#I also saw THAT live. I promise I’m not rich 2019 was just a horrible year for me and I compensated by seeing all my favorite shows ig | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

maddgarbagemonkey · 5 years

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DEAR EVAN HANSEN 2018 TOUR THINGS THAT MADE ME CRY

Yep. Back at it again with this nonsense. I saw this show back in November and needed to frantically rant about how much of a MASTERPIECE it is and how in love I am with every single tour cast member. Buckle-up dorks and get ready to read a novel. Its gonna get pretty out of order so yeah, and obviously, SPOILERS for Dear Evan Hansen ahead. :)

So it opens and a bunch of live feed from multiple social media accounts appear on the monitors and screens surrounding Evan's bed and they make little beeping noises whenever there's something new and it was super cool and immersive.

I took like 2000 pictures of Evan's red bed and all of them turned out blurry but I will cherish every single one of them.

The classic Evan rant about sweaty hands and ordering food will forever be my eternal monologue. Ben also said that line so fast I was amazed that he didn't lose his breath and suffocate!

"Ohhh... Good." B A B Y

Heidi (Jessica Phillips) is my M O M. I love her and Cynthia's harmonies were superb.

Ok fam. Real talk. Ben Levi Ross. Best human 2019. Superior to every other person on this planet and I am unafraid of saying so.

I think a lot of people, including me, went into the touring show thinking "That Ben Levi Ross is cute, but I don't see how he could possibly compare to Ben Platt" STOP! STOP THAT NOW! THAT'S NOT OKAY! Because I can swear to you that his performance was one of the greatest things I've ever witnessed in my entire life and I cried so so very hard whenever he opened his mouth.

Not only should actors NEVER be compared to one another (as they are all their own people with their own incredible talent) but Ben's singing and performing was BEYOND WORDS! You could tell immediately how much of himself he put into Evan and did not doubt for a second that he should be up there instead of anyone else. His singing was so powerful and moving that I physically began shaking and did not stop until I left the theater, which Ben himself even acknowledged but more on that later. He was so incredibly talented it was unreal and I just wanted to take a second and say that he deserved every single moment of applause and cheering times a million. I need a recording of him singing Waving right now. BEN LEVI ROSS, GUYS!!!1!!!

oof, anyways his "Waving Through a Window" killed me. I'm dead. Gorgeous boy. Beautiful.

The way everyone's harmonies mix together and hit you in that song are phenomenal.

Jared, played by Jared Goldsmith, had such a squeaky highschooler voice and the biggest, doofy-est smile which made his stupid comments so much better. I loved him a lot. 10/10. Classic Jared.

Also, I would die for Marrick Smith.

Marrick, A.K.A. Connor was so good at being a broken teenager it hurt! I loved him a lot.

It also opened my eyes because... how do I say this without sounding weird... BOI HE THICK!

Marrick was so tall and swol and gorgeous and sweet and I love him and that's my TedTalk. It also created such a strong physical contrast between Connor, who was tall and strong and scary who processed his emotions through anger outbursts, with Evan, who was skinny and small and shrunk into himself and processed his emotions through hiding or running away, in a way that Ben Platt and Mike Faist couldn't really do. It was different in a good way and I really liked it! :)

Y'all can take Stronk Connor and Skinny Twink Evan out of my cold, dead hands.

In the cast signing scene, Connor was overly friendly and smiley which made the point where it all slowly fades into anger at "You wrote this because you knew that I would find it" so much worse.

The little tug on Ev's arm followed by a subtle "Ow" before signing. <3

"I LoVE JaZZ!"

I love the way Evan sits in chairs by taking up as little space as possible! Its such a cool detail to demonstrate Evan's social anxiety and his need and want to not take up too much space.

I just need to take a second to squeal about Phoebe Koyabe, who played Alana, because she had gorgeous pink hair and I was just all around in love with her voice and her quirky little Alana characteristics.

Here's where things are a bit out of order and blurred because I wrote down my favorite things and then instantly lost the paper so... this is all from what I rewrote later on.

During that line where Alana retaliates to Evan accusing her of using the Connor project for her college application, she became completely hysterical and began crying. That "because I know how it feels to be forgotten" will always be my weak point.

"Connor was OBSESSED with trees!"

"We were partners for our Literature class while reading Huck Finn. He was so funny! He came up with this funny joke where he'd say, well, instead of Huck Finn.... nobody else in our class thought of that!"

OH MY GOD ZOE!

Zoe, played by Maggie Mckenna, was so incredible and loveable it was insane.

