So many shows, so little time to blog

I have been a very fortunate girl lately and have been the recipient of tickets from generous friends.  But work has kept me so busy (and my friends have been so generous night after night!) that I haven't had time to blog.  So I guess I'll try to fit my thoughts from last week's theater (and ballet) extravaganza into one post.  We'll see how it goes - I think it goes without saying that this will be a loooooooooong post...

An extremely generous theater friend invited me to join her, as her guest, at a performance of Anastasia, one of her favorite shows.  I've long wanted to see Anastasia for several reasons: I love the Ingrid Bergman/Yul Brynner film; I love the score to the animated film; I love all of the creators of the current Broadway musical.  It's been selling so well, however, that discounts are really few and far between and finding room in my budget for a full-price ticket just wasn't happening.  So my generous theater friend's offer came at a great time.  PLUS, I got to celebrate her birthday!  So it was a wonderful night all the way around.

photo credit: Matthew Murphy

I had a grand time at Anastasia.  The show is simply gorgeous, with stunning sets and costumes (we were in the second row and seeing those clothes up close was AMAZING, I am coveting the czarina's white dress in a major way) and I liked the new songs along with the old ones from the animated film.  In some cases, the old and new music co-existed, which was also fun.  The scope of the show is enormous, though it never lost the heart or emotion.  I loved the performers, especially the actress playing Anastasia and the actor playing Gleb.  I'm not completely sold on his character (he's an odd amalgam of Yul Brynner and the animated film's Rasputin), but the actor was terrific.  He's making some really bold, quirky, almost-odd choices that at first seem askew with a brassy Broadway musical, but they really work.  I'm so glad I finally got to see Anastasia and I'm already planning a return trip, now that standing room and rush tickets are available.  You should go, too.

Thursday night, I went to a performance of ABT's fall season.  I chose that particular program because I wanted to see David Hallberg dance in Jerome Robbins' Other Dances, and I wanted to see the ballet Her Notes, because it was choreographed by a woman and there aren't enough ballets programmed that are choreographed by women.  I want to support changing that dynamic as often as I can.

I'd seen two of the ballets performed before: Symphonic Variations (you can see my previous review HERE), and Serenade after Plato's Symposium (you can see my previous review HERE).  My thoughts are mainly the same and since my brain is pretty full, I won't go over those pieces again.  I would like to say that Calvin Royal III was in both pieces and he is simply enchanting to watch.  So beautifully elegant and controlled.  I look forward to seeing more from him as his career progresses.  The other two ballets were new to me.  

photo credit: Rosalie O'Connor

Her Notes, choreographed by Jessica Lang and set to music by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (played by solo pianist Emily Wong), is a lovely and delicate piece, with gorgeous music by a long-overlooked female composer (and the sister of Felix Mendelssohn).  The ballet begins with a woman seemingly seen in a picture frame, with a group of people looking at her.  She steps out of the frame and begins to dance.  The other dancers soon join her - there are five movements in this piece, each smoothly moving into the next, with duets, trios and group sections.  The music and the steps are well-matched and though I didn't notice anything overly special or unique about the piece, it was lovely and terrifically danced.  I think I liked Misty Copeland better in this ballet than I ever have.  But everyone was good.

Other Dances was created by Jerome Robbins for Baryshnikov in the 1970s.  It was danced last week by David Hallberg and Hee Seo, two of the most gorgeous dancers I've ever seen.  They're both so classical and stunningly beautiful, if a bit remote for the bits of humor in the piece.  Again, Emily Wong was the piano soloist (yay, a female soloist this time!), and it was just her, her piano, and the two dancers on stage.   The music was by Chopin, so just imagine all the beauty throughout this ballet.  It was lovely and it was so pure, classical and gorgeous, I could see it again and again.  Sorry I can't be more descriptive - just imagine two beautiful people floating through space and music and that's pretty much Other Dances.  How bad can that be?!

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

Saturday night, I went with a handsome friend to see an early preview of M Butterfly, David Henry Hwang's beautiful play, which is finally having a Broadway revival.  The original production is one of my 'time machine' plays, in that I wish I had a time machine so I could go back in time to see it.  I remember vividly watching a scene on the Tony Awards and finding John Lithgow and BD Wong completely compelling, even in just that tiny scene.  I read the script as soon as it was published and I have loved the play ever since.  I've just never seen it staged.  Since we saw an early preview, I'll only discuss the production briefly.

