Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Mean Girls

This is a little less "live," but I usually like to share my feelings on the CBS "performances" as well. I say "performances" because there's usually more than one, but this year, all we got is Mean Girls. And that's fine, I actually like Mean Girls, I think it's one of the better movie adaptations we've had in recent years. That may be partially because I wasn't super familiar with the movie before the show came out or because I'm just super into shows set in highschools, but in general, there are a ton of parts of Mean Girls that I like. Unfortunately, the part they decided to perform was not one of those.

To be fair, where Mean Girls thrives is generally in it's power ballad solos. The songs that bring down the house like Burn or I'd Rather Be Me, don't necessarily lend themselves to live performances. However, in general, they've been really good about showing a diverse set list in their public appearances. They did Apex Predator on Good Morning America, I'd Rather Be Me on Jimmy Fallon, Stupid With Love on the View, and last year they gave one of the best performances of the parade with Fearless. To be honest, one of their weakest performances (in my opinion) was on the Tony Awards where they did Here's Where You Belong and Meet the Plastics. Here's Where You Belong is (in my opinion) one of the very few bad songs in the show and furthermore is hardly representative of the characters or themes of the show (as I think these live performances should strive to be) and the only redeeming feature of that performance was Meet the Plastics. So imagine my dismay when I saw that the ONLY CBS performance we were getting was Mean Girls and the ONLY song they were performing was Here's Where You Belong...again.

I mean, look, the cast is talented, the dancing is nice, the performance was solid, it's fine, whatever. But the song doesn't showcase any of the fantastic women who are in this show, it didn't highlight their recent cast additions (such as the fabulously talented and age appropriate Renee Rapp as Regina George), it didn't even (I think) play on the recognizable moments people would know from the movie. They just picked a mediocre song with some kinda cool dancing and no character growth. It was a wasted opportunity on so many levels and a kind of disappointing end to this year's parade performances.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Tina: The Tina Turner Musical

One of my favorite things about the parade is that they span Tony Seasons. We usually see mostly folks from the previous Tony Awards, but sometimes we see long running shows with new casts and sometimes we see the next year's big thing which is kind of fun. This year's performers were a little stacked towards this year's Tony's, the Tina performance was the only one that broke this trend. Normally, I would be more excited about that, but, and I know this may shock you, I'm not thrilled that the one we get to see is a biopic jukebox musical.

The performance was alright I guess. If you like Tina Turner's music then this might inspire you to see the show, but, as a theater person, theater that caters to non theater people is always a bit of a disappointment. Half way through the performance, my folks who were cooking in the kitchen asked us to let them know when the next Broadway performance was happening, we told them it's already happening, they walked in to the living room to see and responded "are you sure?"

I'm sure that this show will have some great performances, and I'm sure that Tina Turner lived an interesting life, and if they had taken this opportunity to show us the fun way they they use her music to tell her story, that'd be cool. But it was honestly hard to differentiate this performance from Celine Dion's song from the studio. The singing was nice, but I feel like the performance belonged on a float, not the star.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Hadestown

I probably have to start by saying Hadestown is the best. If you haven't heard Hadestown yet, do that now, and then you can come back and read this after. It's a lovely show with complexity and diversity in character and theme and song and yet it's so interconnected and every time I see another live performance I'm reminded that it's just pretty dang good. And this performance was no different

I figured they wouldn't do Wait for Me again, but I wasn't sure exactly what it was they were going to do, but my sister totally called their song choice. And as I was watching it, I realized that this is exactly what it needed to be! Livin' It Up On Top is not only a great high energy number that uses the whole ensemble and is dance heavy and is lighthearted and fun, but it also has themes and messages that really do fall in line with the season. I get chills every time I hear Orpheus's toast: "And if noone takes too much, we will always have enough, she will always fill our cups, and we will always raise them up. To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now."

This year, I'm thankful for the world we live in now, but I'm even more thankful for the one we dream about.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Beetlejuice

As I looked over the shoulder of the hosts and saw the black umbrellas and Alex Brightman I was like, "Oh, they're doing the opening again...that's ok I guess." And then when Day-o began my sister and I made eye contact "Oh, they're just doing the Tony performance again." Long time blog readers know that's a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I like to see new stuff.

That being said, one of my favorite thing about Beetlejuice's live performances, is EVERY time they do "The Whole Being Dead Thing" the lyrics change. From the View, to the Tony Awards, to Good Morning America, to the Winter Garden theater, to the Cast Recording, there have been so many new lyrics that Alex Brightman has had to remember, and the Macy's Parade was no different.

I loved these new lyrics, it was more different than usual and that was kind of fun. Alex is a delight and I love seeing how he plays the comedy in these moments and I think one of the cool advantages of doing lyrics SO different is now people are going to have google the show because they'll be like "there's no way they sing that in the show" and that's a success.

I'm so excited this show has found success (even though I did feel a little sad to see my boy Rob McClure absent in this performance) and I hope it keeps running and making people laugh and cry and hope and cope for a while longer.

...And I hope they one day release an album of just every version of the opening number from this show.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade: Ain't Too Proud - The Life and Times of the Temptations

So, if you know me, you are aware that Jukebox musicals (particularly bio jukebox musicals) are not really my jam, and I'm afraid Ain't Too Proud is included in that generalization. I do think it's one of the better bio-musicals out there, but it's still kind of hard for me to get too into it. That being said, I thought this was a pretty good performance.

They had great energy and synchronization that'll give the Rockettes a run for their money, and the medley they picked was a good idea (my dad was here bopping along to the whole thing being like, "Have you guys not heard this song? This is a good song!") My issue with the show is kind of that it works better as a quick medley than it does a full show, but, that does mean it makes a good medley. People who are fans of the temptation will see this and thing, yeah, I'd like to see that on Broadway, and I suppose that's the point, so as far as that goes, I guess it was a successful performance.

I will say, I don't know if it was the right choice for the opening number. I really liked the original Luca Padovan number last year and I think it's fun when they use other shows or properties that have more to do with the parade itself. This felt like they just cut the opening number and instead started right out of the gate with the Broadway performances. And, like, I appreciate the effort, but I do miss the original opening.