Me and My Girl 「前夜祭」| 2016.4.9

[glitra]

So I was fortunate enough to get a ticket to the Me and My Girl Eve of Event last night (2016.4.8) at the Takarazuka Grand Theatre. A ticket came up last minute and I couldn’t say no, so after work I hopped in my car and headed to Takarazuka ♫

Last year, there was a similar event for Song for Kingdoms.  It had featured the main cast of the former production, and the main roles from Cosmos Troupe production. This time, however the entire cast of Flower Troupe was scheduled to appear, along with Misa Noeru, Tsurugi Miyuki, Kodama Ai, Asano Kayo, Sena Jun and Ayano Kanami.

There were five parts to the event:

• ♫Me and My girl ♫, sung by Asumi Rio and Kano Maria.


• Main Cast introductions. All the main roles came out dressed as their larger role, so we had two Sir John Tremayne, two Jaqueline Carstone… and so on. They all made a brief comment.


• Guest Corner: Kodama Ai sang 「♫一度ハートを失くしたら♫」and Tsurugi Miyuki sang 「♫街道によりかかって♫」


• Talk Corner, featuring Tsurugi Miyuki, Kodama Ai, Asano Kayo, Sena Jun,  Ayano Kanami, Asumi Rio and Kano Maria. Misa Noeru was the guest MC.


• The Lambeth Walk with the entire cast of Flower Troupe.

This was such a great event. Asumi Rio and Kano Maria have done a wonderful job working on these roles and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the opening rendition of Me and My Girl. They still have three weeks until the show actually opens, so I’m excited to see how they shine it up even more between now and then.

I got to see the original Takarazuka leads of Me and My Girl singing at the Grand Theatre. I have a growing list of strange things that I’ve experienced that I would have never in a million years expected, and this was one of them. It was so great.

After that was the Talk Corner. It was really fun and amusing. Misa Noeru continues to be a shining ray of “I’ll wear embroidered jeans and grandma shoes onstage at the Grand Theatre if I feel like it”. She’s a great MC and this was no exception. I think that is partially because she isn’t intimidating. She has long ago passed the age where she has any self-consciousness about talking in front of people, and it puts people at ease. It was nice getting to see Sena Jun looking so adorable and round faced again. She hasn’t done a lot of OG work with Hankyu in general, so I was a little shocked when she was announced as a guest. I’m happy I got a chance to see her since I’ve missed all her OG productions since I moved to Japan. Tsurugi Miyuki has the unflappable air that a lot of former Takarazuka Top Stars have. I really enjoyed her and kept thinking to myself, “This sparkly aura of awesome just never wears off of top stars does it?” The same can be said of her partner, who was adorable and vibrant. I wonder if she was that vibrant as a top musumeyaku. She was even, dare I say it, a touch feisty. I loved her.

The finale was the The Lambeth Walk, which is always a fun number. This was clearly the not finished version, as the set and stuff was very much not completed. The house had no windows ect. But the cast did an amazing job, and it was great to have the OG cast come out and join in the last bit. It was great.

 Some hilarious anecdotes from the event :

• Minami Maito took the opportunity to fangirl over how excited she was that she was playing opposite her classmate, Yuzuka Rei as Jackie. Rei was embarrassed, so Maitii wouldn’t let it drop.


• During the 2009 run of Me and My Girl, during the infamous couch scene with Jackie, Sena jun was wiping her sweat off and accidently dislodged her eyelashes. She finished that scene and then went to the next one with Ayano Kanami. When they got offstage Kanami plucked her own fake eyelashes off and handed them to Sena Jun with a “Please use these!”. Kanami then revealed that all she was thinking about during that song was “Asako has no eyelashes… what do I do… how do I get Asako eyelashes”.


• Before the original production of Me and My Girl opened, Tsurugi Miyuki went on a whirlwind trip to London and New York to see the productions that were running there. While in one of these locations (I forgot which one exactly, sorry) the staff had set up the chance for her to speak to the lead backstage. But nobody made the connection that if it was an all female theatre troupe, then the lead would be Bill not sally. So she was led backstage and introduced to Sally. When they inquired after Bill, they were informed that he had already returned home for the night. Whoops.

Overall it was really enjoyable~! I'm happy despite the fact that I was struck down with a raging fever after getting home last night. Oh~! And they did have video cameras filming and will no doubt be aired on skystage in the future.

Comments

[snow-poppy.livejournal.com]

Yay! ❤️🌸

Like I said I'm whatever about this show but am looking forward to Hanas. Also lol @ Maitii

[pom-pa-la.livejournal.com]

Tsurugi Miyuki is the one who Micchan reminds me of! AND (fabulous shoes aside) I've only seen Kodama Ai through ripped VHS fuzz but I think your assessment is pretty correct. She was adorable and vibrant but strong and a very filled-her-partner's-gaps perfectly type musumeyaku.

[charis]

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I have a lot of love for Tsurugi Miyuki and Kodama Ai (who seems, from what I've seen, to have been just as delightful when she was top -- both attitude and in the acting and vocal chops to match her partner), so I am (a) totes jealous of you and (b) super-excited reading this. I love the anecdotes that come out of these things, so thank you for sharing.

Also, Misa Noeru is a treasure, full stop. ♥