Yay! Okay, first off, Del and I met up with Crystal in Muncie, and we talked, and Cyrstal took us back to the loading dock and we got to look at big boxes of props and stuff, and some cast members walked by, and we gawked, but tried to be non-obvious about it. Then we went to KFC (a non-standard KFC, with non sporks! And weird cole slaw! ^_^) And we bonded with Crystal, yay! *sends Crystal love*

And then we went to the theatre, and oooh, Megan, RentGod was there!! I was like "*gasp* Del!! RentGod is here!!" and she was like "Huh?" and I was like "ahh... tell you later!... Frank! You probably don't remember me, but I rushed in Des Moines.. and I'm one of the Curtis Cregan girls!" and he smiled and gave me a big hug, and we reminisced about the Bennies, and talked about the cast, and such. (RentGod being RentGod, he already met the whole cast a few weeks ago in NYC at TTB.) Theen, we saw the show... and here is my review, which I also posted on the boards:

It was full cast (since this was the official tour premiere and all ^_^)

"The fun never stops in Funcie!"

Here is my, considerably longer, and probably quite ranty review. For the record, this was my 30th show, if you want to take that into consideration for my comparisons and such. Anyway. Oh yes, and there was an interview with Krystal (with a pic of her and Kevin) in the BSU Daily News which I can scan or type up later.

Del and I were discussing, and the set looks pretty much exactly the same, but it may or not be slightly smaller. (We were undecided.) Costumes more or less the same-- Paul's "Rent" outfit was this hideous teal jacket and tan pants, and Mrs. J's was like... jeans with painted handprints on it, and a pretty purple jacket thing. Steve wore the old Steve outfit, and not Jake's RainbowSteve one. The audience was very loud and enthusiastic, it was nice.

My first impression of Dominic was that his voice was lower than I prefer Mark's voice to be. (I have noooo idea about range or anything, I'm so non-musical. All I know is what I like, and what I don't.) and Bruce's voice is higher than I like Collins to be. More on this later. Kevin has a great voice. Clark as Mark's mom is SO SO SO cute! She has kind of a little girly voice, and it was just adorable. One of my favorite Mark's moms. (Also, I love her hair so much-- it's shortish and blonde, with pink streaks.) Oh, and I'm not sure if this was a mistake or if they changed the line, but now "a CARDBOARD city has sprung up in the lot.."

Rent had lots of energy. You Okay Honey? was cute. I disagree with that review-- I LOVED Justin as Angel, the guy is ADORABLE. His voice is really pretty.

Glory- Kevin had a great voice, but hsi movements were distracting. It seemed like he was more concerned with moving his arms and legs at the EXACT right angle than he was with displaying emotion. It was really funny, like he was trying to do some bizarre dance or something. I can't even describe it... it was like... slow motion flailing with the arms,and then his knees kept being bent at weird angles. Vocally it was very nice though.

LMC was funny, Krystal and Kevin had very cute chemistry. Kevin did this thing for "I mean, you do.. have a nice.." where he like... leaned towards her and stroked the table.. it was funny.

Today 4 U- VERY, VERY CUTE. Justin was just SOOOOO cute, I can't stress this enough. He faltered a little after he jumped up on the table, but nothing major. And I mean.. those shoes, that jump... sheesh. Then, when he was back down on the floor and running with the drumsticks, he almost fell, and everyone kind of collectively gasped, and he very cutely gave a little dismissive wave and said "That's okay!" Everyone clapped really loudly, I thought it was a very classy way for him to cover that.

You'll See Boys- eh. Matthew (Benny) is kinda little, and his voice is kinda high, and he plays Benny as a 1-dimentional asshole. None of the "I still remember when we used to be friends, but don't you guys see how we need to get real and make money now?" stuff. He was just an asshole who wanted his money.

Tango: Maureen- This was WEIRD. Bridget was great as Joanne, I like her voice a lot, she's towards the "bitchy Joanne" spectrum, but I like that. Also, most people say "I went to Harvard for THIS?" but she said it like, "I went to HARVARD for this?" and I liked that. It was nice. Dominic.. okay. I'm not sure if he was just really nervous, or if this was a character choice, or if it was REAL, or what... but he came off as DrunkenMark™. He slurred his speech, he wobbled, he would make these weird facial expressions... it was just WEIRD.

Life Support: Dominic continued with the drunken-acting ness. It looked like he meant to go to the AA meeting but accidentally went in the wrong room and was too embarrassed to leave. Anyway. Jay as Gordon was good. Very nice voice.

Out Tonight- WOW. Jeebus, Krystal was GOOD! I can't wait to see how good she is when she's had more time with the character! TONS of glitter, and... jeeeeeeeze she's flexible! Her voice is nice, kinda similar to Dom's if I had to pick someone. Clear, lowish, niiiiice.

Another Day- Great. Kevin and Krystal definitely have good chemistry. Kevin sorta loosened up with his oh-so-precise blocking, but it was still a minor issue.

Will I? Cole's solo was beautiful. Overall it was a good song, nothing extraordinary, nothing bad.

