What's Hot From Spamalot 3/9

Today we have a few fan reviews and Stage Door pictures for you. These reviews and pics are the next best thing to actually being there.

All fan reviews came from The Clayboard.

• From Canuck2010 at CV via Zippy888:

  waterbaby at CH posted a recap from last night: Probably everyone has said everything about last night (Saturday), so I'll be brief. Fantabulous!!! The best of all three nights for me, everybody was so on and the energy was so up! The special things I would comment on that were even better than fantabulous were:
  
  1) When David Hibbard's music began to start for "Bright Side of Life," the audience recognized the song and started clapping before he even started singing, and this seemed to inspire him to just go completely all out and pretty much bring the sunniest sun possible into every dancing step and phrase - so delightful!
  
  2) The second thing that was real notable for me was that Clay's solo was the best I'd ever seen it, spot on, dramatic, with extra flourishes, just absolutely wonderful and a show stopper. One new thing in it I will have trouble describing. It was right after he gets up from the piano and is about to begin his stomping, when he's getting ready to do the ferocious (spelling?) stomping. He kind of did a very humorous flourish with his mouth, shaped a little like the neighing of a horse but a sound that I can't describe - it gave a funny dramatic highlight to his transformation from shyer Robin to the mighty stomping of the bottle dance, and he did it right before he did the shoulder thing to begin the first stomp. Seems like generally Clay is adding those little dramatic things that I see many of the other actors do in their bits too.
  
  Didn't think Clay would come to stage door, as it was 10 degrees colder than Friday night, but he did, with hair slicked straight back (wet?), looking nice. Little don't care about autograph me had been left with an incompleted task after getting Tom Decker and Rick Holmes' signatures on my Playbill Thursday night, so I stuck mine out from the back and completed the trio (0k, now what do I do with it? lol).
  
  I may have to write later about New York, but I changed from having the stereotype of it to not only feeling very much happy, happy, happy here and "at home," to definitely wanting to find a way to live and work here for one school year (still need to float rivers during the summer, but I could rent out my Oregon house during the school year). One lady I chatted with at breakfast at Zabar's put it perfectly for me, she said New York is really just a village with tall buildings. I found the people incredibly interesting, witty, intelligent, caring, and wonderful. I highly recommend those who are staying more than one night to hotel it in another neighborhood; Times Square theater district is fun-crazy, but it's nice to "come home" to a residential neighborhood, and I adored the 77th & Broadway area (also, inexpensive, great food, etc).

• From Bulldog:

  aesbeal called after this afternoons matinee!! She said it was awesome!!! even better than last night!!! Shes contemplating on going again tonight!!! I told her to go for it!!! My gosh she kept saying over and over again how he just keeps adding more to his dancing and the way he interacts with the others on stage..were priceless! especially the woman during the knights of the round table..running after them..and copying their moves..well thats it for now if she ends up going tonight and calling me I will post again. oh and she said he was gorgeous with his hair slicked back with his Carolina hoodie at the backstage door..she got some good pictures she said!!!

• From Okclayhoman - Frin at the OFC posted by Butterflyshine:

  BJ on the phone, they(she and Lisa/tugger) did SRO....
  
  Lisa gave BJ her old film camera and makes you know film camera noise, she turned to Lisa and said your camera is really noisy...Clay rolled his eyes...when he did that...Lisa said "are you rolling your eyes at me? and Clay said: no, i am rolling my eyes at her and point at BJ...she is all fangirly....
  
  Performance was awesome, thinks yesterday afternoon was her favorite...tonight was good, really good, but yesterday was his favorite...
  
  Knights who sang Ni did the milkshake rap and then at the end said, I am Hilary Clinton and this message has my approval...
  
  Stage door attire....dark jeans and really cool sneakers, brown suede with orangy/red...he had on white shirt with faint plaid pattern and red/orangy sweater, and puffy coat....he looked verrrrry nice....tails of shirt untucked....
  
  she is eeeeing over the eye roll
  
  Lizzie from the PAT got her meet n greet picture signed....

• From LuvTacos:

  (dancermom2 @ Mar 9 2008, 06:00 PM) Geekette from the CH just called....she said that her sister was the chosen peasant tonight. She is very happy!! She said the stage door was very crowded...about 100-120 people and they couldn't get close. She couldn't even tell me what he was wearing because all they could see was the top of Clay's head. (priorities woman!!!!) Hair sounds like it was like it was last night....slightly wet and combed back.

