2024: A Year of Shows and a Bit of Travel

Posts on this site may have affiliate links. If you make a purchase using an affiliate link I earn a small commission at no extra cost to yourself. Thanks for your support.

Introduction

It’s about time for the start of the 2024 wrap up’s/looking ahead to 2025 content to start floating around. While I usually don’t do this I wanted to this year. 

Sometimes it can be hard looking back. January 2024 seemed like it was both yesterday and also 100 million years ago. Removing what’s been going on in the world at large (a lot of not great things happening) on a personal level 2024 was okay. There are some years that are horrendous (for me 2016 and 2023 are big standouts) and then there are some years that are amazing (for me 2012 and 2017 come to mind). Then there are the okay years, where (on a personal level) nothing majorly tragic happened, but also there weren’t a lot of incredible things that happened either. Sometimes you need a year to just be okay.  

2024 The Year of Shows

Don’t think this year was full of nothing though, because one thing 2024 featured a lot of was shows. Over the last couple of years I’ve been keeping track of the plays, musicals, concerts, and other live shows I have coming up, and what I’ve already seen. 

For a comparison in 2023 I saw 12 shows. In 2024 I saw 33 shows. I had a show every month, except April. These shows included 13 musicals, 5 plays, 3 concerts, 2 improv shows, 2 physical comedy acts, 1 operetta, 1 cabaret, 1 stage reading of new works from local playwrights, 1 drag show (my first drag show but not my last), and a few live performances hard to categorize.

I’m not going to review every show I’ve seen in 2024 instead I have some highlights and lowlights below. I wrote about my experience seeing Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. I also did a podcast episode featuring two of the shows I saw this year (Oklahoma and The Sound of Music). And in Episode 17 I talked about Sunday in the Park with George although not the specific production I saw.

2024 Show Highlights For Me

A few of these shows I’ve talked about already, but I’m including a 10-word review below.

• Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. Worth spending $1000 to go to Toronto to see.
• Sunday in the Park with George. It’s a Sondheim musical which is always amazing.
• A Little Night Music. Another incredible Sondheim musical.
• Beaches: The Musical. Based on the movie. Excellent, but so many tears.
• Concert Hozier with Allison Russell. Big fan of Hozier; this concert was fantastic.
• Concert Chantal Kreviazuk. So fun. Would see her again in concert.

2024 Show Lowlights For Me

First some clarification – these aren’t lowlights because of the productions. The performers for all these shows did a wonderful job, and the theatre companies had a great production. It’s more that I just didn’t enjoy the musical itself. 

• Mean Girls: The Musical. I came to this jetlagged and stressed, just not a good start and I found the musical to be underwhelming.
• Oklahoma. I talked about this in Episode 25. The youth putting this on did a great job, and I’m glad I’ve seen this musical on stage because of its importance in musical theatre history, but I have no desire to ever see this Oklahoma again.
• The Bridge of Madison County. Performers in this were stunning, and I wish I loved this Jason Robert Brown musical because I usually love his work, but this one I didn’t care for.
• Little Women: The Musical. I love the 1994 Little Women film adaptation (a childhood favourite), but I felt very meh about this musical, and I really wish I loved it.

2025 Shows

As of publication I have tickets to a couple of plays and a few musicals for the first few months of 2025. Two of these shows I’ve seen already, but they’re ones I love so I’m good with seeing them again. My first “show” of 2025 will be a screening a filmed stage version of Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe. This is a musical produced by the Catalyst Theatre in Edmonton, but it’s played in several cities including Off-Broadway in New York. It’s a show I haven’t seen yet, and while this is a movie (filmed stage show) and not live on stage I’m still excited to see this. There’ll be more shows coming up I’m sure (plus there’s always the Edmonton Fringe in August).

2024 Travels, Events & Other

• January – I flew to Toronto, Ontario to see The Great Comet. I also got to see some family I don’t get see often and I checked out a few attractions I hadn’t seen on previous visits.
• February – I stayed close to home, but did go to Fort Saskatchewan (a small city northeast of Edmonton) for Oklahoma. And I went to Toast in Sherwood Park for an Irish Breakfast (one of the few places in the area that does that).
• March – Friends and I went to Calgary for my friend’s 40th birthday. It was a fun and chill weekend. I also got a tattoo in memory of my friend Amanda.
• April – Just chilled around home this month.
• May – Went to Calgary for a 2nd time with friends to see Beaches: The Musical.
• June – Did 2 short road trips. One to Drumheller for a few days with a stop in Rosebud for Little Women: The Musical on the way home. Then a trip to Canmore with a short stop in Calgary on the way there.
• July – I did some petsitting for friends at the start of the month; a nice mini break. I celebrated by 40th birthday by going to the Royal Alberta Museum to check out their Angkor Wat exhibit, and I had Onigiri at the super cute and friendly Okinawa Onigiri Girl Cafe on 102 Ave in Edmonton. I also went to the New Mythic Works Festival and Taste of Edmonton this month.
• August – I went to the Edmonton Heritage Festival and tried jollof rice for the first time (not sure why I waited so long because it was delicious). I spent a couple of days going to shows at the Edmonton Fringe Festival. Saw Hozier and Allison Russell in Rogers Place (first time at Rogers Place). I also took a drive to Devon to visit Voyageur Park and did the Legs of Fire (lots of stairs; your legs will be on fire).
• September – Drove out with my mom to Forestburg for the day to visit my grandma. Took lots of pictures of the birds at the bird feeder by her window. I also went to Camrose at the end of the month to see Chantal Kreviazuk with a friend.
• October – The big thing this month was attending my friend’s wedding; it was a wonderful celebration. Did a bit of pet sitting again and I stuck mostly around Edmonton, but I did get take the Valley Line on the LRT for the first time (to go back to that onigiri cafe downtown). I also did a ghost tour on the High Level Streetcar.
• November – another trip to visit my grandma in Forestburg this month. We got to see a mourning dove, which we hadn’t seen there before (always lots of chickadees and blue jays too).
• December – stuck around the Edmonton region, but did see a few shows including one at the Capitol Theatre in Fort Edmonton Park. I love getting to see shows at that venue.

2025 Travels

I don’t have anything planned for travel in 2025. I had to renew my passport recently and there was a delay getting it back because of the postal strike. I did get my passport recently (so shiny) meaning I can leave the country, however; the bigger travel problem is I am not as flushed with extra travel cash as I would like to be.

Travel is a bit of a blank page right now, and we’ll see where the year takes me. If anything I can explore around my own backyard. There are some places I haven’t been to for a while and I’d like to revisit. I’m open to getting more money and travel opportunities however they may come.

Conclusion

2024 was all right. I do wish I could have travelled more, but I liked the places I got to visit. And I got to have some really great experiences this year which I’m happy about. I’m looking forward to 2025 and wishing the year brings happiness, joy, abundance, and love for us all.