Julie Taymor is directing this production and, if you've been reading any of the pre-show news articles, you'll see what partially drew her to the piece was the idea of creating of a 'Chinese puzzle box' as her main set pieces, using moving panels throughout.  I will say that sometimes the panels were glorious (hello, it IS Julie Taymor), and sometimes they were just a pain in my neck (hello, it IS Julie Taymor).  I could've used maybe 30% fewer panels.  But the play itself is still stop-the-presses brilliant, and I need to take a look at the script to see what changes have been made.  David has mentioned in interviews that when the show opened on Broadway, the story of the real person the play was based upon was mainly unknown to almost everyone.  Now, that element of surprise is gone.  But the real person's story has had more strange twists and turns over the years, so David did some rewriting to his play to reflect the things we know now.  I'd have to say the changes were pretty seamless in that they weren't readily obvious as "HEY, that's new!", but I think I could tell where some of the updates/fleshing out parts happened.  I just have to read the script to see if I'm right.  And Clive Owen and Jin Ha are spectacular!  I can only imagine how much more wonderful they'll be as previews continue, so I will totally have to go back later in the run.  I'm so glad I finally got to see the play - it's just so beautifully constructed and says so much about love and blindness and East/West relations.  Plus, it's funny and touching and terrifically smart.  I say go see it - the Peking Opera stuff is practically worth the price of admission in itself.

Finally (aren't you glad I'm almost done?  Aren't you tired, too?), I saw the closing performance of Michael Moore on Broadway: The Terms of My Surrender.  I don't know what I expected, but my goodness, I loved it!  It was nearly three hours of laughter and tears.  It was a rallying cry - he kept talking about how one person can make a difference and he kept showing concrete examples of that.  I had no idea about his Elks experience, or his experience as the youngest elected official in the U.S., or the experience about meeting Reagan at a cemetery in Germany, but his stories were so inspiring!  They were funny and scary and sad, all at the same time.  I can't tell you what a good time I had.  Yes, I'm in the choir that he's preaching to, but I was just so engaged.  His librarian story had me laughing and crying at the same time - and the librarian was in the theater!  His impassioned pleas for the people of Flint were wonderful - and one of the rallying mothers of Flint was in the audience!  His special guest was Senator Kirsten Gillibrand - yikes, what a terrific woman!  It was just a wonderful wonderful afternoon, and I'm so grateful to my Tony-voter boss for taking me.  Oh, and before the show, I happened to be waiting for my boss on the sidewalk when Michael Moore arrived.  He got out of his car and proceeded to take videos of everyone waiting outside the theater, and selfies with anyone who asked.  It was quite sweet.  And the speech he gave at the end of the performance was truly beautiful, where he talked about how this experience has changed his life and he thanked US, the Broadway audience, for changing his life.  Yes, I cried even more.  It was a roller coaster of emotions, but thumbs WAYYYYYYYYYYY up for Michael Moore, who I think can be a showboating bully at times, but he's also so passionate, you can't help but get on board.

No theater this week, though I am headed to the Austin Film Festival on Thursday.  I'm sure I'll have lots of stories from there!  Enjoy your week - I just hope I can reset my tired brain so I'm ready for more wonderful experiences around NYC!

Thoughts on Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train

Of course we all know that I love the Signature Theatre - I like how they commit to writers and do several of their plays over a few seasons.  I also like how they do second productions of plays that deserve another look.  I further like that they are really working on having diversity in their programming.  So it's obvious I was going to go check out their production of Stephen Adly Guirgis' Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train.  

I missed the original Off-Broadway production of this play, though I had read it a while back.  The only two of Stephen's plays I've seen are Motherf*cker with a Hat and Between Riverside and Crazy (remind yourself of my review HERE).  Stephen writes dialogue like no one else.  There's a roughness and an authenticity to his characters and the way they speak; I really admire that.  Plus, the characters all sound like themselves and not like the author, if you know what I mean.  I really admire that, too.  Normally, I don't like scripts that have so much profanity in them; to me, it seems like the author just throws in the rough language for a laugh.  But here, I really believe this is how the characters speak, it's their actual dialect, and it works like gangbusters for me.  They immediately draw me in and I get totally immersed in what's happening to them.