On the Street- Haneefa was very, very forceful as the bag lady. Meow. And she had this "... motherfucking artistsss-sss-sss-sss..." thing going on that was cool. I *think* Dominic wiped his glasses off after that? But I was pretty far to stage right so I couldn't see it clearly.

Santa Fe- My mind is blanking for a comment here, so I guess it must have been good, but nothing extraordinary.

ICY- I need another synonym for cute, but... that's what it was. Very cute. I love Justin's voice, and he and Bruce had nice chemistry.

We're Okay- Bridget's voice is amazing. Interestingly, most Joannes sound sweet and nice when talking to Maureen, and sort of busy/hectic when talking to Steve-- she flipped it. She was really excited about the cases, and kind of angry at Maureen.

Christmas Bells- I noticed that all the junkies made a big point of pushing Mimi out of their way. I never noitced that before-- whether it's because I wasn't paying attention to Mimi, or because nobody else has done that, I couldn't tell ya. For whatever reason, be it the actors themselves, or the sound system at BSU, I could hear each part at about equal volume-- usually it seems like Mark, Roger, and Mimi are totally dominating the song. That was nice.

OTM- Wow. Sara was great. She reminds me a LOT of Cristina Fadale, circa 1999. (And that's very much a good thing.) Very cute and little girl-ish, and she came off as being a little nervous about the performance-- shec ould have actually been nervous or it could have been intentional, but either way, I interpreted it was intentional and it worked. She had lots of randomly flexible movements and.. yeah. She did this really cute thing where she had her legs crossed for Elsie, and she sort of shuffled over to the mic, and then shuffled back... yeah. I liked it muchly.

LVB- Random note: the waiter is Steve, and Paul is the Diva Boy, as opposed to the opposite with the Bennies. Again, I'm not sure if the line was changed or if Sara messed it up, but eitehr way, it was "The enemy of Avenue A! And Mr. Grey!" I actually like that line better, since if you missed the "Your father? damn!" in CB, it kind of spells out who the random guy with Benny is for you. Here, Matthew as Benny totally came off as an annoying, petulant child. As Del said... "If I can't play with your Legos, you can't live in my building! Nyah!" Justin kind of flubbed his "And Collins will recount his exploits as anarchist, including the tale of his successful reprogramming of the virtual reality equipmet of MIT.." line. But try saying that, it's SO hard to say, give the guy a break. And he was totally cute about it, like ".. anarchist.. [random nonsense] programming.." and laughing. Yeah.

ISTY- cute. Not one of my favorite songs, but Kevin and Krystal were nice.

LVB:B- Clark is SOOO cute. And so is Jackie (Alexi), she looks like she's about 10. Dominic still seemed drunk.

SOL- very pretty, Haneefa has a GORGEOUS solo. Amazing. Rick's solo was good too, but it seemed a little weird to me. I dunno. I think I'm overly used to Marcus' solo.

HNY- Kevin and Krystal had the CUTEST little kiss-- they didnt' try to be all elaborate and licking each other and whatever, they just.. kissed.. and I swear this huge collective "Awwww" went over the audience. Dominic didn't seem drunk anymore, though he did occasionally seem to be channeling Woody Allen. His "You can take the girl out of Joisey but you can't take the Joisey out of the girl" was hysterical.

Voicemails- Clark is still adorable, Jackie has kind of an annoying accent, but stil a good Alexi.

TMOLM- AMAZING. Mrowr.

WO- Krystal was just fabulous. She's really good. Her voice blends well with Kevin's, too.

Contact- Justin's dance here really blew me away. He was very into it, and it just.. yeah. Very nice.

ICY:R- Not the best I've seen, not the worst. Decent.

Halloween- See above.

GL- Yow. Again, Krystal and Kevin tore it up. (I can't believe I just said "tore it up.") Bridget was great too. It was so cute when Sara and Bridget got together, and Sara was actually talking like Bridget had bitten her tongue ^_^ I've never seen a Maureen do that, and it was just so cute.

WYO- Dominic's Woody Allen imitation was really offsetting for about the first half of the song. But he sorta got out of it towards the end. Kevin kept doing weird things with his legs, but vocally he was great. Overall, pretty good.

YE- I'm not a fan of this song in general, but Kevin's was passable.

Overall-- a very talented cast, I'm sure a lot of the problems I noticed were opening night jitters or things that will go away with a bit of experience. I'm looking forward to seeing them in Peoria in a few weeks to see improvements and changes ^_^ I had a really, really sore throat and I made it insanely worse by screaming. I kept having these throat spasms in the second act and alarming Del.

At stage door, it was kind of a crazy mob, but everyone I talked to was really nice. I accidentally told a random swing he did a great job. And he mocked me and I felt like the world's biggest moron. But I feel like the world's biggest moron at least twice a day so it wasn't a big thing.

Random: Kevin Spencer, with his newly blonde hair, looks eerily like Jim Poulos as Huck Finn. I almost choked on my cough drop when I saw him.