Vacation Review

After more than a week of the pampered life, I’m back at work. Reentry has been what you’d expect. Many emails to read and more than a little lamenting over the fact that I’m not at home any more. Overall, though, it’s not too bad overall.

Here’s a little bit more about how I occupied myself during my week off. In addition to a few days in the country, I also did some inter-borough travel: Last Monday I went out to Queens to visit my cousin Colleen who I hadn’t seen in ages. It strikes me as ridiculous that we could live so close to each other but still get together so rarely. Life has a way of intervening, though, and it had been over a year since our last visit. In that time she’s had another beautiful baby, who I got to meet for the first time on Monday. And even though Queens is the epicenter of the New York swine flu outbreak, I seem to have come through unscathed. :)

I went to the Wednesday matinee of Mary Stuart, too. It’s been ages since I’ve been to a Wednesday matinee; even though I knew those audiences skewed older, I was taken aback by how many white-haired-heads I saw around me. And they kept their stereotype alive and strong with much hard-candy opening and wrapper crinkling. Unfortunately, I found the show a bit soporific. I had heard good things about it, but I just couldn’t get into it at all.

I also had a good amount of time to laze about and do very little. I watched some Netflix, read The History of Love and most of The Subtle Knife, and just enjoyed the free time. It was good while it lasted.

Be Fresh. Be Creative. Be Good.

“Nothing can kill a show like too much exposition.”
— Officer Lockstock, Urinetown

Too much exposition wasn’t the only nail in the coffin of Coraline: The Musical, but it was certainly one of the big ones. Neil Gaiman’s novella was adapted for this Off-Broadway production by Stephin Merrit of The Magnet Fields fame and David Greenspan. I wish I could compliment them on a job well done, but I may have never seen so many missed opportunities in a single show.

The show is very Hey! Hey! Look at what we’re doing! all the way through, starting with the casting. Coraline was played by Jayne Houdyshell, a gray-haired, middle-aged, zaftig woman. In a better show, with an amazing performance, the audience may be able to suspend their disbelief better, but I never, for one moment, forgot that I was watching an actress play the part. Houdyshell really won me over in some scenes, especially when Coraline was bored. But as soon as I started to think that things might gel, Houdyshell would start mimicking childlike behavior rather than actually acting like a child.

The director was at least partly responsible for my problems with the Houdyshell. Both her performance and the show as a whole suffered from some serious schizophrenia. Is Coraline winsome? Plucky? Introverted? Mature? Brave? Foolhardy? You’d never know from this show. And is Coraline: The Musical meant to be a bit scary? Or is it funny? Again, it’s anybody’s guess. Rather than building suspense, Coraline seems to go task to task in a tedious this happened, and then that happened manner. And in the climax when she tricks Other Mother’s hand, we’re treated to a long, drawn out, and so over-the-top as to be funny song from Other Mother about how long it takes to fall to the bottom of the well. Seriously, one of the lines in this song was something like, “when a second feels like it lasts for a thousand years.” I knew the feeling very well by that point in the show. It didn’t help that most of Merrit’s songs had the same forgettable sound, either. I couldn’t have hummed a snippet of a single song on the way out of the theater.

And back to all that exposition: the audience was trusted to interpret almost nothing on their own. At the part where Coraline threw the cat at Other Mother, for instance, Other Mother faced the audience, face in hands, and said something akin to “The cat clawed at my face! I’m bleeding black tar!” The creative forces either didn’t trust their material or their audience enough to figure things out without stating everything outright. They seemed to suffer from a serious dearth of creativity in terms of how any action was staged, choosing every time to just tell us what happened. Lame.

I try to find something good in any show, and there were definitely a few highlights here. Francis Jue was particularly excellent as Father and Miss Forcible, and the stage design was effective. I wish I could say the same for the lighting, the music, the casting, the book, etc.

Best Show I've Seen in Ages

Michelle and I went to Sunday's matinee of Next to Normal, which started out off Broadway and just received 11 Tony nominations. I have been pretty lax in following theater lately and have missed the buzz on many, many shows. Somehow this one filtered through, though, and I heard from several people that this show was amazing. I tried not to take it all too much to heart; I didn't want to set my expectations so high that the show would naturally disappoint.