This production has had some setbacks - two of the originally-announced actors have been recast, one during rehearsals and one just last week, so instead of seeing the start of the third week of previews, I saw only the third preview with this particular cast.  One actor was even on book for a bit of the evening.  So I'll only mention a few thoughts:  first thought, go see this play!

photo credit: Joan Marcus

Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train is a passionate look at good vs evil, heaven vs hell, self-knowledge vs delusion.  It's about a lot of things and it boldly grabs us from the opening monologue and doesn't let go.  That opening monologue is funny and sad and profane, all at once, and it just keeps building until you think it can't sustain itself, but it does.  The play takes place on Rikers Island, where a new prisoner, Angel Cruz, and a longtime prisoner, Lucius Jenkins, are both trying to survive.  The revelations about how each man got where he is are quite surprising - I could hear gasps in the audience throughout the night.  Other characters in the play include a defense attorney and two prison guards.

No one is who you think they are, and the flashback and flash-forward monologues that break up the action reveal much about not only the characters, but also end up revealing things about ourselves in how we respond to them.  The play is really very cleverly constructed and very lean - there's nothing extraneous or unnecessary.  There are some monologues that are so over-the-top amazing, I sort of wanted to stop time and wallow in them.  And the acting is absolutely fantastic, top to bottom.  

Before the show started, a Signature employee came on stage and told us that one actor might have to refer to his script during the evening, since he came on board only a week ago.  There was also a prompter in the audience, if needed.  After about a minute, I totally forgot that someone in the cast was new.  They all seemed to be in perfect sync, firing on all cylinders.  When the newest actor brought some pages on for a few scenes, I actually thought it was part of the play, I was so invested in what he was doing.  Only after a few minutes did it dawn on me that he must've been an actor referring to his script as opposed to the character referring to some legal documents.

The physical production is spare, which worked well.  I liked the sound design, though a couple of cues may have come in late, because I wasn't sure if they were meant to be there or not, but that's probably a tech quirk that will be worked out during previews.  I won't say much more, except I really enjoyed myself (except for during intermission, when the couple next to me got into an argument about our current president with a couple behind them - I was quite irked; theater is my safe space, I go there to get AWAY from that crap!  ok, happy place, moving on) and I think you should go.  I'm considering getting a ticket (if I can, Signature generally sells out pretty quickly) for later in the run to see how everything has gelled even more.  But this show, with all its pre-production hiccups, is already pretty terrific.  As is Stephen Adly Guirgis, truth be told.  Support his work.

Thoughts on The Band's Visit

I am extremely dumb and didn't see The Band's Visit when it played Off-Broadway last year.  I guess I can't see everything.  I should've seen it, though; I'm a fan of the writing team, I'm a fan of the cast, and a fan of new musicals.  I was so grateful when it was announced that the show would be moving to Broadway - everyone I know who had seen it told me how great it was.  Thankfully, I didn't have to miss out on it forever.  I wasn't sure, though, that I would get to see it because there haven't been any discounts.  But because I bought a coupon subscription to the Atlantic (where The Band's Visit played Off-Broadway), I was offered a discount code to see a preview.  Last night was the happy night.

The show doesn't open for three weeks, so I will only offer a few thoughts, since I'm sure they're still making changes.  Here are my few thoughts:  you should go see The Band's Visit.  Thank you, see you next time.

Seriously, I found the show to be so achingly lovely, I was rather taken aback.  I enjoy David Yazbek's work, but I think of him as rather a bold songwriter.  The Band's Visit is gentle, searing, delicate, though his comic songs were, as usual, uproarious.  The love ballad in the roller rink - hysterical.  I was writing an email to someone else, trying to describe the show, and another word that kept coming to me was 'unexpected.'  I don't know the film on which the musical is based, so the plot was completely unknown to me and I loved it that way.  Nothing happened the way I expected to, to my great joy and surprise.  

Nothing happened the way the characters expected, either, I'm thinking.  If I were to describe the plot, not much really happens.  An Egyptian band, set to play in a town in Israel, arrives in the wrong town and has to spend the night there.  See, not much, right?  But, like in life, even when nothing really is happening, everything is happening.  Situations are changing, choices are magnified, eyes are opened, wounds are healed.  Life.  It's magical, even when it's not.

photo credit: Ahron Foster

The cast is fantastic, from top to bottom.  Katrina Lenk, who knocked me out in Indecent, knocked me out even more in The Band's Visit.  Tony Shalhoub is a longtime favorite of mine (have you seen him in Galaxy Quest?  comedy genius) and he was superb in this.  John Cariani was a delight, as was everyone else in the cast, frankly.  The design is gorgeous (as in gorgeously right), the libretto is smart and spare, funny and sad, and then there are the songs.  Oh, the songs.  They're really wonderful, with tinges of Arabic and klezmer, but still theater music.  The pairing is rather brilliant.  Many actors double as musicians and when this 'orchestra' plays, it's fantastic.  The show is played without intermission and, at one point, I thought 'I think we're approaching the end'.  And we were, with the most unexpected character singing the most gloriously transcendent song.  My eyes welled up with the gorgeousness of it.  

