Wicked: the evening
Note: I originally wrote this right after the show, then decided to hang on to the post until my Wicked review went up at Tor.com….which was delayed a bit since the post initially got lost in all of the site rebuilding excitement. So, a bit late, here we are:
******
So, yeah, Wicked show. The word surreal comes to mind. And that's without even including the car chase.
1. In a burst of optimism, C, S and I had decided to do dinner AND the show. Now, in our defense, we have actually accomplished this sort of thing before. S suggested a Thai restaurant where we'd had slow service in the past, so I suggested looking for something else - which is when C suggested a steakhouse. So to the steakhouse we went, to find that there was a fifteen/twenty minute wait for a table. Hmm. Dubious. We were still out in Ocoee at this point (none of us felt like navigating downtown Orlando restaurants on one side of I-4 and then heading over to the theatre) so we decided to head to a Toojays - a decided decline from the previous choices - which offered immediate seating...
...and proceeded not to serve us for more than a half hour, getting us way behind. Oh well. At least the conversation was excellent.
2. Car chase!
3. After the car chase we actually drove EVEN FASTER. And we were not, to everyone's shock, pulled over for either event.
4. On a related note on the car, can I just mention that shutting down one of the tollbooths for incoming traffic to Orlando on Friday night? Probably not the wisest move. Moving on.
5. As some of you may know, Orlando has recently invested a lot of money to build a shiny new event center, the Amway Center, right next to where we were heading, the Bob Carr Centre. What Orlando has not invested in, in the slightest, is UPDATED ROAD SIGNS or INFORMATION ABOUT PARKING let alone disabled parking. We had to flag down a cop.
6. Because of all of this, we arrived at the show only fifteen minutes early. Still, we were early, and others were still arriving. (I noticed with amusement that the women dress up/men dress down still applies here - nearly all of the women were in cocktail or formal dress, and the men were in jeans. One woman was in formal wear accompanied by a man in shorts. When I mentioned this to C and S they told me that they weren't looking at the guys.)
I showed the first usher my tickets.
"Hmm," he said. "Those seats aren't wheelchair accessible."
"I'm able to transfer," I said.
"But these seats aren't wheelchair accessible."
"Ticketmaster didn't let me purchase wheelchair accessible seats."
(Quite true. I tried, more than once, and couldn't, and in the end figured I'd just take the cane and the wheelchair and deal with it when we got there - my standard approach to these events. It generally works - at Stephen Lynch, for instance, they allowed me to transfer from wheelchair to chair, and had a place to stow the wheelchair during the show. Same thing with Blue Man Group. This is the first time I was halted at the door; the most I usually get is "can you transfer?" and "are you bothered by strobe effects?")
"Let me see what I can do."
So, he wandered off. Meanwhile, the ushers started calling out to the approaching people hurry, hurry, that the theatre had a strict seating policy, that everyone had to get inside soon, hurry, hurry.
Our usher returned. "We aren't sold out," he told us, "so I can exchange these for wheelchair accessible seats."
"Fine," I said, by now getting a bit worried about missing the show.
So he wandered off again. The ushers got more strident in their calls. S went off to ask if this ticket exchange meant that we would be missing the show. "Oh, no," we were assured.
"TWO MINUTES," yelled out the ushers.
S went looking again.
With a minute and a half to go and warning beeps going, the usher returned with our new seats. We were escorted up to our seats by a second usher who was trying to get them to hold the show for us. Instead of balcony front, we were now in orchestra back - the very back, where they have removable folding chairs that they can add for extra seating if they wish, or for the ushers to watch the show.
So, the first act went by. It was fun, entertaining, despite my complaints, and I was in a considerably better mood by the time intermission hit. S pushed me towards the restroom - I was feeling a bit dizzy - where, naturally, there was a line.
And where, equally naturally, people started cutting in front of me, even after people had lined up behind me, because, "Oh, I didn't see you."
In the bathroom, the ushers worked to hurry us all up, reminding us that time was limited - and I assume wanting us to buy drinks. Business done, I headed out, deciding I wanted a drink -
And looked up at the bar.
The bar can be reached on either side - right or left - by ten stairs.
I wheeled myself to an usher. "Is there a wheelchair accessible bar?"
"No," he said, in a lovely moment of honesty. "There is a bar downstairs, but with the line for the elevator you won't be able to reach it and return before the show resumes."
(As it turned out, although he might have been right about the elevator and the timing, he was wrong about that bar - that, too, was wheelchair inaccessible.)
"Ah," I said.
Dilemma. I definitely needed something to drink, and I couldn't see S. If I waited for him -
I wheeled myself back to the seats. C had already returned. "Can you get me a drink?" I asked.
"Sure."
This led to S wondering where I'd vanished to, of course, but that worked out.
I was the only person in a wheelchair at the show.
