike to school when they could just drive? That's pretty insane.

Let's talk about the show, in our scattered, random, incoherent (quick, think of more synonyms for "scattered"!) way! Bullets, ignite.

• First of all, please don't forget to bring your Twinkie net to the show. Free Twinkies are literally thrown at the audience. We, personally, can't think of a better reason to see the show. 
• We realized, in a scientific discovery not unlike Einstein's Theory of Relativity, that tick, tick... BOOM! = Rent, minus lesbians and plus a gay Taye Diggs. Seriously. As a little experiment, Elyse sang the song "Rent" (from Rent) and Annie sang "No More" (from TTB) simultaneously. What we had was sheer Sondheim brilliance, a song very much like "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow/ Love Will See Us Through" from Follies! If you got this joke, you're awesome.
• Brett Ambler as Johnny-Who-Can't-Decide has a really amazing voice and true charm. He told us himself that he is only offstage for about 12 seconds, enough time to put on an apron. The fact that he is able to hold our attention through an entire show is impressive. His cathartic number, "Why" was our favorite. This song is not to be confused with Annie Lennox's 80s power-ballad of the same name.
• Audra Honaker as Susan + Others is so much fun to watch on a stage- talk about someone with great comic timing! She's really awesome when it comes to taking on different personalities. As the businesswoman, her performance truly shined... almost as much as her wig. 
•  Durron Seymour Tyre (pronounced "tire" by Annie; apparently this is incorrect) as Michael + Others has such an awesome voice. We love watching people onstage whose pitch doesn't worry us. He's especially funny as the cashier in "Sugar", spontaneously breaking out into song. If we had a nickel for every 7-11 cashier we've had who's started randomly singing, we'd have 0 cents. If we had a nickel for every customer at 7-11 who's spontaneously broken out into song, well, that's another story.
• All the behind-the-scenes aspects of the show can't be ignored. With an intelligent set, a rocking band, and rolling lights, the show really was an intelligent rock and roll spectacular. But seriously, we applaud all the thought, time, and energy put into this show- it showed. Show. Show show show.

Congratulations, Chase, on your first production in your new theatre! We loved, as you said, "sitting in your dream". We couldn't have asked for a better, more entertaining night, and we wouldn't be surprised if we went to see this show again... because we're that cool. Maybe "cool" isn't the right adjective?

Go see tick, tick... BOOM! For a really inexpensive ticket price, you're basically seeing two shows in one! Rent is the other show, in case you didn't get it before. 

Kenny's Lament: A Father's Response to His Daughters' Accusations

As the father of the Steingold sisters, I have made a special request to be a guest blogger on this esteemed website. I asked Annie and Pugsley to allow me to post for a couple of reasons. First, I believe that I have been portrayed unfavorably in a few of their witty anecdotes and wish to rebut. Secondly, I am trying to learn how to type, and I figured with their limited readership I could get away with many typos as I practice, and no one would really notice as I try to search for the semi-colon: actually, it is probably unfair to ridicule their readership numbers since a recent Internet research group reported that they have had 6003 hits to their website. Congratulations! In a weird coincidence, 6000 have come from one household on Horncastle Place, and... (thanks, Rachel, Erica, Mike). Anyway, in response to some of their quips:

First, the girls mentioned that I referenced the musical "Urinetown" when I really was forced to pay to use the facilities in Amsterdam. To set the record straight, I was at Swift Creek Mill Playhouse, but it was only for the dining experience. Seeing the musical was only an afterthought. The show actually was great, but as a 55 year old male with prostate problems, I became increasingly uncomfortable during the show; it was only by divine coincidence that I happened to have a self catheterization kit on me and saved myself serious embarrassment.

Second, they mentioned that one Hannukah/Christmas they gave me a Springsteen CD and a Dave Matthews CD, obviously thinking I was a lot cooler than I really am; they made fun of me, stating that I promptly returned them for two Broadway musical CDs. Not true-they were returned for the latest Megadeath and Black Sabbath CDs; or was it David Bowie and Marilyn Manson; no, it was the latest boxsets of Culture Club and Wham. Touche!

Finally, you ridiculed me when we were flipping channels and the movie "Titanic" was on. The ship was in port and I asked if this was the end of the movie. How was I supposed to know-I never saw that movie. However, I recently heard a rumor that Leo is in negotiations to star on Broadway in David Rabe's incendiary play, "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel." Looking forward to it.

So fearless reader, thanks for your indulgence, and I hope I haven't wasted too much of your time; although if you read the kids' blog you have ample amount of wastable time. So, I'm off to the gym (golf), to pump some iron (water aerobics class), while listening to AC/DC on my nano-pod (soundtrack from "Millie" on my Walkman), while watching Ultimate Fighting (season one, "Murder She Wrote").

Thanks,

Kenny Steingold

A Tale of Two Sisters

So remember when we wrote about winning the silent auction for tickets to A Tale of Two Cities and a backstage tour? Welp, turns out it's closing November 9th. So...two days from now. So...yeah. Looks like we won't be going. And we know that you all wanted to hear a report on it so badly. Instead we'll give you a report on tick, tick...Boom! soon.

In the meantime, here are some Magazine Muzings. Yet another new feature of the blog that will probably only happen once.

Teen Vogue had a blurb about kids on Broadway, for example, Billy Elliot and 13. It also talked about Equus and it basically talked about how it got so much hype because Daniel Radcliffe bares everything, "Hogwarts and all." So this is apparently really clever because "warts and all" is an expression. Which neither of us knew. Therefore we thought this was an incredibly nasty pun alluding to the fact that Daniel has an STD. Which would have been a shame.

So you know SkyMall catalogue on airplanes? Well, there was a note from the president of the catalogue on the first page telling the reader to enjoy all the many products. Kid you not, "Christina Aguilera" is said president. Which we find hilarious and incredibly random.

Third, we found out in Star magazine (such an honest source) that Ivanka Trump, Annie's hero, is converting to Judaism! We know this has nothing to do with theatre, musical theatre, Richmond, arts, or anything of the sort, but Annie would love to have Shabbas dinner with Ivanka. She would also love to know how to spell Shabbas.

We're not really sure how us talking about not seeing A Tale of Two Cities turned into us talking about Ivanka Trump. Check back for our thoughts about TTB. But for now, a "Daily" Download:

"Comfort and Joy" from Bat Boy

Daily Download

Today's Daily Download is:  "Promise Me" from I Sing!

Daily Download!

Hello folks! So we are starting a new aspect of the blog called the "Daily Download." It's basically like the "Daily Double" on Jeopardy except without a question, money, podiums, or a mustache. Basically everyday we're going to give you a song that we totally think you should download. Or you can listen to it on Rhapsody or something. Or you can just listen to the 30 second preview on iTunes and assume the rest of the song is just as good.

So our first Daily Download is: "Next Time/I Wouldn't Go Back" from Closer Than Ever

Enjoy, and if you have any suggestions for us, feel free to share!