The Boys in the Band at Alliance Francaise...

My plans for Friday night were just to attend the Body Pump and Body Combat classes at Cathay. Since I missed the Thursday night routine with Tipz, I was decided to hit the gym to end the work week and officially start the weekend.

However, I woke up to a tweet mention from Orallyours saying that the off-Broadway production The Boys in the Band is playing this week at Alliance Francaise and that it is worth watching.

As soon as I got to work in the morning, I messaged both Tipz and Richie and so the scrambling for tickets began. Haha!

I went to the Sistic website to check for tix. At first, I thought that tickets were already sold out because I couldn't get the site to work. (It turns out there was a bug in the morning).

Close to noontime, I received a message from Richie - a photo of our tickets for the Friday night 8PM show. Yay!

It was my first time to watch a production at Alliance Francaise. I didn't even know they have their own theatre. It was a small theatre which was quite suited for the production. The cast didn't have their individual mice (I think) so it was definitely impressive how they were able to project their voice into the somewhat huge space. The production design was very simple. There were no stage changes. But it worked. The setting felt like watching a play at a university. The difference was in the actors. We were watching professional actors, who I'm guessing have had extensive theatre experience. How they managed to remember close to two hours worth of script and with no intermissions, I have no idea!

The story itself was amusing and entertaining! It was very close to home since it talked about topics that my evening companions and I could relate to. There were a lot of laugh out loud moments, but there were also the shift to a more serious tone. Google The Boys in the Band for the summary.

The Boys in the Band was certainly the better way to end the work week and to start the weekend, rather than hitting the gym. Haha! It's a very good thing that Orallyours alerted us about the production. Otherwise, we wouldn't know about it. I'm really glad that he keeps me informed about all the productions that are currently playing in town. It's great to know a fellow theatre lover. Haha! Thank you, Orallyours!

Jersey Boys night...

Catching Jersey Boys tonight at the Marina Bay Sands.

Hmm, I'm not too familiar with the story and I dunno much about the songs. I just read that popular classics such as Can't Take My Eyes Off You and Big Girls Don't Cry are to be expected from the show. Hehe!

I hope it wouldn't be a bore though.

Speaking of musicals, I recently got myself the soundtrack of The Book of Mormon. It's good. It's really good. No wonder it won the Best Musical at the 2011 Tony Awards. Some of the songs are bordering on blasphemous though. Hehe! It makes me wonder how the Church of Latter-Day Saints reacted to the musical.

I hope some production company in SG or Manila will stage it. I would definitely want to catch. Or maybe I can catch in the US and finally use the US visa I have? LOL! Hehe!

Anyway, happy Friday.

Good Sunday except for one thing...

Despite the heavy downpour throughout yesterday...

The good things:
By afternoon, the rain had stopped. Found a new book I'm planning to read. Dinner with PG Boy at The Wine Connection at Robertson Walk. Awesome bolognese at the said restau. Catching Lea, Menchu, Art and Adrian on God of Carnage. The show was great! The after show was even more awesome. (Separate entry for this one)

The one thing I forgot:
Richie's bday. Ugh! I can't believe I forgot. I only remembered because the first message I saw in the group chat when I got up this morning was, "So please explain why no one greeted me on my birthday?" Ugh! Kicking myself for it. Haha!

< Except for that one thing, it was a great Sunday...

Company the musical on a Friday night...

PG Boy and I, along with another friend, managed to catch the local adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company yesterday night at the National Library Drama Centre.

My friend Ivan was part of the cast and I did tell him I planned to watch. Thanks to Ivan, we were able to get really good seats at a really good price. Yay!

Company revolves around thirty-something single urbanite Bobby who is surrounded by a group of married friends. Throughout the musical, Bobby's friends talk to him about the ups and downs, the good, the bad about being single and being married.

The lead character in the Singapore production is played by Peter Ong (who's from Penang. WoohoO!). It's my first time to see him perform and he is good.

Overall, I really enjoyed the show. I loved how it was sort of localized. I may not be Singaporean, but having lived here for almost two years now, I actually enjoyed that Hossan Leong and his Dream World Productions made the musical more relevant to the local audience. Hehe!

Company won SEVEN Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

Really glad to have been able to catch the last performance.

Loooong Saturday...

Saturday was one very loong day.