***********
For what it's worth, I've been to performances at Universal (Hard Rock Café/Blue Man Group) which provided storage place for my wheelchair during the show and allowed me to transfer to the seats I or someone else had chosen. "Whatever's comfortable for you."
******
So, yeah, Wicked show. The word surreal comes to mind. And that's without even including the car chase.
1. In a burst of optimism, C, S and I had decided to do dinner AND the show. Now, in our defense, we have actually accomplished this sort of thing before. S suggested a Thai restaurant where we'd had slow service in the past, so I suggested looking for something else - which is when C suggested a steakhouse. So to the steakhouse we went, to find that there was a fifteen/twenty minute wait for a table. Hmm. Dubious. We were still out in Ocoee at this point (none of us felt like navigating downtown Orlando restaurants on one side of I-4 and then heading over to the theatre) so we decided to head to a Toojays - a decided decline from the previous choices - which offered immediate seating...
...and proceeded not to serve us for more than a half hour, getting us way behind. Oh well. At least the conversation was excellent.
2. Car chase!
3. After the car chase we actually drove EVEN FASTER. And we were not, to everyone's shock, pulled over for either event.
4. On a related note on the car, can I just mention that shutting down one of the tollbooths for incoming traffic to Orlando on Friday night? Probably not the wisest move. Moving on.
5. As some of you may know, Orlando has recently invested a lot of money to build a shiny new event center, the Amway Center, right next to where we were heading, the Bob Carr Centre. What Orlando has not invested in, in the slightest, is UPDATED ROAD SIGNS or INFORMATION ABOUT PARKING let alone disabled parking. We had to flag down a cop.
6. Because of all of this, we arrived at the show only fifteen minutes early. Still, we were early, and others were still arriving. (I noticed with amusement that the women dress up/men dress down still applies here - nearly all of the women were in cocktail or formal dress, and the men were in jeans. One woman was in formal wear accompanied by a man in shorts. When I mentioned this to C and S they told me that they weren't looking at the guys.)
I showed the first usher my tickets.
"Hmm," he said. "Those seats aren't wheelchair accessible."
"I'm able to transfer," I said.
"But these seats aren't wheelchair accessible."
"Ticketmaster didn't let me purchase wheelchair accessible seats."
(Quite true. I tried, more than once, and couldn't, and in the end figured I'd just take the cane and the wheelchair and deal with it when we got there - my standard approach to these events. It generally works - at Stephen Lynch, for instance, they allowed me to transfer from wheelchair to chair, and had a place to stow the wheelchair during the show. Same thing with Blue Man Group. This is the first time I was halted at the door; the most I usually get is "can you transfer?" and "are you bothered by strobe effects?")
"Let me see what I can do."
So, he wandered off. Meanwhile, the ushers started calling out to the approaching people hurry, hurry, that the theatre had a strict seating policy, that everyone had to get inside soon, hurry, hurry.
Our usher returned. "We aren't sold out," he told us, "so I can exchange these for wheelchair accessible seats."
"Fine," I said, by now getting a bit worried about missing the show.
So he wandered off again. The ushers got more strident in their calls. S went off to ask if this ticket exchange meant that we would be missing the show. "Oh, no," we were assured.
"TWO MINUTES," yelled out the ushers.
S went looking again.
With a minute and a half to go and warning beeps going, the usher returned with our new seats. We were escorted up to our seats by a second usher who was trying to get them to hold the show for us. Instead of balcony front, we were now in orchestra back - the very back, where they have removable folding chairs that they can add for extra seating if they wish, or for the ushers to watch the show.
So, the first act went by. It was fun, entertaining, despite my complaints, and I was in a considerably better mood by the time intermission hit. S pushed me towards the restroom - I was feeling a bit dizzy - where, naturally, there was a line.
And where, equally naturally, people started cutting in front of me, even after people had lined up behind me, because, "Oh, I didn't see you."
In the bathroom, the ushers worked to hurry us all up, reminding us that time was limited - and I assume wanting us to buy drinks. Business done, I headed out, deciding I wanted a drink -
And looked up at the bar.
The bar can be reached on either side - right or left - by ten stairs.
I wheeled myself to an usher. "Is there a wheelchair accessible bar?"
"No," he said, in a lovely moment of honesty. "There is a bar downstairs, but with the line for the elevator you won't be able to reach it and return before the show resumes."
(As it turned out, although he might have been right about the elevator and the timing, he was wrong about that bar - that, too, was wheelchair inaccessible.)
"Ah," I said.
Dilemma. I definitely needed something to drink, and I couldn't see S. If I waited for him -
I wheeled myself back to the seats. C had already returned. "Can you get me a drink?" I asked.
"Sure."
This led to S wondering where I'd vanished to, of course, but that worked out.
I was the only person in a wheelchair at the show.
***********
For what it's worth, I've been to performances at Universal (Hard Rock Café/Blue Man Group) which provided storage place for my wheelchair during the show and allowed me to transfer to the seats I or someone else had chosen. "Whatever's comfortable for you."