OMG THE LION KING

OMG YOU GUYS I WENT TO SEE THE LION KING TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT WAS SO AMAZING!!!!!!! I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE HOW AWESOME IT WAS!!!!!

If I tried to explain it, it would be like this: “Oh my gosh, it was just so.... the dancing..... the costumes.... beautiful.... just... so... incredible.... creative..... so amazing...... I think I'm going to short-circuit.....” Throw that in with some hand-flapping and hopping, and you've got the real deal. Seeing the Lion King musical has been on my bucket list for years and years, like at least 7 or 8 years. And I was SO UPSET when I found out that it was coming to Wichita, but that I was leaving like a week before it arrived. SO UPSET. So when I found out that it was playing in the city, I hopped on my computer, found some good seats for a good price, and bought them without hesitation.

IT WAS SO AMAZING. We were on the front row of the second balcony, so we could see everything that happened on the floor, and we could see it in a different dimension that what one would typically see. I actually prefer it that way, I think. Then I can see all the stuff that's happening in the back row as well, whereas if I were on the floor, it wouldn't be as clear.

I just about exploded with happiness when “Circle of Life” came on and all the animals came out. THEY WERE SO CREATIVE!!!!! The giraffes and antelope were my favorite, but the elephants lumbering up the aisle were pretty cool, too. The dancing in “Grassland Chant” was really cool – it looked so real! But I think my favorite scene was actually the wildebeest stampede – the way that they staged it was just amazing, making it look like it was a really huge group of animals, when in reality it was actually like 12 people or something. Oh, it was just wonderful. The worst part about watching it though, was that I couldn't take pictures! I've done theater photography for so long that my fingers were twitching and my brain was whirring, thinking of different angles and exposures and framing and stuff.

After the first act, I was just overcome with excitement at seeing this musical. I decided that even though the sign said “no photography,” that I would just do it. My camera screen doesn't light up, I can put my shutter on a seriously quiet mode, and if I take pictures during louder scenes, no one except my immediate neighbors would even notice. So I did. And I felt so much better. So here they are. They're not up to my usual standards, but I wasn't spending as much time dicking around with my light and ISO and stuff like that. It was very much a “point-and-shoot” type of thing.

So that was my evening. It was amazing. I have officially caught the musical bug. “Wicked” is coming in mid-January, so if anyone needs Christmas ideas, now you have one. You might just want to check around with other people first... I only need one ticket, you know!