Did anyone see WICKED this weekend??? Brandi Chavonne Massey went on as Elphaba & SHE WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!! HOLY COW- she did the best Defying Gravity I have ever heard. Just comes to show how talented these understudies & everyone is when they get their chance to go on! I hope she goes on more often!!! They are all great, but I just wanted to see if anyone else saw Brandi.
"TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD"- LES MISERABLES---
"THERE'S A SPECIAL KIND OF PEOPLE KNOWN AS SHOW PEOPLE... WE'RE BORN EVERY NIGHT AT HALF HOUR CALL!"--- CURTAINS
she has a great website where all her pop/r& b music is at too. It's chavonnemusic.com . She is fierce & writes all her own stuff. I saw her at another show at The Cutting Room. She sang "Home" from The Wiz & encored with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It was beautiful
It's nice to see that people are enjoying her performance. When she was first going on she received some cold reviews, I guess she grew in the role.
"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
To Kill A Mockingbird
Saw the Sat. matinee...SHE SAAAAAAAAAAANG. It was the best (and most acurately on pitch) Defying Gravity I've ever heard. Her riffs were killer and she really tore into each number. Her and Kate did a great "For Good" as well.
Kate was also fantastic. Her Act II is beautiful and her more sincere moments are really stunning (my favorite being when Elphaba showed up at the dance...Kates realization of what she had done was awesome). And her voice is beautiful...
Also thinking...Kate would be BRILLIANT as Ariel in The Little Mermaid. She's a great comedian, sounds the part, we know she looks good in a swim suit...I think she'd be adorable :)
I saw her and she was amazing, she has really grown from the beginning, but she has had plenty of time to get it in her bones. You can see a recent video of her singing it on youtube on a Rosie cruise, she pretty much did Defying Gravity the same way. I am really liking her and Saycon now, but Brandi ripped it, she even went up higher at the end. It was amazing!
I think she was already scheduled to go on for this weekends performances before she had performed on Rosie's cruise.
She was absolutely amazing, and I'm thinking she was thrown on with very little (if any) rehearsing back in October. She was a wreck, vocally.. and she had goofed many lines. A huuuuge improvement since then.
It is doing my heart good to hear these comments Idina is was and always will be Elphie, followed by Eden, Sho and then Julia (IMO, anyway)
But...They need another, "fresh faced" new actress to step up and fly Not only *play* Elphie, but play her well.
Here is a lovely picture of her in costume with Ben Vereen as The Wizard and Rue McClanahan as Mmme Morrible:
This is on her MySpace page.
"TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD"- LES MISERABLES---
"THERE'S A SPECIAL KIND OF PEOPLE KNOWN AS SHOW PEOPLE... WE'RE BORN EVERY NIGHT AT HALF HOUR CALL!"--- CURTAINS
There are clips floating around of Saturday's DG. She's definitely not on pitch. I like her, but let's not get crazy here. The excessive riffing takes away from the character. The show is supposed to be about the journey of two women. It's not American Idol.
Don't get me wrong, I love the riffing. Have tons of it on my iPod. But it's not right for Wicked. That was my gripe with Shoshana. I'll listen to her tear through "Home" or any of her Ars Nova concert, or even "Ready To Be Loved" from the Uncharted performance. And I love it. But in Wicked, it's not appropriate because it detracts from the show.
what?? It's Wicked not Sondheim or anything. As long as it's in the right hands riffing works fine and Brandi knows what she's doing and sounds incredible
RIP Natasha Richardson. ~You were a light on this earth ~
I also got to see her. I was shocked! She was perfect in the role and I have not been as pleased with show since I saw it with Idina and Kristin. She was my second favorite elphaba. She was spot on. You say you saw video from her but true musical theatre fans should know that people sound very diffrent when you are sitting in a house like the Gershwin. If you want to talk about pitchy dont get me started about the current elphaba. if you want to talk about riffing i can go into S. Bean. Though I did not care for her, the only Elphaba I have seen that had a flawless voice from start to finish was Ms. Block. Updated On: 8/7/06 at 12:30 PM
Apparently the last time she went on was mid-way thru the show about 5 months ago...before that it was about a year ago...seems like a tough way to get comfortable with a part
Yes, Maniac. I agree that the riffing does take away from the acting a bit. I remember feeling that I enjoyed Shoshana's performance more for her voice than the story.
And this was most likely long scheduled because Saycon didn't go on.
"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
To Kill A Mockingbird