The Lion King Odyssey

The blockbusters of my 2026 summer began a vacation for the ages. Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and the Log Art Theatre Academy's performance of The Lion King Jr. swept across the screen and stage in what can only be remembered as an epic July weekend. I had the endurance and honor to experience both of these reimagined, classic tales before traveling with the lionesses that are my wife and daughters in my own, real-life odyssey. 

When I think back to my childhood, my recollection of Homer is more Springfield and less ancient Greece. While I appreciate a wide variety of writing and artistry, The Simpsons has a profound edge over The Iliad in my conquests of enjoying storytelling. However, the previews to The Odyssey had me on the edge of my couch, believing I had to navigate a date night to the big screen with the woman who plays my real-life Marge. 

Meanwhile, my 11-year-old had five days - less than a week - to learn, create, sing, dance, and perform one of the greatest animated stories and soundtracks our world have ever known. 70+ kids united on a stardom savanna @ Westmont Hilltop High School and they were amazing. I am absolutely biased, but I enjoyed the two performances those kids gave this Saturday maybe more than any other stage performance I have ever seen - and I saw The Lion King on Broadway many suns ago, and my daughters have been in a number of excellent ensembles over the years. Call it recency bias. Call it Pride Rock, Dad sentimentality. Call it, Dad is taking a deep dive before leaving on vacation - Lion King Jr. was the best. 

It was an astounding achievement to pull off what those kids did. So, the first typed applause goes to the adult directors who dedicated their time, energy, and talent to give my daughter her cheetah chance. To organize and execute a theatre camp in that short of time boggles my brain. From the costume design, to the sets, to the musical numbers, The Lion King Jr. took me back to the thrill I once had when The Circle of Life opening sequence jaw dropped me as a 10-year-old. There has to be millons of people like me who can still sing the wrong words to The Circle of Life and it feels so heart poundingly right. 

Less than 48 hours earlier, my wife and I heard the waves crashing @ Westwood Plaza Theatre for the opening night of The Odyssey. The heart thumping in this arena was due to the 10-year-old excitement running through my veins and the sheer volume decible. If you are one of those people who still "goes to the movies", you are in it to get blown out of the water. The Odyssey did that in scale, sound, and sensational sequences. Allegedly, The Odyssey was shot in just over three months in five different countries. 

What?!?!?

From a cyclops shepherd to an oceanic whirlpool to the Trojan Horse, The Odyssey was a barbaric and bonkers circle of staying alive and impossible to understand how it was made. It is almost three hours long so my finest achievement was maintaining my theatre position without peeing my shorts. Take that, Odysseus (Matt Damon). I was sipping on water like it was the last gulps of my life. Outside the theatre, Canadian wildfire smoke was engulfing our community and the entire evening was quite apocalyptic, which is the best way to describe a date night. 

A Midsummer Nght's Dream?  I think not, Shakespeare. 

Damon is the clear star of The Odyssey flanked by many other well-known Hollywood faces with hundreds upon hundreds of other humans, running and swimming for their lives. The star of The Lion King Jr. was the entire ensemble - every elephant, zebra, jungle cat, and hornbill - every alligator wheeling across the stage in semi-aquatic glory and the hyena trio, meerkat, and warthog filling the auditorium with laughter. The Odyssey will surely get some Oscar buzz, but the best acting I saw all weekend came from Scar and Rafiki - incredible performances by those girls. It will probably take me a few weeks to not talk in a Scar accent or tilt my head like an all-knowing primate. 

In the end, The Odyssey and The Lion King Jr. told the same story. 

It is the story of what it is to have a home; to have something to return to and worth fighting for; the against-all-odds epic that pulls at our heart strings. It is the story of youth, wisdom, and family. It is geography and heritage. It is the song and dance that beats generation to generation, often led by talented kids reminding adults of what is truly important - community, coming together, and never giving up. 

Cheers to all creators and performers, far and wide. Cheers to the Dads like me who will sing Can You Feel the Love Tonight as a personal anthem until August. Standing ovation to The Lion King Jr. ensemble. You, boys and girls, brought it home. 

Nice work, Matt Damon. 

Good day, Johnstown. 