Her voice was so deep and melodic that just listening to her speak made you want to curl up with a blanket and just be comfortable. She was also so expressive and good at delivering her lines that you felt and understood exactly what she was going through whenever she spoke. I loved her so much and can relate with Evan's sentiments in "If I could tell her!"

"That's just what you do when you're rich and don't have a job, you get crazy!"

That entire scene before "If I could tell her" was so good! She was so snarky and sarcastic with every line and I fell way more in love with Zoe. I love when she's not played as the angel love interest and more of a real character with flaws and feelings and emotions and Maggie's portrayal really solidified that for me! I love this little Jazz band brat!

I also need a recording of Maggie's requiem, it was beautiful!

There was this heartbreaking moment in that song where Zoe looked at and read through Connor's emails and held them close, but at "That you were not the monster," she crumbled it up into a ball and let it fall to the ground, covering up all her sadness with anger and it hurt me.

That song just hurt a lot all around. Cynthia, Larry, Zoe. Just all of it, all of their God-tier harmonies. All.

You'd also be glad to know that Zoe's star-covered jeans were in full view the whole time along with the ones on her sneakers.

There was this adorable moment in the scene before "Only Us" where Evan freaks out because he thinks Zoe's gonna break up with him and he screams and promises he won't start breaking things and Zoe just has to stop him like "no, you tree-loving twink, I'm not breaking up with you!" And Evan just stands there for a second and then does this sweet thing where he awkwardly bends down and grabs her hands and shakes them with a little "thank you." Then Zo copies his little hand thing as responds "Don't mention it!" They're so cute together and lovable it hurts! Hopefully nothing bad happens between them...

During Disappear, Connor started jumping on Evan's bed during "And even if you've always been-" and it was glorious and Evan just regarded it as a normal occurrence.

They also did this thing where they ran on opposite sides of the stage and then rejoined in the middle where Connor helps Evan put on his backpack and then just puts his hands on his shoulders in a moment of bro trust and admiration and then yeets out of existence at "when you're falling in a forest."

BEN'S YOU WILL BE FOUND WILL LIVE ON IN INFAMY!

During the panic attack before the song began, starting when Evan dropped his notecards, you can feel it radiating off of him so vividly that everyone in the theater was holding their breath.

First when he fell to pick the cards up you could see the tears swell up and hear his breath quicken and feel the panic swell like "no no no, this can't happen. Not now. Don't do this!" And the second you think he might be able to pull it together and stand up, he slips and hits his elbow so hard on the floor, we all jump. He lets out the most heartbreaking yelp and clutches his arm, abandoning his cards and the speech and all hope of recovering. The tears finally start to fall down his face and they don't stop.

Still holding his arm, Evan pushes his body out of the spotlight and holds himself in the fetal position, refusing to look up and just all around shutting hinself away from everyone watching. AND YOU CAN FEEL IT! You can feel Evan's shame and horror and fear and anger and it's awful. You almost have to look away because the emotions being displayed are so real and raw. More real than any recording or bootleg out there. And that's why Ben Levi Ross was so incredibly perfect in my eyes, because he could so accurately depict and portray Evan and what he's going through to the point where you have to look away to avoid the risk of being pulled under with him and losing yourself to your own habits and its heartbreakingly brilliant! Again, Ben. Fucking. Levi. Ross.

During "You Will be Found" they also display all these younger and baby pictures of Marrick along with present day ones to show little Connor, which was adorable. But then Larry, played by Aaron Lazar, looks up and sees little baby Connor on the screen and instantly breaks down sobbing, the first time ever since Connor died as we hear Zoe say earlier that "he didn't even cry at Connor's funeral." Cynthia has to come over and hold him to prevent him from instantly falling apart.

Evan and Jared also have this awkward high five at that part and its very uncomfortable and great.

There's another just horrible moment in the middle of words fail where one by one the Murphys all run off stage horrified at the news that Evan was lying. First, it's Zoe with Cynthia following after, frantically trying to grasp what happened with tears falling everywhere. Then Larry, who looks disapprovingly at Evan before solemnly following the others. Then, lastly, in what could just be described as the worst thing ever, one of the screens become transparent to reveal CONNOR, looking in dismay at what has happened, tears in his eyes, before also walking away from Evan back into the nothingness. Awful. Beautifully, beautifully awful.

Evan snuggles into Heidi and stays there for what seems like forever during "So Big, So Small" then, he finally lets go and Heidi rides away on the couch, reaching for him.