This show does not disappoint!

Next to Normal gives us a glimpse into the lives of the Goodmans: Dan, the hardworking father; Diana, the struggling mother; their son Gabe, Diana's favorite; and Natalie, their overachieving and high-strung daughter. When it opens, the show suggests that disfunction is the constant state of being for the Goodmans. Before the end of the first act, though, we know that a constant buzz of anxiety and disfuction would be a gift to them. They are dealing with something much more severe, and things are not what they seemed at first.

To say too much more would give away the show's twist. The surprise caught me completely off guard, and my experience was the better for it. So instead of more plot summary I'll say that at intermission I told Michelle I felt like I needed to see the show again. When it closed, I said it again, with even more emphasis. Every member of the cast was uniformly excellent. Alice Ripley was intense, powerful, and heartbreaking as Diana. Aaron Tveit, as Gabe, was superb. J. Robert Spencer, who plays Dan was out, and we Michael Berry, his understudy. It's always disappointing to see that slip of paper in the playbill noting that a major member of the cast is out, and while I don't know what I missed from Spencer, I will say that understudy Michel Berry was excellent.

The show provides a few laughs, definitely some tears, surprises, many good songs, and a story that is incredibly moving. If you have the chance to see this show, I'd really recommend it. I'll even go with you. Seeing it again sounds pretty good right now.

An Art Mash-Up

A week ago Alexis, Warren, Todd and I saw La Didone at St. Ann’s Warehouse in DUMBO. St. Ann’s Warehouse stages a lot of experimental works, and Todd was the driving force behind us seeing this particular one. It’s the merger of the baroque opera, La Didone by Francesco Cavalli, and the Italian sci-fi b-movie titled Terrore Nello Spazio (translates as Planet of the Vampires). The pairing is both bizarre and fun. The opera is sung by classically trained artists, while the movie and shadow cast of live actors tell the story of astronauts who land on a planet filled with parasitic aliens.

For all their differences both in style and substance, there are enough parallels between the two sources to make the mash-up work.

Distracted

Cynthia Nixon of Sex and the City fame is starring in Distracted on Broadway right now. I saw it last week, the last show of my Roundabout subscription experiment. In the end, I’m glad I bought the subscription. It did what it was meant to do: it forced me to the theater. Unfortunately, though, I did feel forced. Attending the theater simply isn’t as much fun without a partner in crime who is as excited about the shows and cast members. Also, Roundabout’s season just wasn’t that great, which didn’t help matters.

I ended on a relative high note at least. Nixon plays the mother of a very rambunctious, energetic, foul-mouthed little boy. Is he simply excitable and testing limits as all boys do? Or is there something else afoot...something like ADHD? These questions, and the appropriate actions that stem from each answer, are the heart of the show. [Side note: Did you hear that they’re renaming ADHD? It’ll now be ADOS: Attention Deficit Ooh, Shiny!]

There is an odd tension between the humor in the script and secondary characters and the seriousness of struggling as a parent. I tend to embrace surprising juxtapositions, and had Nixon’s character been written as someone who dealt with the challenges of raising a difficult child with humor, I think it would have worked. Instead, the humor comes in the form of goofy and stereotypical supporting characters and the weird way the fourth wall is sometimes broken. All the while, Nixon’s character, and that of her husband, are very serious about their need to do right by their child. An argument could be made that as we all deal with very serious problems, the world continues around us in all its absurdity. Something about it still failed to work in the context of the show, though.

Across the board, though, the performances were excellent. I’ve long liked Nixon, and it was exciting to see her on stage. She and the rest of the cast did very well with a good but imperfect play.

Busy Week

My days of lolling about last week are behind me. I was back in class last night and will be again tonight. It was actually quite nice to be back. I have a tendency to look at this program with a count down kind of attitude (ok, if I can take X number of classes per semester I’ll be out this quickly; after the summer I’ll be a quarter of the way through; etc.). I’ll be happier, though, if I recognize and appreciate the enjoyment I’m getting out of the process as I’m in it.

