Evita

I'm thrilled to announce that I will be portraying Eva Peron in CCMT's spring production of Evita. The complete cast has been announced announced on the website, and it looks like it's going to be a great show! I'm ecstatic about the opportunity to play a non-fictional character. There's so much research to be done, and so many opinions and myths to be sorted through. On how she got to Buenos Aires, alone, there are so many version of the story. She was called a saint before she was on her deathbed, and her picture sits, in many Argentine households next to a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe. This woman who created so much love and hate around her fascinates me, and Webber has created a musical which also looks both at the immense good that she did for her people, and the vast corruption under and during Eva Peron's rise to power.

Tickets are already onsale, and rehearsals begin February 1st. I hope you'll come out and see the show. This is the greatest role I've landed to date. In fact, possibly one of the greatest female roles in musical theatre history. Of course, this is only my opinion. But that just tells you how excited I am.

Into The Woods PR Shots

Hey everybody! Here are the pics I promised you!

The show opens on the 19th, with a preview on the 18th. We run for three weekends. I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a lot of fun! I'm finally in something that my little siblings can come see, and I think they're old enough now. My little sister likes to dress up like a princess, and apparently ADORES Cinderella. So that's going to be über cute! 

Mindy Lym as Cinderella

David Sattler as Cinderella's Prince & Mindy Lym as Cinderella

Nick Balian as Jack, Evan Boomer as Rapunzel's Prince, Lee Ann Payne as The Baker's Wife,

Paul Araquastain as The Baker, Mindy Lym as Cindrella, David Sattler as Cinderella's Prince & Elise Marie Cordle as The Witch

Paul Araquastain as The Baker, Lee Ann Payne as The Baker's Wife & Nick Balian as Jack

Evan Boomer as Rapunzel's Prince & David Sattler as Cinderella's Prince

David Sattler as The Big Bad Wolf & Alanna Pinell as Little Red Riding Hood

Into The Woods

Hey everybody!

I recently started rehearsal's for Sondheim's Into The Woods at Broadway By The Bay.  I'm playing the role of Cinderella, and it looks like an awsome cast!! We're having such a good time. For those of you who don't know, Sondheim is some of the must difficult music there is. So we have two entire weeks of music rehearsal. That's strictly music, 6 days a week, before we ever even start looking into blocking, and getting it on it's feet. It's fun. It's a great challenge, and everybody in the cast seems to be fully up to the challenge. Actually, the woman playing Jack's Mother, Linda Piccone, was nominated for a critic's circle award for the very same role. She and I worked on My Fair Lady together. She was Mrs. Pierce to my Eliza Doolittle. 

She and I are conspiring to start backstage gin rummy games backstage again. We went nuts in MFL playing rummy. It was so much fun! It was one of those throw-your-cards-down-on-the-table-and-curse-your-neigher-with-all-the-love-in-your-heart kinda games. There were a whole bunch of us that would play ritualistically every night, and it was non stop bickering, yelling, laughing, and cards flying off the table onto the floor. Good times. We'll see how this cast fares. :-)

So, back to Into The Woods. Our photo shoot in on Friday, so hopefully I'll have some PR shots up for you soon. They're taking shots of a few different scenes including me with my shoe. In this case, a golden slipper. Not the Disney glass slipper, but a golden slipper. 

One of the things that I love about this show so much, as that Sondheim and Lapine really did their homework on their fairy tales. They go back to older versions of the stories that are sometimes less well know to modern day audiences. For example, the tale of Cinderella may have originated as far back a the first century BC, in the tale of Rodophus, written by a Greek historian. There are so many versions of this story. There's a medieval Indo-Malay story of Anne De Fernandez, where the prince finds a golden slipper and traces it all the back to her. This story includes evil stepmother and all. For more history on Cinderella stories, go to the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella

Well, I need to eat dinner before I run off to rehearsal, so that's all for now. But please feel free to drop by the Broadway By The Bay website for more information on the show. It's gonna be a good one! The link is in the right hand navigation bar. Enjoy!

Illegal Images For Sale!

Funny to Google my name and find an image of myself rehearsing for sale on what looks like a Russian stock photo site. Definitely illegal. Great picture though! I wish I had a copy of it without all the words over it. I also wish they weren't trying to make money of my image without my consent. Anybody have advice on this?? Is there a lawyer in the house?

