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Welcome
to my EVITA website!
I
love the show EVITA. It has been
and continues to be my favorite. I remember the first time I heard anything
from the show – I was maybe 10 or 11 – and I was in elementary
school… I remember my school was putting on a terrible musical revue (one
which I got permission NOT to be involved with) and one of the songs was
“Don’t Cry For Me,
A
few years later, some of my high school friends convinced me to start listening
to Broadway shows – they were all insane about Les Misérables
and the Phantom of the Opera – which are both great shows –
I was studying French, and one of my friends recommended I buy the French
Concept Album of Les Miz, so that Christmas,
my grandmother took me to the music store and told me I could buy three CDs
– so, I chose Les Misérables en français and South Pacific. However, I couldn’t decide what
else to get. I was looking through the
stacks and saw many choices: Annie,
Annie Get Your Gun, Cabaret,
Christmas
came and I popped in Disc Two to hear “Don’t Cry For Me”
since I still didn’t know any of the words… Then, I heard loud applause, and someone
speaking into a loudspeaker…. “How odd”, I thought. I got to end of the track, and decided to
listen to the whole show. I discovered,
through reading the CD insert, that the show was about
a real person (and
Years
passed, and my music tastes changed – but I always loved to listen to my
Premiere American Cast Recording. For
quite a while, I still had no idea what half the lyrics were – especially
in my favorite song “Buenos Aires” – it was too fast and I
swore some of it was in Spanish. In
fact, I decided to study Spanish – the reason, of course, was the theory
that I could understand the lyrics more.
To my surprise, there was Spanish in “B.A.” but I
didn’t know what it meant… then I read up on
However,
as obsessed as all this sounds, it was merely the beginning.
One
day I was with some friends in Atlanta, and for no good reason I spent about $6
on a studio cast recording of the show.
It wasn’t too terribly bad.
I then began to wonder what it would be like to hear the show in other
languages (at this point I knew that foreign languages would be an important
part of my life). My curiosity took me
to the Internet, where I searched for and discovered that the show had dozens
of recordings. I began to save money at
work and buy a recording or two a month – I soon heard the Madrid Cast,
the Viennese Cast, the London Cast, the Concept Album, the Japanese Cast…
I also began to collect programs, souvenir brochures and other memorabilia.
I
discovered the fantastic EVITA site, “EVITA ONSTAGE” by Sylvia
Stoddard. I emailed Sylvia and told her
how much I loved her site and offered to send her some information about some
of the newer cast recordings. I
contributed to her site for several months.
Sylvia and I conversed via email and telephone; she told me about the
show – because of her, I now know the show forwards and backwards and
even sideways. Sylvia, due to various
reasons, decided to close her EVITA site.
She offered the site to me, and I reluctantly accepted. However, after a couple of weeks, Sylvia told
me that she really felt like she couldn’t give it to me… The site was a reflection of her travels, her
friendships, her personal joys and indeed her life. She suggested “Make your own
site.” I grumpily told her,
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.” I was being childish of course – I was
going to miss her site, and I certainly would have loved to have taken control
of (what I considered to be) the best EVITA website on the Internet.
Six
months passed, and in July 2002, I decided to try to make my own site. You are currently in it. It’s pretty humble, I know – and
I’m learning the steps as I go.
One thing is for sure: IT
WILL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS SYLVIA’S SITE.
After
a while, I met others online who shared my interest – so, that made the
website creation process even better.
However, I also discovered the Internet can be a cruel and dark place
– with people out to get you.
There was a bit of ugliness when a person I considered a friend decided
to start cyber-attacking me. I
won’t mention names – it’s all water under the proverbial
bridge and it all seems really stupid now.
If this person was jealous, I saw no reason why - because he obviously had a bigger
collection of Evita stuff than I do – and had
every means to make a site of his own. I
just hope forgiveness is mutual.
So,
here it is – November 2003 – and I have a strong desire to put
everything back up… I hope you are glad I did…
Happy surfing…
Tim
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