Dim sum lunch

Day started with a dim sum lunch with Ho, Widdy,  Andi and Pg Boy at the Royal China at Raffles Hotel.

It's probably one of the best dim sum places in the island. The place is great, and the dim sum is priced reasonably. For the eight (?) dim sum plates we had yesterday, we just had to pay $14 each. Not bad. We had carrot cake, siew mai, cheong fun, char siew buns, hakkao, yam puffs. These are the ones I can remember. Hehe!

It was my second time to eat at Royal China. The first time was last December for one of the many Christmas lunch get-togethers I had. Hehe!

The first one was a good experience. This one wasn't so much. While the food was still as awesome, the service was painfully slow. We all had no idea why.
However, something wasn't right that afternoon. The dim sum arrived late.

Ho got very impatient and very frustrated. The four of us were very nervous as he began scolding the wait staff. Hehe. Good thing I couldn't understand Chinese.

But I think it was necessary in this case. The wait staff were moving at a very glacial pace, and the orders just took a long time to arrive. Seriously, how long does it take to prep siew mai and hakkao?! Hehe!

La Cage at Esplanade

From Raffles Hotel, it was a quick drive to Esplanade for the main event of the afternoon - the La Cage Aux Folles.

Thankfully, Singapore is a very tiny country so it's quite quick to rush from one place to the next.

I had a feeling that I already saw La Cage back in Manila. Because I remember watching a play with Topper Fabregas in it, and the story line was the same. I was right. Gay Birds, the Manila adaptation of La Cage, was staged back in 2007. Sheesh! So long ago!

I don't remember much from the Manila show. The Singapore show was awesome when it came to the set design, the lighting and the costumes. With all the feathers used for the costumes, I was waiting for PETA to storm into the theater screaming about animal rights. Hehe!

What's also nice about the show was that it was given a local flavor. Something that was also done in the Manila production. If you've been living in Singapore and have been reading the local dailies, you would understand most of the jokes. What I didn't understand were the scenes with the Ah Beng and Ah Lien that were spoken in Chinese (Hokkien or Mandarin, I have no idea. Haha!) Thankfully, Pg Boy was there to somewhat translate.

E's birthday dinner + party

The show ended close to 6PM. We headed to Raffles City for another engagement - E's birthday dinner. We were quite early so hung out first at TCC. Around 7 plus, we headed to Marche where E and the rest of the gang were. Pg Boy didn't get to join anymore because his sister was in town. Ian, the guy who introduced me to E, Pg Boy and their group, was there so I was really glad to see him.

I ordered the roasted chicken crepe. If I didn't have a half a sandwich earlier, I would have really enjoyed the food. For just $15, I got three stuffed crepes plus a side salad. It was worth it.

After dinner, we all headed to the Grand Hyatt in Orchard where the party carried on. Originally, Ian and I were planning to stay only until 1120. I wanted to catch the last train, and so did he. But it turned out to be a very fantab night that I ended up staying until 2 plus in the morning. Hah! I decided to go ahead and head back. I had the breakkie with Melvin this morning and if I was set on going to that breakkie, I definitely had to leave already.

Guess what? The cab fare wasn't as bad. I thought it would be more expensive. Cab fare came out $20. It was much cheaper compared to cab fare from Tanjong Pagar. Hehe!

So that's how it was. Looooong Saturday. But def fun.

Wicked Saturday night...

Finally, I was able to watch Wicked last Saturday with Ian and JB. (Thank you, Ian, for getting us tickets to the show.)

For as long as I can remember, Wicked is one of the musicals that I really, really wanted to see.

That's why I'm really glad it was brought here to Singapore.

I tremendously enjoyed the show, because I really like it. The cast did an amazing job, even though I thought that some of the leads had difficulty singing some of the songs. Still, kudos for doing such a great job.

Wicked, you're a dream come true.

I wish they Disney's AIDA would also be staged here. Pwease, pwease. 0=)

Saturday aftie with SG's most popular drag queen Kumar...

Spent the afternoon yesterday with Pg Boy and his best friend Ho at the Esplanade Theater.

We watched the show of SG's most famous (?) drag queen Kumar.

It was okay lah. Several laugh out loud moments throughout the show. Even if I've been living in SG for less than a year, I managed to understand about 85-90% of the material thanks to daily reading of the papers. Hehe!