Enjoy the photo!

Opening Night

Boy, stage makeup is scary isn't it?? 

Well, we opened on Friday! It went well, all things considered. Saturday night was even better. This show is really a dancer's show. There are so many phenomenal dance numbers, and the choreography by Alex Sanchez is both stunning beautiful and intensely energetic. As the Conta Costa Times said, we have a "cast of nearly two dozen powerhouse dancers who leap and soar around the stage". They get applause during numbers every night!

That review overall is pretty funny, and really nails the production on the head. (See my side links). Seven Brides is not a musical you go to for deep emotional content, nor is it politically correct, realistic, contemporary or brilliantly written. However, if you can suspend your disbelief (as you often must in musical comedy), it's is utterly hilarious, silly, energetic and engaging.  We're having a blast!! The audiences have started hissing and cheering on different characters as they get further into the show. 

Woodminster is really a family venue, in every sense of the term. It is run by two generations of the Schlader family, and a large portion of their audiences are families that come in groups, with their blankets, food and warm coats for a beautiful night under the stars. 

I love this venue. Really. I LOVE it. It's so beautiful. From the seats, you can look over the proscenium and see the glowing lights of the San Francisco shoreline. The theatre itself is surrounded by redwoods, which happen to be my favorite tree. So I'm just in a little piece of heaven in this theatre.

Show closes Sunday!! 4 more performances!!

www.Woodminster.com

Let me know if you're coming out to see it.

Lots of love,

Mindy

"Seven Brides" Opens Friday July 11th!

Hey everybody!

Rehearsals are moving right along. It's been intense rehearsing outdoors. On weekends, we have daytime rehearsals in the blistering heat (literally... the soles of people's shoes are melting off as they dance). And on weekdays we rehearse at night. That's hasn't been so bad. We only had one really frigid night during the first or second week, when I would sing, and sustain a note, and streams of mist would come out of my mouth! It's great to be out in nature though! It's such a gorgeous venue. It's nestled into the Oakland hills, among the redwoods, and you can see the lights of San Francisco beyond the proscenium of the theatre! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

We just got our sounds system on Tuesday, and I'm making all the necessary vocal adjustments. Everything is sounding 10 times better! It's echoing through the hills. Because of the amplification, and the fact that I can now hear myself (it's a 2,000 seat, outdoor, uncovered theatre), I'm able to put all the finesse back into the sound. It's so gratifying... *sigh* All that hard work does pay off in the end. Yay.

And we're opening in two days!! I'm so excited!! It's getting better every night. Some of the cuts in the show are pretty awkward - but we're making sense out of them. I understand why they made them. When your audience is out in the cold, they can get antsy pretty quickly. Ah, outdoor theatre!

Here are some pics for you guys. They were all taken in broad daylight, and before the sets were finished, but they're still really fun. I hope you enjoy them!

Love,

Mindy

A Few Pics...

All of these pics are from rehearsal. The dress rehearsal was really for the women, so we wouldn't trip in our floor length gowns and heals. Hence the men in jeans, and women in evening attire... 

(l-r: Mindy Lym, Gregory Zema, Ben Jones and Katy Stephan)

This first picture is actually from the very end of the show. It's the moment we call "Chaos", where every person on the stage burst into a song they've sung at some point during the show, in whatever key they feel like; an overwhelming montage of ghosts from one man's past. I'll leave the cacophony to your imagination!

I'm really not sure what song this is... But I like the picture. Alas, I have to say, if I had know I was going to match the table cloth, I might have gotten a different dress. Oh well, things could be worse, right??

(l-r: Melody Moore and Mindy Lym)

This is an earlier rehearsal, when I was temporarily standing in for Sheri Greenawald. She wass sick, and having some vocal trouble, and didn't have an understudy. Eventually another local dramatic soprano stepped in for her for the performances, but it was fun singing "One More Kiss" with Melody. She voice is just incredible! My jaw dropped when she opened her mouth. Stunning.

(l-r: Darla Wigginton, Conductor Michael Morgan, Trente Morant, Gregory Zema, Mindy Lym, Ben Jones and Katy Stephan)

And a curtain call of denim and silk! :-)

Well, that's all for now. 

Thank you to the Oakland East Bay Symphony for these pics. They sent them to me free of charge! (Thank you Patrice! Very thoughtful!)