My Top 5 Song Playlist

 

Hey kiddos! This week’s blogging challenge is dedicated to music. I’ll be giving you a taste of what I like to listen to, then I’ll be  writing and reviewing the songs and artists I’ve been liking most recently, and adding any news that’s come along with it. 

 

It’s no surprise that I listen to a fair amount of showtunes. In this post, you will see a few songs that I recommend and a couple of fantastic cast albums you should be able to sing your heart out to. As far as regular music goes, I listen to mainly emo rock, pop punk, alternative pop, and a couple classics. Here are some of my most recent favorites.

 

#1 “Just Exist” by Eliza and the Delusionals: This is a vibey pop- rock song that I CAN’T STOP LISTENING TO! It’s one of those songs that you should saver and love for a long time, but instead you constantly replay it until it makes you physically sick to hear it.

 

#2 “Six the Musical”: Six is about King Henry the 8th’s six wives, Kathrine of Aragon, Anne Bolyne, Jane Seymore, Anne of Cleves, Kathrine Howard, and Kathrine Parr. In the show, the six have become a pop girl group and released an album in which each song tells one of the six women’s stories. They then perform the album as a pop concert with flashy lights and costumes. The entire soundtrack is is beyond unique! The songs are bright and colorful and perfectly display the six queen’s personalities and stories. This show is all about female empowerment and the celebration of six badass women! I highly recommend listening to it.

 

#3 “Ghost Of You” by My Chemical Romance: this song is powerful, heartbreaking, and absolutely beautiful. The song is very emotional, it’s about the pain of loss and learning to move on. In the music video we follow the band through the intensity and destruction of war as they battle their way through WW2. You witness their trauma and the death of their friends. You later see the lead singer try to overcome his brother’s death after the war is over as he sings with his friends that survived. MCR began in 2001 and broke up in 2013, they recently announced their comeback after a six year hiatus. 

 

#4 “K-12” the album/“Strawberry Shortcake” by Melanie Martinez: K-12 in the newest album by singer Melanie Martinez. The album follows the popular character Crybaby from her previous album of the same name, through her entire school career. You see her grow from her first day of kindergarten well into highschool and it documents Crybaby’s life struggles in a colorful and whimsical way. One of my personal favorites is “Strawberry Shortcake.” In this song, Crybaby is growing up and developing into a young woman. Herself and the other women around her are beginning to be sexualised by their male peers. These women are being told that boys have no sense of control and that it’s their fault for getting attention and being sexualised. The chorus sings “it’s my fault, it’s my fault, cause’ I put icing on top. Now the boys want a taste of the strawberry shortcake. Yeah, that’s my bad, that’s my bad, no one taught them not to grab.” As a teenage girl I sadly find this song relatable, it’s a fact that girls are sexualised at a young age. I think the message of the song is an important one.


#5 “Waitress The Musical”: Waitress stars three female leads, Jenna and her two best friends Becky and Dawn. The show is all about these three women learning to grow, fight the personal battles their facing, and stand up for themselves. The main character Jenna is a diner waitress with a passion for pie making. Jenna is sadly in an abusive relationship with her husband. When Jenna has an unexpected pregnancy, she begins an affair with her doctor, Dr. Pomatter. Looking for ways out, she sees a pie contest and its grand prize as her chance at freedom. 

#6 “When He Sees Me” from Waitress: This is my favorite song from Waitress! this song is sung by dawn a strange, awkward, and quirky young woman who prefers to be alone. The song is about her worries of dating and how she doesn’t know how to open up to people. Throughout the song she begins her journey to learning how accept love and be vulnerable with others.

Some honorable mentions: I listen to all lot of music and there was quite a few songs and musicals I didn’t include. Here are some of those for you now. Anything by Panic! At The Disco, Heathers The Musical, Bonnie And Clyde The Musical, Paramore, Twenty One Pilots, I also love Queen, Abba and a lot of others! Do you like any of these? Let me know!

Every Show I’ve Seen

Hello everybody and welcome back to confessions Of A Theater Freak! It’s the fourth week of the student blogging challenge! I’m a little behind but I’m sure we all sort of left our brains back in October along with our costumes and jackolanterns. It is now November and it’s definitely time to make a new post.

I was taking a look at my blog and all of my most recent posts, and I realized that I’ve made almost no theater related content for a blog that’s focus is just that. And therefore, in this post I will be writing about my thoughts and experiences with all of the shows I have seen. Disclaimer: I have seen a couple other shows that of which I didn’t include in this post such as school plays and field trips.

 

#1 Adventure Theatre and the early years:

My love and excitement for theater started early in my life. My parents often took my sister and I to the adventure theatre. A theatre that  turned beloved children’s stories into stage adaptations. My favorite shows were those based off of Laura Nuemuroff’s children’s books such as ‘If You Give A Pig A Pancake’ and ‘If You Give A Cat A Cupcake.’

#2 The Adams Family at the Kennedy Center:

I don’t remember much from this show, as I was very young when we saw it. I do remember however, how much I enjoyed the show. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday and I loved this show because of it. It sings beautifully and I love the Wednesday Adams character.

 

#3 Mary Poppins at the Kennedy Center:

This show was one of the first that my sister and I were able to get really excited about. It was pretty early in my life and I don’t remember much from the show itself however, it was very important to my parents that we saw it.

 

#4 Annie on Broadway: 

My first broadway show! I saw Annie in 2013 starring (now Stranger Things star) Sadie Sink. I have written about my experience in my previous post titled “My First Show.” Seeing a well known show such as Annie was extremely exciting!

 

#5 Wicked on Broadway:

 Wicked is by far one of my favorite Musicals of all time. It was the show that got me genuinely interested in musical theater. Listening to the cast album was literally a RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE! I saw wicked for my tenth birthday and it was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life! Since then, my love for this show has only grown. I don’t listen to the music as much but I’m reading the book for the second time and am anxiously awaiting the 2021 wicked movie adaptation.

 

#6 School Of Rock on Broadway: 

School Of rock is unbelievably funny and it sings incredibly well. It makes a couple changes from the original movie but still manages to make it feel like the same story. One of the most impressive aspects of this show is that all the kids that play instruments in the show already play those instruments and everything is real and live. There’s literally a ten year old girl playing bass electric guitar, it’s absolutely astonishing! What I really loved about it was the time leading up to us seeing the show. This was the first time I’d seen my dad as excited about a musical as I usually was. For what felt like months, my dad listened to the cast album on repeat. I wasn’t as into the music as I have been with other shows, but it was really great to see my dad feel the same way about theater that I do. 

 

#7 Beetlejuice off-broadway: 

Beetlejuice The Musical has become extremely popular among broadway theater fans within this past year. I can proudly say that I liked it before it was cool. I saw Beetlejuice exactly a year ago at the DC National Theatre for my thirteenth birthday. Originally I was a little sceptical about how the show would be. I knew the show would be very hit or miss and worried that it wouldn’t sing well. Making a musical or even just a stage adaptation of a movie is very hard to do, especially when it’s one as popular and beloved as Beetlejuice. I also saw Beetlejuice before it went to Broadway. Meaning that almost no one had heard of the show and there had yet to be any hype surrounding it that could give me a clue on how the show was. Rest assured, I saw the show and it was mind blowingly spectacular! Beetlejuice is quirky, it’s weird, it’s very colorful, and the music is great! I’ll admit it’s a little raunchy (or at least when I saw it they do make a lot of changes to shows once they hit Broadway) but it’s undeniably hilarious and the entire audience was laughing throughout the whole show. 

 

#8 Mean Girls on Broadway:

Another amazing comedy musical! Mean Girls is funny beyond belief and I highly recommend seeing it if you can. Mean girls is a vibrant show with super fun, poppy, colorful music! Some of the plot and characters have changed a bit from the original movie and they’ve made it set in more recent years however, it’s done quite well. They’ve managed to make the problems that the characters face more relevant to today’s teenagers. What I love about this adaptation is that they really focus on the real villain of the story, the female social structure. In this show they focus less on the evil Regina George and more on more serious and relatable issue. They express this point perfectly in the anthem of this musical, a song called “I’d Rather Be Me.” this song is all about how awful us women treat one another, that we already have to fight against a highly sexist society and shouldn’t have to fight or compete with other women but instead have each other’s back and lift each other up. The song also sends the great message that we should want to be ourselves rather than please others.

 

#9 Dear Evan Hanson at the Kennedy Center: 

I swear this show will make you cry! I saw DEH in august earlier this year with the touring cast. This show has a great story that is beautifully moving. The actors were super talented, and the music is unreal! I actually dressed up as Evan for the show with his iconic blue striped button down and cast. I was definitely the only one that came in costume but I had an amazing time.

 

#10 Hamilton in chicago: 

I recently saw Hamilton as an early surprise birthday present from my parents while we were traveling in Chicago. It was incredible! Everything about it was so iconic and I was insanely excited. Seeing all of the songs performed live was so special. I was also happy to see the set that hamilton is so well known for. If you don’t know, Hamilton uses a revolving stage to perform a lot of the songs. For instance, in the song “Satisfied” they use the revolving stage to demonstrate time turning backwards. Seeing this show was such a treat and will definitely be something I will never forget.

 

Have you seen any of these? What’s your favorite show that you’ve seen? Let me know and see you later!