Month: August 2014

“Will you share your life with me for the next ten minutes?”

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This is going to deviate from my usual topics, but because I’ve got such a hangover from watching Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years–staged in Manila by 9 Works Theatrical–I just had to write about it. I’ve loved musicals since I was a kid listening to cassette recordings of Miss Saigon and watching our Betamax copy of The Sound of Music on repeat. My trip to New York wouldn’t have been complete without a Broadway show or two (or more), and one of my London highlights was getting to watch Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. You can imagine how giddy I am that my current writing gig allows me to watch musicals and plays for free. It never fails to amaze me how music–the well-written kind–has the power to grab hold of my heart and wrench out all kinds of emotions from it. Joy. Despair. Love. Hatred. Triumph. Desperation. It knocks down my walls and makes me feel things I haven’t felt before. Makes me believe that I’m a mother watching her daughter struggle with cancer (Dani Girl) …

Sights and insights in Saigon

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One of my favorite things about traveling is how it shows me how different other cultures and countries are from my own, just as it reveals how similar they can be as well. I love how no two places are the same. How every experience brings me another level of appreciation, of understanding and misunderstanding of the world. How the most random people I come across impact me in the most unexpected ways. A few days ago, I came home from a short trip to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam–at least that’s how it’s properly called these days. I much prefer Saigon, if not because it reminds me of that beautiful musical I’ve yet to watch, then because it paints a picture more vivid and representative of the city than “Ho Chi Minh” or HCMC.   Many things about Saigon reminded me of other Asian countries I’ve been to, including my own–from the tangle of electrical lines criss-crossing along the streets to the busy markets where shoppers haggle their way to the best prices. But you know the …