And in the meantime, I’m still managing (albeit with exhaustion on some days) to keep up with most if not all of my personal life. I’m 3/4 of the way through Watchmen right now, and I think Todd and I will see the movie this weekend. Also this week is the last show of my subscription to Roundabout and an outing with Todd and a couple of friends to see a sci fi opera. It’s a lot to fit in to a single week, but all of it sounds great, and I’m looking forward to it. Reviews of much of this to come!

Mourning Natasha Richardson

Last Year I saw Vanessa Redgrave give an amazing, heartfelt performance in The Year of Magical Thinking. Though I had quibbles with the show, there was something profound about Redgrave’s performance of a woman dealing with the loss of her husband and daughter.

With Natasha Richardson’s very sad passing, that show keeps coming back into my head. I just keep thinking about the emotional reserves Redgrave must have tapped into to play Joan Didion each night and the way she lived—for the run of the show—as a childless mother. Did that experience prepare her in any small way to deal with her own daughter’s death? Will knowing Didion and Didion’s experience so intimately provide any kind of guide for how to get through this?

It’s probably a small and weird thing to be focusing on here, but it’s easier to ponder than all the ways we’re apparently always at death’s door. By the news accounts to-date, Richardson’s fall was a normal one, not some Sonny-Bono-into-a-tree sort of scenario. Everyone who has learned to ski has fallen plenty, and I never once wore a helmet all the times I went skiing in Vermont. No one else on the slopes was wearing one either. And it’s not just skiing; freak accidents like this suggest that the wrong tumble at any time or place could do a person in. I think that’s part of the reason why Richardson’s death has gotten so much media coverage and seems to have captured people’s attention. For all the resilience we have, we’re simultaneously extraordinarily frail.

Hedda Gabler

I saw Hedda Gabler last Friday night. It was my second attempt to see it; the first time I went, a week before, I had to really talk myself into it. I was pooped as pooped could be that day and really wanted to go home and crash. With the help of a coworker, I convinced myself to go. I went out to dinner by myself at the Edison Cafe, reading some homework over a sandwich. I got to the theater around 7:50, and the lobby was teeming with people. They hadn’t opened the house yet, which is definitely a sign that something is amiss. A few minutes after I got there, they announced that Mary Louise Parker wouldn’t be performing that night. The cast (along with MLP, it stars Michael Cerveris (a great stage actor I’m sure most of you haven’t heard of but who I love) and Peter Stormare (the guy from those weird VW commercials and, probably more famously, Abruzzi in Prison Break) was a big part of why I was attending. Along with half the audience, I decided to trade my ticket in for a different performance; this is allowed whenever someone above the title is out. It must be hard to be the understudy for a famous actor, always going on to half empty houses and knowing that even the people who stuck it out are annoyed to see you but just didn’t feel like traveling into the city again a different night. I’m convinced that MLP was just being a diva that night, too. It doesn’t take until 7:55 to realize that your leading lady has laryngitis, but it could take that long to realize that you can’t convince her to stop throwing a hissy fit. Of course, it could be something far more innocent, but until I have proof I’m going to assume it was a tantrum,-induced absence.

I went back the other night and saw it with the full cast on display. The show was uneven, but I liked it well enough to stay through the second act. I thought Peter Stormare was weird (I guess that’s his thing); it was like he had wandered in from a different production. Cerveris played Jorgen Tesman as something of a simpleton, and I wished that he’d imbued the character with more depth. It’s well within his acting abilities to do. Parker was mostly excellent, though she has some Parker-ish inflections that seem to creep in whether she’s playing a miserable 19th century woman, a 1980s pill-addicted loon, or a modern day pot mom. Still, I love her, so I guess it’s ok.

The second act left me less impressed than the first, but I’d still recommend the show for theater people, provided you can get a cheap ticket (the $20 Hip Tix, for instance). It’s not worth a bigger investment than that, unfortunately.

A Standing Ovation

I can’t help but recommend Seth Rudetsky’s Broadway Nights. At first I thought I’d just recommend it to a select group (i.e., Jen), because it’s so focused on theater and Broadway inside jokes and references that I didn’t think the rest of you would like it much. That may still be true, but I ended up enjoying it so much that I simply can’t be that stingy with my recommendation.

Rudetsky is a minor B’way celeb himself. He hosts a show called Broadway Chatterbox on Thursday evenings (6:00 so there is still time to make an 8:00 curtain), and it’s hilarious. He interviews Broadway actors and actresses, makes them sing, entertains his audience, and generally rocks the shizzle (yeah, I said it). Jen and I went to the show twice about ten years ago and loved every minute. While I was in Chicago we hatched a plan that we’d be Thursday night regulars as soon as I moved back. Somehow, that plan failed utterly, and I’m still not sure why, but I digress.

The point is, Rudetsky’s humor translates completely to the written page. The book is fluff through and through (reading fluff is my M.O. Lately. It allows me to keep up with fun reading while not taxing my homework-taxed brain even further), but it’s also absolutely hilarious. Some of the humor is theater-specific, but much of it is not, and I throughout the course of my reading I became convinced that one need not be a Broadway hanger-on to enjoy this book.

Not for a first date

I remember watching We Don't Live Here Anymore on my own when I was living in Chicago. As the credits rolled, I actively appreciated that I was single. It was the kind of movie that just shows the absolute worst of being in a relationship.

Anne very generously took me to
Fifty Words this weekend as a belated birthday present. As Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel took their bows, Anne leaned over and said how glad she was that neither of us had seen this show on a first date. It, like We Don't live Here Any More, will make even the most relationship-oriented person think twice about marriage. Butz and Marvel play a couple whose life together is on the verge of collapse. Parenting, career, and financial stress collectively take their toll and bring out each of their worst qualities. Over the course of a night they go from giddiness over having the house to themselves while their nine-year old son enjoys his first sleep over to giddiness that they can finally be honest with each other: honest they way you are with someone you never have to see again, because their lives together are so irreparably damaged that they'll permanently go their separate ways in the morning.

The play feels very theatrical at times (and not in a good way), especially in the beginning. And while Butz and Marvel eventually find their footing, it's no surprise that the show was written by a man. Butz gives the better performance in this two-man show, but he's also given a deeper and more nuanced character to play.

Life with either of these two characters would be pretty miserable, so it's hard to fault either for their marital ambivalence. Life watching Norbert Leo Butz on stage is pretty good, though.

Speed-The-Plow

Michelle treated me to the opening night performance of Speed-The-Plow last Thursday. I was excited to go for many reasons—it was a great chance to catch up with Michelle, I was hot off my Man for All Seasons viewing and excited to take in two shows in a week, and it stars my one-time stage BFF (admittedly, a one sided friendship as he didn't remember who I was from one of our many meetings to the next), Raul Esparza.

Unfortunately, the show just never really came together for me. The script was dated, and I had forgotten just how homophobic and misogynistic Mamet can be. Jeremy Piven basically played his Entourage character, Ari Gold, only this time his name was Bobby Gould. Elisabeth Moss, from Mad Men, was also reminiscent of her TV character. Esparza did well playing the sycophant, but it wasn't enough to save the show for me. I admit to even dozing off a tiny bit during the second act.

It was fun to attend an opening, and we even got a glimpse of Liev Schrieber and a very pregnant Naomi Watts when we left. That was kind of the highlight, though.

Theater for all seasons

When I first moved to New York after college, I saw more theater than I’d ever imagined possible. I was devoted. I arrived at the Ford Center at 7:00 a.m. countless times to get tickets to Jesus Christ Superstar (a guilty pleasure; I know Andrew Lloyd Webber has his faults, and lines like “God, thy will is hard. But you hold ever card” are laughably bad. But somehow I love it); I became obsessed with an off Broadway show called Tick, Tick...Boom and started volunteer ushering at the Jane Street Theater so I could see it twice a week. I had a membership to Play by Play and, since their tickets costly only $3 a piece, I saw just about anything they were offering.

Since then I’ve gotten old. It’s been only nine years and somehow I’ve become an old lady. Sit on the sidewalk for three or four hours before the box office opens? No thanks. Watch something that’s frankly kind of bad just because it was cheap and I felt like seeing a show? Pass.

Couple my new high standards with my recent old lady-ness, plus the move of my bestest theater going friend, and it’s resulted in a shortage of plays in my life lately. Somehow, I ended up on Roundabouts mailing list, though, and when they offered me a really good price on a subscription for the season, I decided to do it. I spent a chunk of money on it, but now I know that I’ll see at least five Broadway shows this season. It reminds me of my Chicago days when I got subscriptions to the Goodman and Steppenwolf. Without someone to do things with, I can easily submit to a hermit’s life, so sometimes I just need to make the big commitment upfront.

Last night I saw A Man For All Seasons, starring Frank Langella. It was good but not a total success in my opinion. The play, which dramatizes Sir Thomas More’s rise under King Henry VIII and then his subsequent fall, is very timely. Thomas Cromwell is played as some sort of Karl Rove/Dick Cheney hybrid, which is to say that he’s manipulating, full of machinations, and all about gathering more and more executive power for the man in charge with very little regard for how legal, ethical, or warranted it is. Viewing it with the Bush administration so tantalizingly close to being over provides a very interesting context, but the show still never soared. Langella was very good, mining small moments of comedy while still presenting More as something of a saint (the show neglects to mention the people More had burned at the stake for heresy). But clocking in at just under three hours, the show did drag in parts. I was especially impatient during More’s trial and sentencing. I’m sure it was meant to be climactic, but we were well past the second hour and I knew what the outcome was going to be. There was no suspense there at all. And the finale sort of hits you over the head.

Even with all those nitpicky complaints, though, it was a good production with a good leading man. And it was great to be at a the theater again.

More than just a boy wizard

When the chance to buy a pair of expensive but really good tickets to Equus came my way, I decided to splurge and go. I usually try to get bargains whenever I can, but there are just some shows where discounts are not to be had, and they usually involve celebrities. Three Days of Rain, which came to Broadway a few seasons ago starring Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd, and Bradley Cooper, comes to mind. Sometimes the performances are mediocre and your money spent is for little more than being in the room with such star power (again, Julia Roberts comes to mind). Happily, Equus offered a lot more.

Just to get it out of the way, yes: this is the play where Daniel Radcliffe gets naked. The trio of gay men behind us were very clearly there just to see Harry Potter’s magic wand (this phrasing is on par with their maturity level about the whole thing, too) and were probably disappointed with the very tasteful lighting that accompanied the extended nude scene. While there is something titillating about seeing someone naked, the play and Radcliffe’s performance are rich in so many other ways.

The play centers on the time Alan (Radcliffe) spends with a psychiatrist (played by the ever talented Richard Griffiths) after committing a horrifying act of violence on the horses that he tends. The play questions the cost of passion versus the value of reserve, medical ethics, and self worth. Griffiths was excellent, but it was really Radcliffe who impressed me. His role is a difficult one and without such a nuanced performance it could have become laughable, squirm-inducing, or both. His three-dimensional and emotionally honest performance served the play extremely well, and if this is any indication of his expanded acting ability, we have a lot to look forward to.

Oh, and I got to see Harry Potter naked.

A small post script: I really loved the artwork for this show, which is a rare treat. With so much creative talent connected to theater, a whole lot of Broadway art is pretty ugly. Check out Triton Gallery if you want to see what I mean.

Seasons of Rent

After twelve years on Broadway, Rent closed this weekend. Even if you're a Puccini purist, there's no denying that Rent made an impact on the New York theater scene. Jonathan Larson put together an incredibly diverse cast for a medium that is typically pretty lily white, and he introduced themes that were probably pretty racy to the octogenarians who make up most of Broadway's audiences.

