dinner! theater! Both!
Ellen and I sorely needed some alone time. The house is still a wreck, both our jobs became crazy in the past month and we haven't been seeing much of one another. To wit, we decided to go out on a date this past Friday. After kicking around some ideas, we settled on something so utterly and suburban and domestic that I can't believe I'm typing these words: We bought tickets to a dinner theater.
There's a small dinner theater over in Springboro that we've known about since we moved here, but neither of us was ever really interested. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason we did go this time is that a few months ago, I got us a good deal one one of those Entertainment Books that are filled with coupons and discounts; the biggest discount in the whole book is a 2 for 1 deal on dinner and a show at La Comedia. That coupon's only good until the end of October; Ellen and I decided we'd give it a shot. The show La Comedia was putting on a shortened version of the Broadway production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Look, I'll be honest with you: my expectations for this thing couldn't have been lower. When you have two kids of the ages that Elliot and Henry are, just getting out of the house with them for a couple of hours is entertainment enough without wanting to see dancing and musical numbers. I would have been happy sitting in a bar with Ellen for four hours. That being said, we had quite a fun time. Although standard fare for a venue such as this, we enjoyed the food. La Comedia is supposedly "famous" for their sweet potato souffle, I far more enjoyed the roast beef and potato au gratin. Like I said, simple stuff.
I did not see the original production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Broadway, so I can't judge it against the original staging... but there were some pretty good actors in the play. The guy who played Steve Martin's role was an adept physical comedian and the budgetary limits that you'd imagine a small dinner theater in Southwest Ohio labor under did not distract me. There was one major piece of set that was continually wheeled in and out, but to a minimum of distraction. The thing that really bothered me is the way that the show worked overtime to shoehorn in references to the area; I think this is common practice for most dinner theater performances. You know, you have an actress in a role where her character originally said she was from Boise, Idaho and the local production will re-frame that so she said she's from CINCINNATI, Ohio. There were also a ton of dated references in the script that aren't aging well- a bunch of GW Bush jokes fell flat.
Besides those quibbles, we enjoyed ourselves! I'm sure the attitude I had going in probably helped my own enjoyment; I was prepared to look down on the thing and instead I found myself having a fun time. Go figure.
There's a small dinner theater over in Springboro that we've known about since we moved here, but neither of us was ever really interested. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason we did go this time is that a few months ago, I got us a good deal one one of those Entertainment Books that are filled with coupons and discounts; the biggest discount in the whole book is a 2 for 1 deal on dinner and a show at La Comedia. That coupon's only good until the end of October; Ellen and I decided we'd give it a shot. The show La Comedia was putting on a shortened version of the Broadway production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Look, I'll be honest with you: my expectations for this thing couldn't have been lower. When you have two kids of the ages that Elliot and Henry are, just getting out of the house with them for a couple of hours is entertainment enough without wanting to see dancing and musical numbers. I would have been happy sitting in a bar with Ellen for four hours. That being said, we had quite a fun time. Although standard fare for a venue such as this, we enjoyed the food. La Comedia is supposedly "famous" for their sweet potato souffle, I far more enjoyed the roast beef and potato au gratin. Like I said, simple stuff.
I did not see the original production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Broadway, so I can't judge it against the original staging... but there were some pretty good actors in the play. The guy who played Steve Martin's role was an adept physical comedian and the budgetary limits that you'd imagine a small dinner theater in Southwest Ohio labor under did not distract me. There was one major piece of set that was continually wheeled in and out, but to a minimum of distraction. The thing that really bothered me is the way that the show worked overtime to shoehorn in references to the area; I think this is common practice for most dinner theater performances. You know, you have an actress in a role where her character originally said she was from Boise, Idaho and the local production will re-frame that so she said she's from CINCINNATI, Ohio. There were also a ton of dated references in the script that aren't aging well- a bunch of GW Bush jokes fell flat.
Besides those quibbles, we enjoyed ourselves! I'm sure the attitude I had going in probably helped my own enjoyment; I was prepared to look down on the thing and instead I found myself having a fun time. Go figure.