Knitting, "Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life"

So quite a bit has happened since I last wrote.

Thursday night was Rainbow Knitting Circle, so I got some new yarn to prepare: green worsted weight for a hat and blue/white variegated sock yarn for a scarf. This really nice lady, Elanor Lynn, who actually has a book that just came out in January on knitting for babies, came in to teach us how to make hats. By now (Saturday), I'm about two-thirds done my first hat. Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun working on these new projects. They seem like, when they're finished, they'll go well together too.

Yesterday, I went to lunch with Emma, David, and Emma's friend, Josh. We went to Vegetarian's Paradise 2, which was quite surprisingly good. I had friend wonton stuffed with ground peanut and coconut and served with sweet sour. It was cheap and very delectable. We also looked around at TLA for previously viewed DVDs, but nothing really jumped out at me, and I usually like to wait for the good deals. Surprisingly, Virgin Megastore usually has the best prices on DVDs (or Amazon.com).

Today, I went to see Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life on Broadway. The show is closing tomorrow, so, for the last weekend, the show had a special deal that you could essentially see the show and pay whatever you could afford, because the show as an entity felt that it was a show essential for students and dancers to see. Anyway, Chita herself was absolutely spectacular. She's 73 years old and still able to execute steps for 8 shows a week. Plus, once the show closes, she's going on a national and international tour with the show.

For the most part, it's a show about her life with songs from many of the shows she's been in interspersed. Sometimes, it feels a bit too self-important. Afterall, Chita may be well-known to theatre afficianados, but anyone walking in with little prior knowledge of her work would be a bit skeptical. Some of the songs were mediocre, but it was worth it just to see her perform about 30 seconds of "A Boy Like That," dance sections of "The Dance at the Gym" and "America" from West Side Story and perform "Nowadays" and "All That Jazz" from Chicago. Some of her other anecdotes about choreographers and performers were interesting, but, for the most part, I feel like this show should've been more about the music and the dance and less about the exposition. A lot of times, she'd throw in a song only to cut it short before it'd even gotten far in ("A Boy Like That" and "Somewhere").

In the end, she's to be forgiven. It's more the fault of bookwriter Terrence McNally and Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, who wrote two lackluster new songs for the show. Any show to showcase Chita Rivera, a legend of the American theatre, is to be applauded just for trying. I had the opportunity to see Chita Rivera when she was still in Nine with Antonio Banderas, and I remember wishing she had been showcased more. At least this show gave her a chance to shine on the Broadway stage (perhaps, sadly, for the last time?).

On a completely different note, my delightful Liza With A 'Z' CD came today, and I'm loving it! And Liza got a brief mention in The Dancer's Life during the section about The Rink, for which Chita won a Tony in 1985 for portraying Liza Minnelli's mother (she's only really 12 years older).

Anyway, Tuesday, I'll finally get to meet Anthony Rapp, and hopefully some other interesting stuff will happen during the rest of this four-day weekend (maybe I'll go to The View on Monday?).