And speaking of those white-haired audience members--Rent introduced a new way to change that audience demographic. When it started selling $20 tickets for seats in the first two rows, nothing like it had ever been done before. Now it's almost standard fare, especially for any show trying to bring in a youthful crowd.

Rent had a good run, and, to remember it properly, here are a few scenes of the original cast:

I'm gonna pie somebody good

One of the things I love about being with Todd is that he finds the most interesting and surprising things to do—things that I would never even know about on my own, let alone be a part of. Last night was no exception. It's currently The New York Clown Theater Festival, and they kicked off the festivities with a participatory pie fight.

We showed up at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn totally, completely, and utterly incorrectly dressed. We'd come straight from work and were the only people in office duds. The rest of the people were dressed like clowns or at least goof balls. We gamely got into the fray anyway, though, hurling shaving cream pies at each other and a handful of other fighters, while an audience of 25 or so watched from relative safety on the other side of a clear plastic sheet. As you can see from the photo, it got a little hairy! Todd and I both came out looking the worse for wear, but I think he got the brunt of it. One of the organizers told Todd afterward that we (and he in particular) were particularly fun to target because we looked (accurately) like we'd just come from work. All the people who came in wearing pie-ready outfits just weren't as fun to take down, apparently.

The whole event was crazy and so much fun. We just gave ourselves over to the slippery mess of it all and had a blast. There should be more opportunities to act loony, make a mess, and laugh throughout it all.

Dramaturgy

Another reader-prompted post!

Kristinn asked about my dream job, and it took me no time at all to decide how to answer. What I think I’d like to do more than anything is become a dramaturge. The role of a dramaturge varies from theater to theater, but essentially I’d be involved with research and development of new plays and translations. Dramaturges can help shape a season, adding coherence to a company’s offerings. Through extensive research they provide background on a play’s time period, geography, social conditions, etc. to assist the director actors. In a non linear play they might put together a timeline to help actors better grasp what’s happening when and where their characters are. There’s also an element of marketing to dramaturgy, as some dramaturges write program notes or media pieces, produce programs, put together talkbacks, and generally act as a liaison between the company and the audience.

Basically everything about this job appeals to me. It would be an ideal way to be involved in this art form I love and fully appeals to my love of order and research and my natural editorial inclination.

When I was still in Chicago but looking for a way to come back to NYC, I did some half-assed research into the dramaturgy program at Brooklyn College. I never did figure out how to move back to the city with not only no job but tuition to pay as well. In the end, I took the easy way out and stayed with McGraw-Hell...sorry, McGraw-Hill, and suffered through another couple of years with them. In some ways, the mountains of debt seem more appealing in retrospect! Alas, I’m no closer to being a dramaturge now than I was in my Chicago days. And at least now I have a job I like, even if it’s not my dream job.

Chicago & Me

I’m being a bit slow responding to people’s topic suggestions, but only because I found with the first two that I’m writing a lot more in these posts than I am otherwise. Consequently, they take a little longer to draft, which means I have to spread them out and sprinkle the blog with youtube videos and political hypothesizing, too.

Anyway, Melissa, herself one of the things I miss most about Chicago, asked what I missed about the Windy City. And, she rightly knew that Pockets would be at the top of the list. Mmmm....Pockets. To call it a calzone is accurate but doesn’t give you a sense of how good it is! And it’s healthier than a regular calzone, too, because it’s baked and the bread is whole wheat, so there’s no guilt. And, the Pocket-people are geniuses for knowing that ranch dressing was a perfect Pocket companion. I know some of you are probably thinking how weird it sounds to put ranch on a calzone (at least that’s what I first thought), but trust me: it’s delicious. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

Ok, my favorite order-in food aside, there is a lot to miss about Chicago. As much as I love New York (a post on that is coming, Dorrie!), I can admit that Chicago has it beat in a couple of ways. First: Chicago apartments kick New York apartments asses! I didn’t have to sell any limbs or unborn children to afford to find a place, either. Unlike New York, where you pay thousands of dollars to a broker for doing, in my experience, next to nothing, I signed a lease on a place without paying a broker a dime. Short side note, in the two and a half years I lived their my rent never went up and I got my entire security deposit back when I left.