• From Vox Angelicus (this is a great first-timer review!):

  I just got back to Chicagoland from The Big Apple and now that I'm back home, I can give my recap from yesterday's evening performance. I'm still on Cloud Nine from last night! My husband had given me Spamalot tickets for March 8th as a Christmas present, since this weekend was a time when I could travel without having to worry about job-related demands hanging over my head for Monday. The trip also coincided with a job-related conference that my husband is attending in NYC, so the timing worked out just perfectly for both of us. Our tickets were in row B, seats 107 and 108. I took seat B107 and was in the exact center of the theater, and unbelievably close to the stage. This is the closest I've ever been to the stage for one of Clay's shows, and it was the one-and-only time that I'd get to see Clay in Spamalot, so I was thrilled to be so close to the front of the theater.
  
  The show was so much fun, and it seemed to just fly by! After reading all of the recaps, now with my own eyes I finally got to see all the things that had been reported---Clay's humorous facial expressions; the cute way he grabs his bottom when he "soils himself;" his slow-motion riding (during which he looks like he's on quite an arduous journey); the way he dismounts from his imaginary horse, ties it up and pets it; the hula; the yodeling; and the bottle dance….
  
  Ohmigosh, the bottle dance! Last night Clay gave a rather demure flip of his tunic when he sat down at the piano. But when he stood up and did his "Tevye" moves----WOW!!! He totally commanded the stage! And when he did the bottle dance, on his knees, moving slowly forward with the other dancers, he had a look of ferocious intensity on his face that was really amazing to see. I was utterly enthralled!
  
  There were other little things that I noticed about his performance that I thought were endearing---such as the way he "fluttered" his cheeks at one point. (I don't know how else to describe it), or the way he pretended to be in suspense when the "peasant of the evening" (it was B101 last night) was told "It's only a nomination; we have to wait for the opening of the envelope," heehee.
  
  Since this was my only time to see Spamalot, I have to admit that I mostly watched Clay and paid less attention to some of the other performers when Clay was onstage. But this is an excellent ensemble cast and I enjoyed the entire show. I particularly enjoyed the characters of Patsy and the French Taunter. And I also agree with everyone's raves about Hannah Waddingham and Tom Deckman; they were terrific!
  
  The show went by much much too quickly. My husband likes Clay, but not as much as I do, so after the show I asked him if he'd enjoyed it. He said that he had, and commented that it was funnier than the movie (Monty Python and the Holy Grail; we both used to watch Monty Python on PBS back in the 70s when we were young marrieds). He also said that it was too bad we hadn't flown in on Friday, because then we could have seen both the matinee and the evening shows. Now that's what I like to hear!
  
  But for me, the most magical part of the evening came after the show. Thanks to all of the wonderful reporters here on the Board, I knew to move quickly out the door to the right of the stage after the curtain call. There was a good-sized crowd, and I was in the third row from the front. But there was a gap between two women's heads, and I hoped against hope that maybe I'd be able to pass my playbill to Clay for his autograph.
  
  And then, OMG, it happened! I saw Jerome, so I knew that Clay was coming out to sign autographs. I was near the start of the line, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to get my playbill signed, but then lo and behold! There was Clay, in his powder-blue Carolina hoodie, taking my playbill from my hand, signing it, and handing it back to me before continuing down the line. I've never had a Meet and Greet so this was a surreal moment for me. It was like one of those moments in the movies, when something actually happens in a flash, and yet it also seems to happen in slow motion and to last for an eternity. That's what it felt like for me, when Clay took my playbill and I realized that he was actually signing it for me! I did remember to say "Thank you, Clay" but was otherwise dumbstruck and in the Aiken Fog for sure! For example, I did notice Hannah walking out the door and away from the crowd, but I didn't notice that she gave Clay's bottom a playful caress. I also have read some of the reports about some sort of disturbance among last night's group at the stage door, but if there was any such disturbance, I didn't notice it. The crowd seemed respectful and Clay appeared happy, at least as far as I could tell.
  
  I probably floated back to our hotel with a gigantic dopey grin on my face for the rest of last night. When my hubby and I were on the elevator going up to our room, there was a cute young woman on the elevator with us, making a phone call to her mom that I couldn't help but overhear because she was excited and happy. She told her mom that she'd gotten Clay's autograph, and I knew just how she felt because I was still giddy with the excitement of it all.
  
  This was only my second visit ever to NYC and my first time seeing a musical on Broadway, and I know I'll never forget it! I thanked my husband repeatedly for making it all possible, and I plan to frame my autographed playbill so that I can preserve those memories. I just know that whenever I'll look at that playbill in the future, I'm going to have the same huge, happy smile on my face as I did last night.
  
  In closing, all I can say is that Clay was born to command the stage, and I feel so, SO very lucky to have been able to see him in this show.

• What a lot of great Spamalot reviews! And now we've got some Stage Door photos for your viewing pleasure: