Lauren Graham (Miss Adelaide), Oliver Platt, (Nathan Detroit), Kate Jennings Grant (Sarah Brown), and Craig Bierko (Sky Masterson)…HOT!!! (Kelly managed to snap this shot right at the end.)

As a child, I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s house and she had a lot of musicals. I would watch them over and over again. It has been so fun this year to see a few of them live. Guys and Dolls was one of my favorites, so when KP and Sarah told me about their plans to see it in March I, of course, invited myself along (that’s really the whole reason I decided to go to NY in for this trip…of course spending so much time with the besties was totally worth it, too).

KP anxiously awaiting the casts’ arrival post-show.

The besties are all uber fans of Lauren Graham (of Gilmore Girls fame). I joined that bandwagon a little later in life, so while I am always quite starstruck, I was more excited just to see the show. And, bad reviews or not, I LOVED it. I thought most of the actors did a phenomenal job (Oliver Platt left a little to be desired).

If you look, you can Oliver Platt and Lauren Graham inbetween the crowds.

There were a couple of little twists that just made the experience so great. First, I forgot how much dancing (or maybe in the movie there isn’t as much) there is in the show. So fun to watch. Next, Lauren Graham did a great job portraying Adelaide, and I loved that she did her own version, rather than attempting to be the Adelaide of the movie version. My favorite, though, was Tituss Burgess as Nicely-Nicely Johnson (with Mary Testa as General Cartwright) singing “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat”. Unbelievable. So good. If you get a chance to go see it, I swear it’s worth it just to hear that one song.

I’m sad you can’t see Ollie’s fantastic red track pants (so awesomely bad).

Lauren getting closer…

KP, Sarah, and Lauren Graham. She kindly told us that she wasn’t posing for individual pictures, but I managed to snap one anyway (and she tried to smile for it…without stopping).

Oh, to look that good at 42! (Hell, to look that good now!)

And a little self-portrait of all of us (thanks KP), post-show (loving the NYC humidity).

The only picture we have is courtesy of KP…this is the amazing theater where we saw the show. West Side Story is another favorite. It’s interesting, though, not having seen it for years, how the prejudices displayed affected me (embarrassingly enough, I got rather emotional about the whole thing).

In this production, a few of the songs and part of the dialogue were in Spanish which I actually really enjoyed (although I was really wishing that I spoke Spanish during those parts). The costumes and dancing were incredible. The actors were pretty good (Tony was not my favorite, but…he doesn’t actually do a lot, so it wasn’t a big deal). Somehow, I had totally forgotten that this is basically Romeo and Juliet…so the ending was a little more depressing than I was planning on.

My favorite part of all, Anita (played by Karen Olivio). She was incredible!

Totally worth seeing.