Okay, fam. That was all the specific things I wanted to scream about during the actual show, but then I had the pleasure of meeting them at the stage door which led to some great hijinks!

I said something really stupid to Jessica Phillips/Heidi when she signed my playbill probably along the lines of like "You were so amazing I might faint. Please catch me" and she SQUEALED! It was the best sound on the planet.

When Marrick Smith/ Connor came out, I was frozen in shock because, not only was he shorter than I thought and his cool hair was tied in a man bun and he was wearing a cool beanie and some hair feel into his eyes like a Myspace profile picture, I was so amazed that he was real and was standing so close to me. I was so amazed that I stood there like an idiot just staring at him and shaking while he smiled at me, an awkward little baby, until my Mom had to physically nudge me towards him to which he responded by giggling and saying "Aw! Don't be scared! I don't bite!" I... I. How? How do I live after that. He signed by his picture and, get this, also doodled a little mustache on Aaron Lazar/ Larry's picture. I am also proud to say that I saw his slightly chipped black nail polish up close in true Connor fashion. Then he thanked me for coming and waved at me. He was SO incredibly sweet and I couldn't stop smiling after that.

When Phoebe Koyabe/Alana came out with her gorgeous pink hair I squealed and told her she was gorgeous to which she kindly smiled and complemented my dress and signed my Playbill. She was a goddess and I love her so much.

Right before Aaron Lazar came out, My Mom without thinking just called out "Daddy" to which my sister and I were horrified.

Lastly, Ben Levi Ross, wearing the best sweater ever, came out and signed my Playbill. At this point my legs were absolute jelly and I was shaking so bad I almost dropped everything, but he was so SO NICE and, as a response to seeing me dying upon seeing him, said "Oh no! Don't shake! You're okay! Everything's fine!" He was so unbelievably chill and sweet and upon my family showering him with all of the complements he deserved was so down to earth and appreciative. It was so incredible to get to meet him and tell him how amazing he was!

In conclusion, I knew Dear Evan Hansen was incredible and loved it before, but actually seeing it made me feel so many feelings that I didn't know existed. Its such a genius musical and I 1000% recommend! There was not a weak link in the cast! They were all so sweet and talented and just absolutely PHENOMENAL! I would die for all of them! :)

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junker-town · 4 years

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7 athletes who deserved to have long, full careers

Photo by Rich Pilling/MLB Photos via Getty Images

Sports can be cruel sometimes, robbing us of some of our favorite players before they could fulfill their tremendous promise.

Whether by injuries or circumstance, many of sports’ brightest lights were extinguished far before their time. While it’s sad these players had their careers cut short, it’s important to remember the blessing that was watching them play, even briefly.

Here’s a look at some of our most cherished stars we would have loved to play much longer than they did.

Bo Jackson

It’s hard to overstate just how prevalent Bo Jackson was at his peak. A Heisman Trophy-winning dynamo who also hit tape-measure home runs, Jackson was almost more myth than man. Put it this way: In an early-1990s cartoon, along with Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky, Bo Jackson was the animated star. Aside from the legend — like trucking Brian Bosworth for a touchdown, his “Bo Jackson says hello!” home run in the MLB All-Star Game, or any number of jaw-dropping throws — Jackson had plenty of substance, too. He’s still the only player to be named a Major League All-Star and an NFL Pro Bowler.

Jackson averaged 5.40 yards per carry in his 38 NFL games in four seasons, a mark no running back with at least 200 career carries has matched since. He had his best baseball season in 1990, hitting .272/.342/.523 with 28 home runs (142 OPS+, 3.5 WAR) at age 27 for the Royals. But then it all went to hell. A hip injury not only derailed Jackson’s first playoff game in either sport, but ended his football career.

He gave baseball another try, but injuries limited him to just 183 games over the next four years. Jackson was reasonably productive, hitting 29 home runs in 160 games — the equivalent of one full season — in 1993-94, but he was diminished. I don’t even necessarily wish that Jackson played until he was 40 years old. But damn, it would have been wonderful if Jackson got to dazzle us for five more years of his prime.

— Eric Stephen

I’m just here to say I second the wish for Bo Jackson to have played forever. Bo doesn’t know a full career, but, damn, it would have been beautiful.

— Sam Eggleston

Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images

Mark Fidrych

Once there was a baseball player who captured the imagination of a nation. Fidrych was a skinny 6’3, nicknamed “The Bird” in the minors because of his resemblance to Big Bird from Sesame Street. Like the lovable children’s character, Fidrych was endearingly goofy with an irrepressible openness that charmed even baseball curmudgeons.

