Broadway...Queens of the Lottery...

Sarah and I decided that we wanted to catch a few shows during her stay, but didn't want to spend large amounts of money. Sounds like us, right? Well, West Side Story was the first on our list and one of the two lotteries that were available (of the shows we wanted to see). I had heard good things about it and the NY Times seemed to really like it, so I was actually really excited to see it.

Well, Sarah and I met up after work to try our chances with the lottery. The show was sold out for the whole weekend, so the lottery was our only chance of getting in. Sarah and I have a history with these Broadway lotteries, and have gotten quite good at winning. I was a little concerned that maybe out good luck had run out since we hadn't tried a lottery in over a year. I don't know why I was worried! Sarah was the fifth name called and we went wild! We just have lottery winning skills.Since we had two hours to waste, we headed over to Olive Garden for a little dinner. I know, I know....Olive Garden? It's kind of a little tradition (like many of the things we did over the past five days) and it was a must.

Then we went to West Side Story....Oh, West Side Story. I have a little confession to make. I have never seen the movie or seena production of the show. I have only sung a few of the songs in choir and knew that it was the story of Romeo and Juliet.

Did I like it? Well....No. I really did go in with the best intentions of liking it! I promise. I wanted to love it! I heard so many good things about it, but it was such a disappointment.

I did enjoy a few things about it. Maria was stunning and had an amazing voice. I could listen to her all night long. I also liked seeing Karen Olivo as Anita. I loved her in In the Heights and thought she did a really great job in West Side Story. I also really enjoyed the most of the dancing.There's a long list of things that ruined the show for me. I felt like the set was really weak. I know the focus of this show is not on the set, but I thought they could do better for a Broadway production. There was only one set that was impressive, but everything else not so much. I also didn't really care for Tony. Just wasn't feeling it and didn't really care for his voice. Maybe he just wasn't on that night.

I also didn't like the fact that most of the scenes that were of the Sharks were completely in Spanish. They also sang two songs in Spanish and for someone that didn't know much about the show, I found this annoying. Either go all Spanish or all English...I don't care which, but don't do half and half.

They also had some random kid sing "Somewhere." It's one of the few songs I was familirar with, and I was totally disappointed that they had this kid singing it. I would have loved to hear Maria sing it.

So, Sarah and I both walked out a little disappointed. The more and more we talked about it the more disappointed we got. We were both grateful that we went to see it, but we wouldn't recommend it to a friend.