Saturday of LeakyCon was especially awesome. Despite the rocky start of missing my bus stop--I wasn't aware I needed to pull the cord thing if I wanted off--I arrived early enough to get a pretty excellent spot in line for the previous blog post's feature, the MinaLima session. Since the MinaLima session took place in the Continental Ballroom, which is right next to the International Ballroom, we then got awesome seats for the next, much anticipated event of LeakyCon: AVP3D: SY...or A Very Potter 3D: Senior Year.
Now, for those of you who may not know...which are probably most of you...a group of theater majors from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor wrote, produced and performed the first installment in what is now A Very Potter Musical trilogy. They formed Team Starkid, a media and musical theater company, in 2009 and have done quite a bit of touring since then. I came across A Very Potter Musical right after it made its YouTube debut and, along with thousands of other HP fans, was very excited to 1) See all the Starkids live, 2) See the 3rd and final installment of the Potter musicals and 3) Be a part of this one-time performance with roughly 3,000 other fans.
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| This logo is from the Team Starkid's official website: www.teamstarkid.com |
Here's a rundown...spoiler free rundown, I should mention:
1) The show was 4 1/2 hours long...I do not exaggerate this number at all. We had one 15-minute intermission where we were told to not leave our seats. Nevermind if you needed to use the lavatory, or eat sometime that day.
2) I was only slightly bored for the last 45 minutes of the first act, and this was because...
3) Some scenes were a bit unnecessary and confusing, due to the fact that...
4) The Starkids were only able to rehearse for 2 1/2 days. The members of Team Starkid are currently involved in projects all over the country and had schedules to work around. Darren Criss who plays Harry Potter, for example, is getting pretty famous as a member of the Glee cast and all that. He didn't arrive at LeakyCon until Saturday morning and had something like 4 hours of rehearsal time...which is crazy.
5) There were full musical numbers with choreography and a live band. The actors were all on book, though some were clearly more comfortable than others. This led to...
6) Hilarious, hilarious and really funny moments on stage. Joey (Ron) at one point actually had to tell Darren (Harry), "Why don't you just walk back over there, Harry." when Darren messed up his blocking. Mics had to be left on leading to phantom toilet flushes. There were even some great moments of breaking character which always make me laugh. The most memorable mess-up for all of us, though, was when Darren could not get his tie tied. He's singing this song, trying to tie his tie, but he cant...and, well, I won't be able to tell this in a way that will make you understand how hilarious it was. I'll just have to share the clip from the show when it is finally...
7) Posted on YouTube. That's right, it will be posted on YouTube for all to watch for free at some point in the future. There were five cameras and a pretty elaborate media team in place to get the best possible recording for the web.
In classic HP fashion, I will stop this list at seven points. It was a great show, making us laugh, cry and forget we hadn't eaten in 8 hours. As a special treat, Starkid did a Q&A panel on Sunday that was also very entertaining. We got to hear about their favorite moments from the show, and their plans to not do any more HP musicals. As they said, "Now it's your turn. Just because we're not doing anymore, doesn't mean you all can't." Well said...well said.
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