He compulsively groomed the mound and talked to the baseball, asking it to do his bidding. He’d throw balls back to the umpire insisting they had hits in them, and he worked fast. After shutting down the Yankees on Monday Night Baseball in a game that took just an hour and 51 minutes to complete, his legend grew.

In his Rookie of the Year campaign, Fidrych went 19-9 with a 2.34 ERA and finished second to Jim Palmer in the Cy Young award voting. Then the injuries came. He tore cartilage in his knee during spring training the following year and had to shut down his second season after only 11 starts because of a torn rotator cuff.

The arm injury went undiagnosed until a visit to Dr. James Andrews in 1985 four years after he retired. When his career was over, Fyrdrych went back home to Northborough, Massachusetts, where he lived on a farm with his wife and daughter. In 2009, he was found dead under his dump truck, an apparent victim of a horrible accident.

Fidrych never would have made it in today’s game. He didn’t throw very hard and he averaged less than four strikeouts per nine innings in his breakthrough season. No doubt his antics would have purists clutching their cups.

But he knew how to pitch — he kept the ball low and in the park — and he knew how to have fun. He was, quite literally, just a kid living out an extended fairy tale in front of 50,000 fans and millions of television viewers. For one year, he was absolutely perfect.

— Paul Flannery

Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Andrew Luck

Not many NFL Draft prospects have ever been as hyped as Luck. He was the likely No. 1 pick in 2011, but decided to return to Stanford for another season. That spurred a year of “Suck for Luck,” a sweepstakes to see which team would lose enough games to draft the quarterback. The Colts won (?) that contest and immediately got three straight 11-win seasons with Luck at the helm. He made the Pro Bowl in each of those years and led the league with 40 touchdowns in 2014.

Then he started falling apart.

Luck missed nine games in 2015 with shoulder, kidney, and ab muscle injuries. He missed the entire 2017 season with a shoulder injury. And in 2019, with a leg injury keeping him out of action in preseason, Luck abruptly retired before the regular season began.

Luck’s career ended with just 86 regular-season appearances and eight playoff games — not nearly enough for a player who should’ve been one of the league’s elite quarterbacks for another decade or so.

He could make all the throws, but what made him really special was the physicality he brought to the position. Few players have ever been able to shake off pass rushers and navigate a pocket quite like Luck.

When USC cornerback Shareece Wright scooped up a fumble against Stanford in 2010, Luck destroyed Wright and forced a fumble of his own. When a fumble bounced into Luck’s hands in a playoff game against the Chiefs, he got the job done himself by bulldozing through the defense and diving into the end zone.

It’s a shame we only got five and a half seasons of that player in the NFL.

— Adam Stites

Photo by MARK LEFFINGWELL/AFP via Getty Images

Terrell Davis

Davis became the fourth player in NFL history to run for more than 2,000 yards in a single season in 1998. He was 26 years old and barreling toward the prime of his career.

Over the following three seasons, he’d play in just 17 games. He retired before he turned 30.

Leg injuries kept Davis from following up on that 2,008-yard, 21-touchdown campaign. He played only four games in 1999, snapping a streak that saw him run for more yards and more touchdowns than the previous year throughout the first four years of his NFL career. Between 1995 and 1998, Davis averaged 15 touchdowns per full season and 104 yards per game. He was a full-stop monster in a league where feature backs were still a thing.

Then it all drained away thanks to a torn ACL — suffered, cruelly, which trying to make a tackle on an interception return — and then stress reactions and other knee issues. Even in a diminished state he was ... fine, but clearly not the All-Pro he once was. He retired in the summer of 2000 when it became obvious the player who’d run for 142 yards per postseason game and scored a dozen playoff touchdowns wasn’t coming back.

Sure, Davis accomplished pretty much everything an NFL tailback can over the course of his first four seasons in the league. He won two Super Bowls, was both a regular-season and Super Bowl MVP, and was twice the league’s offensive player of the year. He was a deserving 2017 addition to the NFL Hall of Fame. But a full-strength Davis wouldn’t just be a a firework in the night sky. He would have been the aurora borealis that lit up an entire hemisphere of the NFL’s greatest offenses.

— Christian D’Andrea

Freddy Adu

Freddy Adu is a punchline. On American soccer, on the dangers of overhyping a teenager, and on racist stereotypes about African athletes lying about their ages. But Adu really was something special, as anyone who saw him before he signed in MLS will tell you.