Have I said too much?  I always hate to say too much, in case you decide to see the show, based on what I've written, and things have changed during previews.  But I think it's safe to say that this beautiful show will remain beautiful.  It's a small, intimate show, though, so I'm unsure how it will do business-wise.  I hope it does well and can run for a long time, because in these times of strife, seeing this ragtag group of people find a way to connect was a wonderful thing.

Seat neighbor-wise, the gent on my left was not having it.  I think he was looking for something a little brassier, he didn't quite seem as entranced as the rest of us.  At one point, he sighed so loudly, I thought he was getting ready to sing something from another show.  Then there was the family in the row in front of me and the parents kept (distractingly) looking down the row at the kids.  I wanted to say to them, your kids are behaving and paying attention, you should too!  And someone in the front row (I was in the front mezzanine) looked at their phone about every fifteen minutes.  That light that just drags your eyes to it, ugh.  I hate it.  Good thing I loved the show so much and didn't lose control at anyone.

look at this line!

Oh, and here is a completely shallow remark:  I saw in the playbill that someone I worked with in summer stock over 30 years ago was in the show.  Hey, cool!  I haven't seen him since!  He was quite the dish back then, very dreamy, very impressed with his own looks, I wondered how he looks now!  Well.  Color me surprised.  Let me just say that I felt quite young and beautiful after I saw him.  See, I told you it was shallow.  But I don't often feel young and beautiful anymore, so that was a treat and I'm going to forgive myself.  Oh, and another random remark: either get to the theater very early or at the very last minute.  They were taking forever to check people's bags - the line stretched from mid-47th Street almost all the way back to Broadway.  And they were only seating through one door.  I don't know if there are extra precautions because of the show's setting (it's the only thing I can come up with for the cockamamie front of house stuff), but it took a long time to get inside and the show started really late.  Plus, we were all taking up so much room on the sidewalk that a guy got grazed by a car trying to hurry around the line in the street - he fell onto his head.  It was scary, there was blood.  I hope that guy is ok.

Morals of this story are: be prepared to stand in line, don't rush into the street, be prepared for me to gloat if I look younger than you if we worked together 30 years ago, and go go go see The Band's Visit.  It's a real find.

NYCB - 20th Century Violin Concertos

I received a tiny bonus to my finances recently (very tiny) and of course I used it all up on tickets to this and that.  Last night, I was happy to have a TDF ticket to see the New York City Ballet's fall season program 20th Century Violin Concertos.  I love violin concertos and I confess to being very uneducated in 20th century/contemporary music, so I looked forward to learning something new.  Plus, when I saw that the ballets were choreographed by Peter Martins, Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine, I figured I was in for a treat.  And I was!  With some minor exceptions...

I was a tad disappointed to be seated in the third ring - usually when I get TDF tickets to NYCB, I get placed into an empty single on the main floor.  I guess I shouldn't have expected that.  But I was in the center of the third ring and I do enjoy watching new-to-me choreography from above, to see the patterns, so I guess I can't complain too much.  I can maybe complain a little about my seat neighbors, who perhaps should stop drinking liquids after, say, noon.  Their up-and-down to the bathrooms got on my nerves.

photo credit: Paul Kolnik (not the cast I saw)

The first piece was Peter Martins' The Red Violin, scored by John Corigliano based on his film score of the same name.  It's a relatively new ballet, premiering in 2006.  I have to admit, I wasn't all that keen on it.  I know the music, a bit (I used to be a collector of film scores on CD), and it was very nicely played (the solo violinist was Philippe Quint), but I didn't really see a connection between the music and the steps.  There didn't seem to be a plot, though there were some vague hints at relationships between some of the dancers.  It was very attractively danced by the cast of eight, it just wasn't very interesting to watch.  Maybe I was just tired, but my mind wandered throughout and this ballet didn't grab me at all.  Darn.

