Etcetera OG ✎ COMPLETE

; joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat play review

OKAY GUYS SO THIS IS GOING TO BE A HIDEOUSLY UNFORMATTED (not a word) AND UNORGANIZED REVIEW BECAUSE I'M JUST BESIDE MYSELF WITH STRANGE EMOTIONS AND NOTHING CAN BRING ME DOWN HONESTLY I'M LOOKING DOWN ON THE CLOOOOOUUUUUUDDSSS.

Ahem. Sorry.

But as some of you may know (and by some, I mean whoever reads my bio on the side of my profile all the way through), one of my all-time childhood loves is the film version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. If you haven't seen it and haven't even heard of it, it essentially follows the Bible story of Jacob's twelve sons, one of whom is the lovely Joseph aka Jacob's favorite. And long story short, Jacob gives Joseph a multi-colored robe/coat because he loves him so much and Joseph is all happy and goes on to describe dreams he's had and what they could mean, and his eleven brothers are jealous and decide to get rid of him, and so on. Just look up the Bible story so that I don't have to give the whole plot away.

Anyway, I grew up absolutely adoring that movie. Donny Osmond played Joseph (and can we discuss how attractive he was in that movie like EXCUSE ME) and Maria Friedman played the narrator who was quirky and kind of sassy and just cute. If you enjoy musicals and you haven't seen this one, I highly recommend watching it. Like...I feel like it's very important that everyone see this musical. And seriously, I shipped Joseph and the narrator together before I even knew what shipping was, and anyone who has grown up watching it like I have will agree. Which is super funny in hindsight because the narrator obviously wasn't there at the time that the story took place and there were no romantic relationships between them anyway but? I don't know. Watch and see what I mean.

As a wee young child, little Carissa used to stand in front of the TV screen in my underwear and sing and dance along to all of the songs in that movie, whether I knew the words or not. If you knew me in real life right now, you'd understand why that is actually hilarious. I don't sing, I don't dance -- I hardly even talk in front of other people now. But as a child, I was so into that kind of stuff. So anyway, along with the musical CATS (also by Andrew Lloyd Webber), Joseph was kind of my life.

When I was in the 7th grade, my sister's 5th grade band director who also happened to be my best friend's mom got them all tickets to go see CATS live, like the Broadway performance, and I was SO jealous. So I kind of made my friend ask his mom if we could go, and then my mom wanted to come because like I said, my childhood. We got to go, and I legit started tearing up during the overture and then the opening number gets going and I begin to full-on weep because I was just so happy to be there and it was honestly a surreal experience to be able to watch that musical live. I don't think I'll ever properly be able to put the feeling into words, but it was kind of like my childhood coming to back to life and...yeah.

So fast-forward to my freshman year of college, and my roommate (Maria), our friend Alexis, and me are all just casually doing what college students do, going to see visiting writers to get our requirements filled. This happens to take place in the basement of a major performing arts hall that's located on my campus, so as we're exiting the building they obviously have big banners/posters hanging up for whatever shows are being put on there during the year, and do you know what I saw, friends? A freaking Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat poster, that's what I saw. I froze immediately, began making incoherent noises, and then took a picture of it. I texted everyone I know, told them how excited I was, and then made plans to go see it even if I had to go alone.

It turned out that wouldn't be happening. Me going, that is. My family couldn't afford the tickets (which were like, really expensive?), and my friend who always offers to loan me money was broke at the moment as well. I made myself forget about it, and once April finally rolled around, it wasn't even on my mind anymore. Then LITERALLY LAST NIGHT I received a text message from my friend Chelsea (who is the only other person I know here who has seen the musical and loves it) (apart from Maria, but only because we had to make her watch it) who said that she found out that tomorrow (aka today) the tickets would be half off for students and that she'd buy my ticket if I'd go with her. And I think she expected I'd say no because I'm normally not into letting people buy me things, but I said yes without a second thought because duh.