Sondheim!

Stephen Sondheim's 75th: The Concert!

Okay, so, I'll probably punctuate this thing with pictures as I go, but, I wanted to write down the WHOOOOOOOOOOOLE story!
So, the Sunday before the concert (July 3rd, I think it was, haha), I created a shirt (pictures to come someday, I hope), specifically for the concert. I finished it the day before we left (July 5th). So, I knew I had something completely unique to wear.
We left on Wednesday, the 6th of July, 2005. We rode Southwest Airlines (in case any of you care). I wrote letters to Elena and Lizz on the way there, thinking, "WHEN are we gonna GET there?!" I was quite anxious.
We got to LAX and my uncle picked us up and drove us to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Lancaster, CA. That's about an hour and a half-2 hours from the Hollywood Bowl. So, we had quite a drive ahead of us on Friday.
Between Wednesday night and Friday I became accquainted with my family (pictures to come because my cousins are ADORABLE!), one of my cousins I had never met, the other I hadn't seen in about two years. So that was another fun part of the trip.
Friday came about and my Aunt (Connie), Mom and I piled in the car around 4.30PM (my uncle had said the traffic was bad that day, and we wanted badly to find the "stage door" [I'm such a theatre girl] beforehand).
It was a looooong trip. Mostly because I knew that what awaited me on the other END of my trip was a HUGE Sondheim concert feauturing (at least in my mind) Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury!
We finally got to Hollywood, parked three blocks from the Bowl and ate at Subway (okay, food was DEFINITELY the LAST thing on my mind, so this dinner stop was COMPLETELY unnecessary).
We walked up to the bowl in time to find a bathroom and wait for an hour and a half. During this waiting, though, Mum and I found the.."artists' entrance" (still, in my mind, called "The Stage Door"...lol...again---I'm such a theatre girl). We found this door just in time for me to meet one of the ticket checkers who had skipped a trip to...Nova Scotia to be there. We chatted for a while about Sondheim and his genius mind while Mum was talking to someone ELSE, who said we could wait by the Artists' Entrance to watch people come in.
That's when I looked up and saw Len Cariou. I did a double take saying, "That looks like Len!" and then I pulled on my Mom's sleeve and pointed at him going, "Mommy! It's Len Cariou!"
So I ran a bit to catch up with where he was by then, and requested a picture. He sort of looked at me like, "How do you know who I am?" and then politely agreed. We were standing right in the way of the valet cars that were driving through, and he said, "Careful, we better move. This guy might run us over!" But here's the thing---do any of you remember Michael Haggerty from "Murder, She Wrote"? You MSW fans will. Anyway, point being---he said it JUST LIKE something Michael would say---and I sort of got tickled and just couldn't believe it was LEN CARIOU!!! So, the picture Mum took looks as though I'm in pain. All is <<<< well. Len looks marvelous!
That's when I turned to him and tried to look angelic (lol, that's difficult for me) and asked if I could get a hug. He said, "Sure." and he hugged me (for quite a while, actually, I was expecting that he would be in a hurry), and he sort of laughed that deep, slow laugh (lol, it wasn't a Sweeney Todd laugh, fortunately, I'd have been creeped out). So I told him about the "huggable list" that Lizz and I have going and that he was on it. He said something like, "Well, you can't share a hug!" and then he shrugged, and I agreed but thought that Lizz would be thrilled, anyway. Which she was. The first thing I did when getting back to my seat was IM her from my cell phone. Anyway, back to hugging Len.
After that exchange, one of the security guys said that we couldn't stand there if we didn't have a press pass, which, of course, I didn't. Although, I DID consider writing up something for The Sondheim Review. lol. I thought of that too late, though. Besides, if I end up saying, "I'm way too biast to write that." Then I would've used the name of the magazine in vain, and that should be illegal. Besides, I wouldn't want to discredit it, because the magazine is absolutely incredible! So, we thanked him for politely reminding us of that and went back to our seats, after finding out that Ms. Lansbury had already arrived(where I proceeded to text, IM and call everyone I knew).
So, then, the concert (many minutes later, but, I did nothing but be excited in those minutes, so, I'll spare you the gore) was marvelous. Beautiful Sondheim songs. I would've enjoyed the funnier, harder to sing songs. As it turns out, the talented people who showed up DID The funnier, harder to sing songs. Carol Burnett did "Getting Married Today", which is this hilariously funny song from "Company". But it's terribly, terribly difficult because there are probably 400 words to learn just for ONE of the singers (I mean, this song is CRAZY). She was marvelous, as you expect from her. Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou did "A Little Priest" from "Sweeney Todd". Another comedy number of Sondheim's that should definitely NOT go un-sung at a Sondheim event. Especially if both Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou are in attendance.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Angela had a wonderful speech to open the festivities, and when she came out onto the stage---the applause and cheers must've been heard in NEW YORK. EVERYONE there stood up and applauded and CHEERED! She had, by far, the longest standing ovation (actually, it was rivaled by the ovation Sondheim got upon taking over the stage). And why shouldn't she? She IS the queen of the theatre, after all.
Bernadette Peters sang, about three times. I will spare you all the aggrevation. I'm not a fan.
I also discovered that Anne Hathaway is actually a good singer. She must have learned from Julie Andrews. She did a decent job.
Josh Groban handled Sondheim VERY well, especially it being the first time to sing Sondheim for him.
That's really, unfortunately, all I remember about the concert, besides that they showed random video clips, including one of when Sondheim was on some show...and was asked what his favorite word was, least favorite, etc... I don't remember what his favorite was (Alas!, I knew I should've written it down!), but his least favorite, I remember, is "celery". In case that should ever come up in conversation, now you know.;)
Well, I take that back. I remember her fall.
As EVERYONE in the WORLD knows by now, Angela Lansbury tripped over a cable at the concert which, she says was more embarrassing than painful, according to some articles I read. Rest assured, her knee surgery was planned BEFORE her fall. However, I'm sure that the fall did not HELP things any. I have always described it as me hitting the ground when Miss Hannigan shoved me down when I was in "Annie". I had bruises on my knees for almost a month.
So, after the concert we hurried as fast as we could to the Artists' Entrance to see if we could catch Angela coming out.
Well, she actually came out a side door by the Artists' Entrance, probably trying to avoid a crowd. Two or three people actually saw her. My mom told me to look and we went to try to catch her, and one other lady, also, asked for an autograph. However, I didn't really CARE about her autograph, you can get that by writing her. My mom said something to the effect of "She's your biggest fan..." To which of course, I added, "Well, I wouldn't say that..." and I appeared to get shy for a moment. There was a short pause when I finally decided if I was going to do it, I had better speak up. So I did. Forget the autographs. I asked for a hug. She consented. Quick hug (which really, was awkward, because I was trying super-hard not to hurt her any more than she already was). So, then, she whispered something in my ear whilst hugging me, but, I don't remember it (darn it)/didn't hear it (maybe I wasn't suppose to?! lol). I thought for a while it was something like, "Bless you" or "Thank you", but then I thought maybe I was hallucinating. lol. I'm really not sure which.
So then, I bought "Comedy Tonight" (lovely Sondheim CD of some of his rather hilarious songs---5 stars, in case you're interested), and we headed home.

