Cheap tickets showed up on TDF, and of course we had to go.  We lucked out, too, with orchestra seats--extreme left of house, with a clear view of the Raccoon climbing up into the trees and the 4 white mice/horses being readied to trundle onto the stage, but we were far enough up front to see everybody's expression, so it worked out very well, I ( Read more... )

I started this last week, but it's still pretty much accurate--including not quite being unpacked.  The piano's gone, however, and I now have 25 square feet of living room space I didn't have before, which is a good thing.  Anyway, finishing it now, and hoping to Be More Timely in the Future.  (Ha ( Read more... )

I have a review of The Nance started for you, but first I HAVE to tell about our adventure tonight.  Because it was a real--if mild--adventure, of the completely unplanned and serendipitous kind, and even while it was happening I didn't quite believe it ( Read more... )

Um, hi ( Read more... )

So we walk into the Walter Kerr Theater, where The Testament of Mary is currently in previews, and we saw the audience milling around a glass box set to one side of a very cluttered stage.  Being Us, we made our way up there, pronto-pups, and picked our way over and around 1) a ladder, laid flat; 2) several folding chairs, draped with what looked ( Read more... )

As you know, dears, I don't go to the movies much.  It's not that I don't like them, it's just that I like other things better, and (despite a game effort) it's not feasible to live all possible lives at the same time.  Still, we occasionally indulge when it looks as if a movie's going to be significantly better on a large screen than a small one ( Read more... )

I wanted to love it, I really did.  I like Chaplin (as an artist and a character, anyway--he wouldn't have been at all fun to know personally).  I like most of the historical periods he was active in.  I'm not enthralled with Hollywood celebrity bios, because narcissistic and utterly without sense of proportion, but I can make allowances.  After  ( Read more... )

Of all the plays anybody who knows me would expect me to see, a musical about cheerleaders would probably be pretty far down on the list.  In fact, when Ellen said she'd bought tickets for it, I didn't know it was about cheerleaders.  I did know she was apologetic.  There was this play a friend had to see for professional reasons, wanted to see it ( Read more... )

The second production at Shakespeare in the Park this summer 1 is Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, directed by Timothy Sheader.  I was in two minds about going to see it.  First, I hate getting up before dawn to go sit on the ground for hours in the heat (inevitably) and the sun (sometimes) or the rain (occasionally) and maybe not get tickets ( Read more... )

Which brings us to Sunday.  We already had plans for the evening, but when Ellen's Uncle Ron said he had an extra ticket to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at Encores! (1) I jumped at the chance  I'm slightly more enthusiastic about musicals than Ellen and the Times had given it (and Megan Hilty, who played Ivy on Smash, and plays Lorelei Lee here) a ( Read more... )