a photo from the NYCB website (not the cast I saw)

The second piece was Jerome Robbins' In Memory Of, scored by Alban Berg.  The story goes that Berg was so devastated by the death of a friend's young daughter, that he put aside his opera Lulu to work on a violin concerto to honor the girl.  The ballet, which premiered in 1985, is so lovely; it simply throbs with ache.  A young girl dances through her life, then struggles through her death, only to be lifted into a higher plane at the end.  Tiler Peck danced the girl and she was stunning.  So light and free, yet complex and vulnerable.  The ballet starts with the girl dancing with (I think) her father, and there's an ease and comfort there.  Then there is a terrific pas de deux between the girl and death, which obviously has more tension and danger, where she struggles then succumbs.  Death is personified, of course, by a handsome man, beautifully danced by Zachary Catazaro.  The steps seemed to me to exemplify classical ballet at its best, with lifts and shapes and patterns that were deceptively simple.  And the end was pure magic, with the girl, now in white and with flowing hair, just floating around the earth and then effortlessly taken off the stage by the two partners who shaped her life.  Really gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.  Obviously, I loved this one.  Oh, and Kurt Nikkanen was the excellent solo violinist.

photo credit: Paul Kolnik

The third piece was Stravinsky Violin Concerto, choreographed by the great George Balanchine.  Boy, ending with a Balanchine sure puts the rest of the stuff into context.  This ballet premiered in 1972 (though he had choreographed a different ballet to this concerto in the 40s), but like most of Balanchine's work, it's timeless.  There are four sections, danced in rehearsal clothes, and it's just a sublime match of music and movement.  It seriously seems as if they are one and the same.  The two pas de deux that are in the center of the ballet are fascinating.  One is totally gymnastic and physical and the other more ethereal and lyrical.  Even using the classic form, there is boldness and strength in these idiosyncratic pas de deux.  There were shapes and patterns I hadn't seen before, with startlingly complex partnering moves that seemed almost impossible to get right.  And the beginning and end sections, with the entire cast, were terrific.  The whole piece was terrific!  The solo violinist was Arturo Delmoni and I will confess to being disappointed that none of the soloists last night were women.  I mean, the gents played beautifully, but still...

All in all, it was a lovely night of dance and music that I hadn't experienced before and I enjoyed myself.  I do so love the Balanchine pieces - maybe I should split my money between ABT and NYCB a little more next year.  I'll have to think on that.

Burrowing...but not

Maybe it's the change in weather - I feel low and I feel as if I've been hibernating.  That I just want to stay in, brood, and stay away from people.  But I really haven't.  Since last we met, I've seen several things, a couple of concerts and a couple of previews.  Maybe my brain is tired.  Work has been stressful lately and there have been stressful moments on the personal front.  I haven't put anything into my Happy Jar for weeks.  What I think I need to do is recalibrate and relearn to embrace my joy.  But first, let me share what I've been up to for the last couple of weeks...

I guess in response to my lowness, I took myself to see TOSOS' production of Street Theater three times.  If you need a reminder, this is what I thought of the show the first time I saw it (HERE is my review).  Obviously, I loved it.  And I loved it again, all three times I was there.  I honestly laughed so much and cried so much, it was a little extreme.  My reasons for seeing it so much are many:  1) I wanted to support TOSOS, a theater company that is near and dear to my heart; 2) I wanted to support my friends working on and in the show; 3) I wanted to support a play I think deserves a more featured spot in contemporary American theater history; 4) I wanted to repeatedly experience the highs and lows and complete exhilaration the play gives me; 5) tickets were cheap; 6) and I wanted to shout a big F*CK YOU to various members of my family who would see my Facebook status updates, saying I was at a gay bar, every time I went.  I admit that reason #6 is not the most mature reason to see a show, but there you have it.  Anytime I get a chance to see Street Theater, I'm going to take it.

I went to see two events at Joe's Pub, both of which really shouldn't be reviewed.  What I WILL say is that the cheap seats at Joe's Pub are almost always behind a pole, so I need to save my pennies if I want to go there.  But, the food is pretty good.  The first night I went (to see a concert version of a friend's terrific new musical), I ordered the mini lobster rolls.  They were quite tasty, as was the alcoholic cider beverage that I enjoyed.  The second night I went (to see an event commemorating Banned Books Week), I got the rock shrimp tacos and the frozen sangria.  Delicious.  Since there's a drink and/or food minimum, you could do worse ordering these tasty treats off the menu.