MLS didn’t pick a random kid to promote as the youngest professional athlete in American history. He turned pro because he looked ready for it. He shined at the Under-20 World Cup as a 13-year-old. Even if you think he wasn’t 13 — which, again, is a claim based on racist stereotypes that there is no evidence for — he certainly was not 20. Players who perform well up an age group at the Under-20 World Cup are universally regarded as ready for professional soccer.

Ready on the field, that is. Off the field is a different story. Many leagues don’t allow players to make first team appearances until they’re 16 to avoid the kind of thing that happened to Adu.

The adults who were supposed to look after Adu failed him. In his rookie season, he was spotted at college parties that were broken up by police. Thomas Rongen, his long-time U-20s coach — a person who should have been doing as much as he could to help Adu while he was facing pressures that almost no teenager could possibly be ready for — has callously joked about him having a drinking problem.

I don’t know if Adu had a clinical issue and don’t wish to speculate, but it’s clear that he was completely incapable of dealing with the stress of being called the savior of American men’s soccer at 14 years old, and even more clear that he didn’t get enough help from supposed grown-ups. MLS and Nike had a plan to promote him and make him a media superstar, but no plan to take care of him.

Years after he was branded a failure, he still showed glimpses of brilliance. He was the United States’ best player at the 2007 Under-20 World Cup, and a year later the best player on an Under-23 team that qualified for the Olympics. He set up three goals in the last two matches of the 2011 Gold Cup, and looked set to revive his career. But it didn’t happen. Those individual great matches never turned into a great season.

Adu was not overhyped. He really was the best male prospect in the history of American soccer. He really was good enough to play against adults at 14. And the adults in charge had no idea what to do about it.

— Kim McCauley

Photo by Jordan Johnson/NBAE via Getty Images

Brandon Roy

Roy quickly became one of the best young shooting guards the NBA had to offer. He was an all-star in just his second season in 2007-08, and was the first Trail Blazer to be named to the team since Rasheed Wallace in 2001. Roy’s arrival in Portland helped the Blazers get back to being a regular contender, and it felt like he would be the franchise’s cornerstone for the next 10 to 15 years. In his three all-star seasons, Roy averaged 21.1 points, 5.2 assists, and 4.6 rebounds per game.

Roy was a great player. He may not have been elite, but he had respect from other elite stars around him like Kobe Bryant. Bryant was asked by John Thompson who was the toughest player for him to guard, to which Bryant replied, “Roy 365 days, seven days a week. Roy has no weaknesses in his game.”

Roy signed a max contract in 2009, but would only start in 88 more games as a member of the Blazers. Numerous knee injuries forced Roy to retire in 2011 because he lacked cartilage between the bones of both his knees. Roy attempted a comeback with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2012-13, but only played in five regular season games before needing yet another season-ending knee surgery.

The Blazers lucked out and ended up getting Damian Lillard, who has been incredible for that franchise. But you can’t help but wonder what could have been with Roy.

— Harry Lyles Jr.

Magnum T.A.

Yes, I’m adding a professional wrestler to this list — because Magnum T.A. deserves it. Only the most hardcore wrestling fans, or people alive to see him in his prime, will recognize his name, and there’s a good reason for that.

In the mid-80s, Magnum T.A. was everything. A big, athletic wrestler who feuded routinely with Ric Flair in the National Wrestling Alliance. Everything pointed to him being the next “great one,” with his natural charisma, gifts in the ring, and an unmistakable look that often drew comparisons to Tom Selleck. There was no doubt that not only would Magnum T.A. be a wrestler for a long time, but was poised to be the next “great one.”

Then, at the age of 27, he lost control of his Porsche and crashed into a tree. Everything changed in an instant. T.A. “exploded” two vertebrae in his back, ending his in-ring career and causing everything to come crashing down. In an instant he was reduced from being one of the hottest young stars in the business to an on-screen commentator and personality. He would later go on to become a confidant and trainer, helping some of the biggest stars in the industry today.

It’s not that Magnum T.A. had a sad life outside of the ring, but this is one of missed potential. He was so young, so promising, and in an industry where performers routinely are able to compete well into their 50s. Had Magnum T.A. not gotten into his car accident I have no doubt that today we’d look at him with the same household name recognition as Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan or Macho Man Randy Savage — instead, he’ll be remembered as one of the greatest of all time to never realize his potential, and it’s a tragedy we don’t have thousands of hours of incredible Magnum T.A. matches because of it.

— James Dator

We’ve given you our list, but we would love to hear which athlete you wished had the chance at a longer career. Please, let us know in the comments below.

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