Tag Archives: Musical

The envy of all band nerds

In 5th grade, my classmates and I had the option to pick up an instrument and join the school band. I desperately wanted to play the drums but my parents couldn’t stand the thought. My second choice was the saxophone, simply because it looked rad as heck. All those pearl and gold keys! Shiny, soulful, sultry: the royalty of reed instruments… This little sax, built by musician and LEGO artist PaulvilleMOCs , brings me back to those days. It truly is unique – especially this tribute, with its banana gooseneck and other neat elements such as binoculars and a roller skate for sections of the body/keys.

Practice Makes Perfect

I’m envious of Paul and his saxophone, and I wonder if he plays as beautifully as he builds. Back then, my mom took me to the music store where I was already taking piano lessons, and upon hearing the “member discounted” price of a sax, almost had a heart attack. I ended up with a family friend’s clarinet – which felt like a small step up from the boring 4th-grade recorder. But as a dutiful band-nerd, I kept with it until I switched to its cooler cousin, the bass clarinet, in high school. One of a kind in a symphonic band of 60+. Total rockstar… And I could barely remember a lick of it now.

Her Majesty’s Theater is the place for your LEGO West End productions

There are LEGO creations, and then there is Janet VanD’s recreation of Her Majesty’s Theater in Westminster, England. The real-life theater is a cornerstone of West End theater, hosting some of the best and brightest musicals and theater productions. Janet’s recreation painstakingly replicates the exsqusite detail and the theater-going experience of its brick-and-mortar counterpart beautifully.

Her 57,992 piece build features gorgeous detail and took nearly 11 months to complete. The main entrance treats LEGO minifigure theater patrons to posters advertising the production currently on stage: Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera, one of the longest-running productions in Broadway history.

Those lucky enough to hold seats are greeted to the stunning auditorium and plush seats, with the musical’s title moment on-stage, with The Phantom and Christine on the boat, making their way to the Phantom’s lair below the Opera Populare.

For those lucky enough to be in London December 11 – 13, 2015, Her Majesty’s Theater will be on display for you to see in all its detail at Brick2015. For tickets and more information, click here.

These are probably the worst pies in London.

There’s no denying that Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a dark, dark musical and it covers dark, dark material as only Stephen Sondheim can do.

James Pegrum (peggyjdb), who is no stranger to TBB, has done a lovely rendition of Mrs. Lovett’s meat pie shop. The build is inspired by Tim Burton’s 2007 film.

Meat pie anyone?

No cats were harmed in the writing of this post. They were only mildly annoyed.

“High on a hill was a lonely goatherd...”

It’s funny how your perspective changes with age. As a kid I was tortured annually with the BBC’s Christmas airing of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. But as an adult I find it absolutely captivating – all three hours of it. I mean, it’s got everything… Nuns. Yodeling. Christopher Plummer. Some Nazis.

In the film adaptation, the The Lonely Goatherd number was performed as a marionette show (by Bil Baird and Cora Eisenberg-Baird). And now half a century later, VirtualLUG die-hard Millie McKenzie has perfectly recreated the entire theater and its distinctive puppets for our enjoyment:

If all this looks vaguely familiar, but you need your memory jogging, here’s the original scene:


Clearly the goats were too lifelike, as sadly Millie’s cat later went on to destroy the entire setup…

…naughty kittie, over the Alps into Switzerland with you!