I saw two preview performances of Roundabout Theatre Company shows: the Off-Broadway production of Anna Ziegler's The Last Match, and the Broadway revival of J.B. Priestley's Time and the Conways.  I enjoyed both performances.  Since they're still in previews, I'll only offer a few thoughts.  The Last Match is a play in my wheelhouse: it's about a men's tennis match at the US Open.  Hello.  It has my name written all over it.  The play takes place before and during a semifinal match - the two combatants are an American who has been on top for years (he seemed to me a combination of Pete Sampras and Roger Federer) and a Russian who has been highly touted for his talent, but hasn't quite made the breakthrough yet (he seemed to me a variation of Australian Nick Kyrgios, with maybe a dash of Novak Djokovic).  I found the play very intriguing, with bits of stylized theatrical tennis intermingled with inner monologues from the players.  Ideas of sports reflecting life, and how the two can co-exist, were very interesting to me.  The dialogue was spot on and the characterizations were very specific and interesting.  The other characters in the show were the American's wife and the Russian's girlfriend.  All four actors were quite good, handling the terrific dialogue very well and finding many spots for humor in the ebbs and flow of the match.  Maybe I found the drama of the tennis match was more compelling than the drama of the interior lives of the characters, and the ending didn't seem earned to me, but it's still early.  Even with my quibbles, I enjoyed myself.  You should go.

photo credit: Jeremy Daniel

Time and the Conways is a revival of a late 1930s play that deals with a seemingly happy family, first in 1919, then in 1937, then back to 1919 again.  I found the first act to be beautifully evocative of an era long-gone, and it seemed pretty timely with the idea that the classes will always be dissatisfied and will always try to rise against each other.  The first scene is right after the end of WW1 and the Conways are throwing a birthday party for the middle daughter.  We meet each of the Conway siblings and get a sense of who they are and an idea of who they will become - there are a few outsiders as well, and we're unsure of how they will fit into the picture moving forward.  The second scene in the first act takes place in 1937 and the Conways' situations have changed dramatically.  We see what they've all become and they're barely recognizable as the lighthearted creatures of the first scene.  Throw in some ideas about how time isn't linear, but is instead constantly evolving on top of itself and you can live your past and your present at the same time, and the first act had lovely things to say.  After intermission, the second act goes back to that party in 1919, and we now see those lighthearted young people in a different light, having seen how their lives turned out.  We see the moments that changed their lives and the missed connections that ruined everything.  One of the characters still seems to be struggling with the idea of the fluidity of time, and sort of lives in two dimensions, but I don't think that pay-off quite worked.  The second act was much less successful to me than the first.  I think the first act promised something that wasn't delivered.  But I had a good time - the acting was all good, the costumes were gorgeous, the set was terrific and the show was very well-directed.  Oh, and I spent the evening with a beautiful gal pal AND my ticket was free.  Once my seat neighbor finished his nap and stopped leaning on me, the experience was much better.  😉  

Then, last Sunday night, I had the joyful experience of attending the 25th anniversary concert celebration of Ahrens and Flaherty's My Favorite Year at 54 Below.  You may recall I saw a bare-bones production of the show at the York a couple of years ago (my review is HERE); I just love this musical.  It's so funny and joyful and free-spirited and rueful and emotional.  Seeing the concert was a fabulous experience and just what I needed during this low period.  Much of the cast was the same as I saw at the York - Douglas Sills was again divine as Alan Swann and Adam Chanler-Berat was perfect as Benjy Stone.  Carolee Carmello was a wonderful addition as Benjy's mom and it was fantastic to see the original Broadway Benjy, Evan Pappas, as our host.  At first, I was a little bummed that my seat was all the way over to the left, but it ended up being a fun place to sit because the actors were positioned all around us.  My tablemates were very nice and it was a grand evening.  Why, oh why can't I be rich so I can fund a revival of this fantastic show?!?!  Dang it.  I highly recommend your checking out the original Broadway cast album, and also checking out the 1982 film that inspired the musical.  You'll feel the joy, too.

I have a full couple of weeks coming up, with some ballet and new Broadway shows.  Let's hope the fog lifts and I can get back on the blogging train.  Thanks for being so patient...