Last Thursday, Tom and I kicked off the Christmas season (yes it's a season, and yes it's perfectly acceptable to start it BEFORE Thanksgiving!) by attending the live Broadway production of Elf.
I had two worries going into this show: one was that whoever played Buddy the Elf was going to pale in comparison to Will Ferrell and it would be painfully obvious. I was even more concerned when I learned that the understudy would be taking the stage that night. We'd be seeing the second best Buddy that night!
The other concern was around the fact that Elf originally wasn't a musical, and I haven't had the best luck seeing shows where a story was turned into a musical. Turns out I had no reason to worry about the guy playing Buddy (the woman playing the mom however...) but my second concern was sort of valid.
Has anyone ever seen the live Finding Nemo show at Disney? They turned that into a musical too. It was a lot of fun, and well produced, but all of the songs felt forced, since they were written last minute and shoved into the story where they could. That's kind of how I felt about Elf. None of the songs were really show stoppers (although that didn't stop them from getting stuck in our heads) and some of the dance numbers seemed a little odd - dancing around the secretary's desk in the office tossing folders?
It still was a fun show, and a great night. Our seats were PERFECT. Dead center (I've heard that some of the effects, especially with the elves, can fall flat if you're on the side), not that far back, with an aisle in front of us which meant we had ALL OF THE LEG ROOM!
It's always interesting to see who attends these shows. I had a couple about our age sitting next to me, while Tom had a "OMG kill me now, when will this be OVER??" father next to him with his "OMG This is the BEST thing that has ever happened to me!!!" daughter. Behind us we had a group of 40 something DRUNK women who seemed to have gotten lost on the way to the bar and ended up at a Christmas show. I only wish they'd found their way out before they started YELLING at the actors on stage during the second to last song. And around them, two school buses filled with local elementary students. Definitely an interesting mix.
Our local 7 News station were also there with two anchors that I only know as the people who throw to SNL on Saturday nights at 11:30. After the show they were handing out 7 News branded cutting boards...for a reason I'm still not 100% sure of. We skipped those since we really didn't need ANOTHER thing to pack haha.
Still, a fun night and a great start to Christmas. Next stop, CHRISTMAS TREE!!
Have you seen Elf the musical? What did you think?
Will you be seeing any Christmas shows this year?