And the apartment was great—I really loved it. I had more space and more closets than I’ve ever had in NYC, and the apartment itself charmed me with architectural details like built in bookshelves, a (nonworking) fireplace, and casement windows that gave the place a cool sort of café feel. Camilla loved that the windows had really wide sills so she could really spread out in the sun. I’ve tried to make every apartment I’ve had feel like a home, but my place in Chicago just had so much more to work with. And all for a fraction of NYC prices.

I also love how pretty Chicago is as a city. The lake and skyline together is really beautiful. And there are specific neighborhoods I miss, too, like Lincoln Square. That neighborhood had a great low-key vibe (the “hip” places like Wicker Park were just too hip for me; it’s sort of how I feel about Williamsburg now) and had lots of little mom and pop shops like Mertz Apothecary. On the same note, I loved seeing movies at the old-school Davis Theater instead of at an AMC or Sony theater.

And speaking of theater, I miss seeing shows at The Steppenwolf and Goodman Theaters. I had subscriptions to both while I lived in Chicago and always saw great plays. Most memorable at Steppenwolf were incredible productions of Top Dog/Underdog and Proof. And I saw a fantastic production of The Goat, or Who is Sylvia at the Goodman. Chicago has a reputation for great theater, and it’s well deserved. Living in Chicago, I got to see The Light in the Piazza before it came to Broadway and collected 11 Tony Awards. And I was able to see Bounce, a Sondheim show that didn’t make it to Broadway. And while we’re on the arts/culture topic, I also miss visiting The Art Institute!

Logistically, I have to confess, too, that as someone who is utterly without a sense of direction, I miss how easy it was to figure out where you were going in Chicago. The grid was made for people like me!

And, of course, I miss the people. I never made a huge group of friends there, but that just made the ones I did have all the more meaningful to me.

Poop

Tonight Todd and I took in one of the Fringe Festival’s comic plays. For Reasons Unknown’s protagonist lives alone and comes home one day to find a giant poo on his couch. He has no pets; his doors and windows were locked. His best friend has a set of spare keys, as does the super. And the hot neighbor down the hall once had a set to water his plants while he was out of town. Which of these poopers is responsible for this unsavory gift?

Todd summed it up perfectly when he said the show was like a Saturday Night Live sketch that went on too long. The beginning of the show was very funny, the script has some clever moments, and about half of the performances were really good. You never know what you’re going to get at Fringe, so I consider that a pretty successful outcome. It’s not genius, but I laughed out loud more than once.

Hooray for visits from out of town friends

Jen came in from the Cape this weekend, and it was such a treat to spend the day with her. She's only been out of the city for a short time, but already it feels like an occasion when she comes back. She, Krysta, and I spent the morning in Central Park hoping for tickets to Hair. I say hoping, because we didn't even come close to getting them. Apparently the last people to score tickets had been in line since 7:30 in the morning--hours before we parked our bums down at the end of the line. Luckily it was the perfect weather for hanging out in the park for a few hours, so even though I was disappointed about the tickets I didn't feel like the morning was wasted.

Krysta was the most Shakespeare in the Park experienced of the three of us and had never not gotten tickets before. After she recovered from the shock of our failure, we ventured forth for food. The rest of the day consisted of lunch, hanging out at my place, and then drinking a bucket of Coronas at Hudson Beach, an outdoor bar in Riverside Park.

When we finally had our fill of the sun, breeze, and beer, we went for sushi and then to a piano bar in midtown that we love. I somehow never go there except with Jen and Krysta, so it felt completely appropriate that we'd end our night there.

All in all, a very good Saturday.

Half Pint on the Great White Way

Anyone who loved Little House on the Prairie as much as I did growing up may be interested to know that it's now being turned into a stage musical. Apparently the creative forces behind this are turning to the books more than the Michael Landon/Melissa Gilbert family hour for inspiration, but I remain curious nonetheless.

How much did I love Little House on the Prairie? So much that I dressed as Laura Ingalls for Halloween one year.