 

A Message from Cinderella

My 11-year-old daughter is in the midst of a stage career. Thus, her 42-year-old father is in the depths of the Dad version of that same career. With age comes wisdom, on and off the stage. Do I bring a seat cushion to comfort quartzite hard auditorium seats? You bet all of Broadway I do. As the kids say, "there is no shame in my game"  (eye rolls from all the women I live with and maybe all the women on Planet Earth). 

I realize the kids do not probably say that anymore. If anything, they text it. In a self-critique of my own modern communication style, I have been like a dormant volcano when it comes to blogging. I have not used this forum since the beginning of the calendar year. My typing fingers needed a boost and it came in an invitation to the ball. 

I was in the crowd for four consecutive nights of Bishop McCort's performance of Cinderella. In my pantheon of favorite childhood characters, which has never been released, I can attest, Cinderella was not on the list. I am more Wolverine and Tazmanian Devil and less refined /pure in spirit man, woman, or beast. With that acknowledged, I learned a lot of life lessons as a musical goer this May. Congratulations to all the humans who brought Cinderella to life and provided the following in an entertaining springtime sequence:

Lesson #1: Pumpkins are for all seasons. 

This fall to winter to whatever this is right now has felt extremely long. Of course, if you read through all my blogs, you would inevitably run into me criticizing unseasonable Johnstown weather. It is part of my Dad trajectory and an adult rite of passage. If you are in your 40s and do not frequently talk about the weather with friends and strangers alike, you are trending toward Cinderella's Crazy Marie, a wilderness woman who talks to herself and wears cabbage smelling garb. 

I really did not remember much about the story of Cinderella going into this week, but I did know that a member of the gourd family turned into a vehicle, which is of course, implausible. With the current state of gas prices, soon I will be trying to turn a pumpkin into a carriage that does not require gasoline. Crazy Andy near the garage. Thinking these thoughts, I listened to high school students sing their hearts out about impossibility and possibility. 

And that is the holding on to your pumpkin power. To give young people the opportunity to explore and entertain. To the students who starred as Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother, you had powerhouse performances and voices. Awesome stage presence that a younger audience can be inspired by. Ultimately believing, that anything is possible. 

The year my first daughter was born, 2015, gas was $2.51 a gallon on average. 

We can get back to this. Anything is possible?!?!?

Lesson #2: Surround yourself with good people. 

Prince Topher's right hand man is Sebastian, who can best be described as a prick. The high school student who played Sebastian hit all the right notes, irritatingly announcing words and appearing as if his eyeballs were going to shoot out of his self-righteous skull. He is unconcerned about the plight of the poor while reading off a scroll and calling people "ragamuffins", one of the most ridiculous terms ever created.  

The Prince grows increasingly suspicious of Sebastian, whose character faults often match up with adults on present-day, real-life power trips. Yet, for all generations and kingdoms, kindness overwhlems ridicule. And when you find the positive pack, run with them and far, far away from the ridicule roamers.

Finding a good woman is a start. I found mine. 

And because of that previous sentence, I got to golf on Sunday. (Bravo, Bravo)

To the teenager who played Sebastian, outstanding prick performance. 

Lesson #3:  Support sisters. 

On the stage for Cinderella, two real-life siblings played the roles of the zany stepsisters, Charlotte and Gabrielle. You could tell they were true sisters just by their shared, bombastic facial expressions and on-stage chemistry. They bounced around like kangaroos in dresses, wildly chattering about the state of their imaginations or lack there of. 

My daughters are 26 months apart and like Charlotte and Gabrielle, they have grown up together - hopefully in a more supportive environment (Madame, evil caregiver, not much care given and a ridicule champion). My youngest has often followed her big sister while creating her own path; over her sister's musical weekend, she had three softball games...which strikes the perfect balance of sport and theatre and parents going insane in a 72-hour time block.   

No matter what recreational or professional path they choose, Mom and Dad will be there to cheer them on. To the sisters who played Charlotte and Gabrielle, good luck with whatever road you go down and thanks for the on-stage comedy and connection. 

Lesson #4: The music never ends. 

