Musical Matilda-NYC Part Two

After lunch we walked a few short blocks to the Schubert Theater.  

We arrived to Will Call an hour before the show to pick up the tickets we had ordered. 

Our Cast for the day

Someone found where the chalk is stored

When Shannon walked up the man at Will Call stated that there were still plenty of seats available and would we be interested in upgrading our seats at no additional cost. Yes please. This was perfect timing because once we had our tickets in hand, tons of people started streaming in to buy tickets.  We ended up with center seats in the fifth row. They were great seats.

The curtains were Scrabble pieces 

I liked the guy with the pompom hat

Soooooooo excited 

Matilda the Musical is not Les Miserable. It is a play geared toward families (or geeky girls with whimsical childlike hearts). Like the book, it is funny, quirky, and imaginative. Half of the cast is made up of child actors and as someone who has directed children in plays (that didn’t have to be of professional quality), I was impressed by all of the kids in the play and their various directors, choreographers, etc… I was calculating the hard work in my brain. 

I only had one problem with the play. I have the soundtrack performed by the original London cast and I listen to it a lot.  During certain numbers I had to fight back the urge to jump up on the stage with an exclamation of,

“Hey guys I know this one. I'm going to join along.”

I assume this sort of behavior would earn one a lifelong ban from the theater so I remained glued to my seat.

There are several girls who rotate the role of Matilda. 

Our Matilda, Eliza Holland Madore, is the little girl who reads the comments to Ricky Gervais in the back of his car in an Audi commercial. She looked so tiny up on that great big stage. 

Matilda has a lot of long monologues to memorize in a British accent no less.  She did a great job and performed the best version of Quiet, one of my absolute favorite songs ever, that I have heard.  My eyes got a bit watery as she sang standing atop a stack of books. 

Eliza was quite excited to get the part of Matilda.

She was fantastic, but during the scenes with all of the kids, my eyes were constantly drawn to, Grace Capeless, the girl who plays Matilda's best friend, Lavender.  

She absolutely lit up the stage and made me believe that she was having the time of her life up there. I wish her a lifetime of theatrical endeavors because I would enjoy seeing her again.  

Since the debut of the musical, Miss Trunchbull has been played by a man. Our Miss Trunchbull, Christopher Sieber, was incredible. 

He was having a lot of fun up on the stage. His trampoline jump into a tumble was quite impressive for a man of his size wearing a tight pencil skirt. I have been binge watching the show Pushing Daisies recently so I was excited that our Miss Trunchbull was played by an actor who was in one of the episodes of the now deceased show.

 In  true Roald Dahl spirit, many of the songs have snarky lyrics, especially Mrs. Wormwood’s song Loud that includes her dancing around in a dazzling sparkly outfit.  

Mr. Wormwood sings a song entitled “Telly,” where he bashes books and sings the praises of the television.  Of course I squeezed Shannon’s arm during the part of the song Bruce where the children make a TARDIS reference (in her biography, our Matlida said that her favorite show is Doctor Who so I imagine she especially loves singing that particular lyric). 

Spoiler Alert-The play allowed me to check something off of my bucket list.  I’ve always wanted to be at an event where a huge shower of confetti rains down on me.  This happens at the very end of the play.  It was very cool and I was ecstatic.

While walking back to the train, Shannon asked if I remembered the part in the beginning of the play when Mr. Wormwood threw his fake cigarette into the audience.  I said I did. The cigarette landed somewhere near our section and people glanced around, but no one could find it.  Shannon then extracted the fake cigarette from his pocket. 

It landed near him.  I was excited. It was a great final birthday surprise to have a prop from the Broadway play that involved a character that had such an important impact on my life.  Now I'm going to wait and hope that the other most influential book when I was eleven, The Westing Game, gets made into a Broadway production next.


Our Cast