Now, I teased Connie about added this story, so, I HAVE to add it!
We were driving around the block after the concert (keep in mind, it was 11 o'clock), and this block was on a hill. So, after we got up the hill and turned, we then had to go back DOWNHILL. I made the comment, "It's dark now, so you can go faster, because you can see the headlights of cars coming!" haha..(I was tired, gimme a break!) So anyway, she starts going downhill and decides we can go faster. Well, she turns a corner and suddenly---POW! There are trash cans in the street, for garbage pick-up and she hits one. "Oops!" we all say and she hits ANOTHER! Trash cans are NOT safe when she's driving. I had to roll my window down and fix the mirror, which had closed in against the car (they're adjustable mirrors like that). We laughed for almost an hour. Eh...it was a "you had to be there and be tired" thing;).

^^^^^ After our hug, which totally made my entire summer!

Me thinking, "That was such a Michael Haggerty thing to say!" Whilst Len Cariou is looking handsome as ever and being his charming self (which is a very Michael Haggerty thing to DO)!

telling him about our "Huggable list".

Some random lady, the indomitable Ms. Lansbury and I. I found a shawl at the airport like the one she's wearing, only pink. So I bought it and am calling it my "Angela shawl". Just because that amuses me. hehe. I'm really NOT stalking her, I promise. I know it seems that way.

Home

A funny little side-note/after story:
My cousin is 3 years old, and he just assumes that everyone who looks old to him is someone's grandma/grandpa. So, if you're the person standing NEXT to the old person, the person's YOUR grandma(pa).
So, one day, I changed the picture on my Dad's lap-top to the above picture, of Ms. Lansbury and myself, and he saw it and said, "Look! It's...yourself and your grandma!"
I had to explain to him that she WASN'T my grandma (with great dismay), but that, I wished she was my grandma.

So now, the big joke is that I want to go look at the picture of "myself and my grandma"!