Catching Up

It has been too long since I took the time to write, and I will try to do better this week.

Over the last few weeks, Nancy and I have attended five plays. Two of them were of the professional variety, one was community theater, one had Jessica in it and the other had Haley. Overall they were pretty good shows, but one stood out head and shoulders above the rest.

The Center for Visual and Performing Arts (Theatre at the Center) in Munster recently held the world premier of a show called Knute Rockne: All American. It is a brand new show celebrating the life of the great Notre Dame football coach. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much --- a musical about football . . . Most stage actors don't (can't) look like football players . . . But I was totally surprised. This is a great show! Hopefully it will eventually make its way to Broadway and I can say I was there at the beginning.

We also saw, as part of the Broadway in Chicago series, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The performance was very good, but I could not stand the show. It was the first time that I have been downtown and noticed a great many people leaving at the intermission. I don't mind dark stories, but I would like it to go somewhere (anywhere!), Sweeney Todd goes nowhere. I have a hard time imagining how this could be such a successful musical. I haven't seen the movie, and I doubt that I will waste my time.

The third show is from our local community theater: Towle Community Theater. They are in the midst of a run called: No Way To Treat A Lady. This was a cute musical. Rather dark, but well done and at least it came to some resolution. I love the Towle, the do a great job in a very creative space in downtown Hammond.

Jessica was involved in a short play (one of six senior shows) that we went to see at Butler last week. All of the shows were very creative, some too long (I imagine they had a time requirement), others just sort of wandered. For me two of the shows really stuck out. One was of a homeless guy who shared his story in an amazing way. Unfortunately, this one went to long and the middle section --- when he decided to preach at the audience got stupid --- but overall it was a powerful look a the mind of someone who is living on the street. My other favorite, of course, was the one Jessica was involved in. All six short plays were done in different rooms throughout a building on the Butler campus, Jessica's was done in a stairwell. Yes, a stairwell. And believe it or not, the used it extremely well. All six of the shows were about relationship angst. The only bad thing about her show was that it started at 9pm went 2 hours and we still had to finish loading her up and drive back home. They all slept as we got home about 2am.

Haley was involved in the Munster High School production of Guys and Dolls. I have to admit, I am sick and tired of all the "classic" musicals but overall they did a great job. The pit, however, was the pits! Sometimes I wondered how in the world the people could figure out which note to sing since the orchestra was all over the place!!

Coming up we get to go back to Butler to watch Jessica in Transitus Animae an exploration of the tabOO. I have no idea what that will be about. We also will head back into Chicago to see Avenue Q next week.