HONOLULU ? I?m in the final stretch of my US tour, with just one performance left: tomorrow, Friday the 13th at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center.

In a few days, I?ll be home to rehearse for ?Your Songs? concert. We?ve got our repertoire narrowed down ? thanks to a Skype conference call, we conducted a meeting online to figure out that fun stuff. It?s safe to say this concert will be one for the books. Certainly, it?ll be a show that we, who are a part of it, will be talking about for a long while. Hopefully, the audience will have fun with us.

2 amazing heroines

Last week, I wrote about three of the five shows that I watched in New York this year: ?Rock of Ages,? ?Billy Elliot? and ?Hair.? Now, I?d like to tackle the other two, both with amazing heroines, wonderful music, and a great story of triumph.

?I?m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair.? I first heard that song from the music of ?South Pacific? when I was about 8 or 9. The show was a revue called ?The Best of Broadway,? produced by Repertory Philippines. The male ensemble launched into a rousing version of ?There Is Nothing Like a Dame? which sent everyone into stitches. And this was only in rehearsal!

I brought Dely Fernandez (mom of one of my best friends Yvette Fernandez) as my date for the Lincoln Center production of ?South Pacific.? We were both very excited! My father, as a student at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, Long Island, had taken the train to see this show when it first ran on Broadway. Now it was my turn, and I was sharing the evening with someone special.

What I loved about this production was how the music in its original splendor was preserved. Nothing cut down, truncated, reduced or abridged, just the original orchestrations to this wonderful Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. During the overture, the stage floor pulled back to reveal 30 musicians in tuxedos playing wonderful music. My heart skipped a beat when I saw this. I knew I would be in for a wonderful evening.

Laura Marie Duncan would play Nellie Forbush, and the amazing Tony Award-winning Paulo Szot was Emile de Becque (that baritone could melt butter). There was chemistry between the two and their team-up made for a great night, although I would have loved to see Kelli O?Hara (she would return to the production the following week).

The one aspect of the story that I never really appreciated or understood in a previous production was the racism. For a show where race is an integral part of the tale being told, it makes absolute sense for this visual divide to exist. To watch Bloody Mary (the incomparable Loretta Ables-Sayre) as she wheels and deals with the American sailors ... to see her push her daughter into the arms of Lt. Joe Cable ... to witness the horror in Nellie?s face as she is told by Emile that he had been previously wed to a Polynesian woman. It is important for that to be so painfully obvious and that?s when this show works.

There is also much levity in this musical, too: Just watching Danny Burstein as Luther made me smile and laugh at every scene he was in. I especially loved ?Honeybun? when he and Nellie were on stage in turnabout fashion (she was in a sailor?s uniform, he was in drag).

This show truly deserved the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. I wanted to start a standing ovation ... but the elderly lady seated behind me told me to sit down. Party pooper.

Bipolar disorder

I went to ?Next to Normal? on my agent?s recommendation. I hadn?t heard any of the music or the buzz that accompanied the show, so I went in knowing nothing. I brought my wedding best man Victor Lirio as my companion.

?Next to Normal? is the story of a suburban family: Diana, the mother (intensely played by Tony Awardee Alice Ripley) is suffering from bipolar disorder. The rest of her family tries to deal with it as best as they can. You can imagine the degree of dysfunction this group of people experiences.

Diana has daily conversations with her son Gabe (Aaron Tveit) about even the most basic life decisions. She scolds him when he comes home late. They slow dance in the evening. He?s with her, beside her every minute of every day. But there?s a slight problem with this: This son is actually dead.

He?s grown up only in Diana?s mind. Diana?s husband Dan (J. Robert Spencer) and daughter Natalie (Jennifer Damiano) have no relationship with this presence at all, but Natalie sings of the sibling rivalry between ?Superboy and the Invisible Girl.? That title says it all.

Watching Diana struggle through her illness (during a manic episode, she makes sandwiches for her family, laying down the slices of bread on the floor) and seeing how all the people around her (both real and imagined) help her through it makes for an incredible musical. I cried from start to finish and left the theater completely spent, but energized at the hope with which this cast of characters moves forward into the future.

I?m scheduled to return to New York in the late winter for some work. You can bet that I?ll be seeing many more shows. It?s inspiring to watch some of the most talented performers in the world do what they do best.