My firstborn is building a stellar musical career and that is a testatment to the community. From Schoolhouse Rock! to Fiddler on the Roof to The Wizard of Oz to Cinderella, the common theme has been the fact that she has been surrounded by a tremendous cast of characters. And over those musical years there certainly has been strife and heartache in our part of the world and across our globe. Yet, the heartbeat of a community sometimes is best heard in a song; in lockstep choreography; in storytelling that only young people can tell. 

It starts with dedicated and inspired adults giving those young people an opportunity. I have tremendous admiration and gratitude for the men and women who give kids the musical start, direction, and guidance the world so greatly needs. To Cinderella's musical director, thank you for the years of frenzied commitment to our daughters. All three of you are great and share the quality of being, well, as Crazy Marie is described by Cinderella,"nuts". 

And I do admit that I did not need to see the Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella for a fifth consecutive night. I had enough - the right amount of enough. I look forward to the next stageshow and maybe, just maybe, Wolverine or Taz will be made into a Broadway production. After all, the Cinderella story is one of hope. 

Congratulations to all those local kids who sing and dance their way to the school year finish line. 

As the Fairy Godmother exclaims, "There is music in you".

Eleven Power

To end 2025 and begin 2026, like millions of other humans, I was binge watching Eleven, a super human, save the town of Hawkins, Indiana. Alas, Stranger Things came to a triumphant close. I apologize if I just spoiled the series for you. Blog reading comes with inherent dangers. 

A week and a half after I finished Stranger Things, my oldest daughter turned 11. While I do not think she can read minds or stick out her arms and launch enemies into the stratosphere, she is my super hero. She was born on a Saturday, the only Saturday I was scheduled to work that January, and immediately brought love into my life and secured my day off. Ever since, we have climbed together. And, unbelievably, she is now climbing pre-teen mountain. My climb is up the mountain for 40+ year old parents. It is full of glory and grandeur. I am just hoping my hair line peak stays strong as I reach this decade's mountain peak. 

Climb and pray. Climb and pray. 

While she never watched Stranger Things, my eldest child absolutely grew up along side Eleven, Will, Dustin, Mike, and all the other characters. When the show was released in the summer of 2016, she was stumbling and bumbling all over our house. I was trying to squeeze in science fiction episodes after she fell asleep; that sleep was sometimes graceful, sometimes strange, always eventful. 

As a child of the 80s, the nostalgia of Stranger Things was striking. My daughter grew. Characters developed. We added the much anticipated Daughter #2 in 2017. Seven months later, the Netflix thud could be heard for Season 2. And as each season went deeper and got nuttier, the kids were growing up - both on screen and in our home. My youngest daughter grew fond of anything that fell under the creepy category. Thus, Stranger Things was her hopeful haunt. With enough will power she thought she could break Dad down. If she tried hard enough, her will power could become Stranger Things' Will power. Sure enough, with less than an hour to go in 2025, she was sitting beside me in the Upside Down. I had to explain nine years of plot to an eight year old as we closed in on midnight. Now, that is the true Upside Down in this life. 

Her wiser sister had no desire for any of this nonsense, gravitating our youngest toward less creepy pastures. She holds the moral compass in their sisterly existence, and for that, I am grateful. We are counting on her to lead her younger sister up preteen mountain. 

Climb and pray. Climb and pray. 

And then there is Cambria County Box 11, another superhero of sorts with that number. This volunteer organization in our community supports 1st responders when they are called into action. My family got to learn about this dedicated group after a Crossfit workout on my daughter's 11th birthday. As a wordsmith, I was delighted by the numeric symmetry of the moment. If only Eleven was doing burpees with us at Bold Athletics that morning to really bring it all together. I imagined burpees being so much more fun when you have super human strength and preposterous pain tolerance. I have neither yet I do have something called "Dad Strength" which is my badge of honor and hope... 

"Take that, Eleven. Go ahead and save the world. I am picking myself up off this mat, sweating bullets" (internal talking to myself doing burpees).

In conclusion, I am thankful. For a daughter who has reached 11, another daughter on that mountainous trail, and to Box 11 for helping our community's 1st responders when they need it the most. When your world feels upside down this year, just take a step back or step up. No matter your age or what adversity is in store, we all have some climbing to do. 

Climb on.