“Love, Janis”
To be honest I hadn’t heard much about “Love, Janis“: The Musical; only a few things here and there, mostly on KPIG radio when the show was already really close. One of my buddies told me he had an extra ticket to the show on the 19th at Cal Poly - and I love Big Brother and Janis Joplin so I was really excited about the opportunity to get to go.
The show kicked off with a short introduction and went right into “Piece Of My Heart” (which is a little overplayed, but still fucking rocked.) There were two girls who played Janis Joplin, one was a narrator of her writing and the other was the singer - who also ended up helping out in the narration, and who also served as a visual show of the duality of Janis Joplin’s personality, she was the on stage personality. I wish I had found out the name of the singer because her voice was… amazing to say the least.
At a lot of the shows my buddy Kevin and I go to we end up being either the youngest or close to the youngest - we saw the Kingston Trio in Carmel-by-the-Sea a few years ago we were almost the youngest people in the crowd, save for a 7 year old that we were informed looked “none too happy to be there”, but because of that and a woman we met there (who ended up being the fiancĂ©e of one of the Trio) we got to meet the guys after the show. Of course, I really thought Janis was far from exclusive to the older crowd that these kind of events seem to generate. It was a very well put together show, with great narration and excellent singing.
Best musical I’ve ever seen.
-Tyler