Intermission

After I've been sitting in a theater seat for about 55 minutes, my fancy turns lightly to thoughts of getting up, moving around, restoring the flow of blood to my lower regions, and having, maybe a treat. By which I do *not* mean green punch and store-brand cookies, although that is the usual fare at many a theater.

The best intermission in this area has to belong to Rockville Little Theater. They have a nice, large lobby and years ago they turned their intermission concessions over to a local high school band's booster club. So we get cold sodas, hot fresh coffee, and homemade treats! I cannot overemphasize what a good idea this is. Everyone returns for the second act happier when they are outside of a homemade brownie.

My home team, Silver Spring Stage, does okay. We have coffee, splits of wine, sodas, and name brand cookies/snacks in individual serving packages. And until we installed the faboo new seats and nice new carpet, I had removed the "no food or drink in the seating area" notice from the program, so I could have a cup of coffee during the second act. After having had one during the first act. I may have been our own best custumer.

Hard Bargain Players performs in an outdoor ampitheater, so when the weather turns chill they serve very good chili and cornbread. Thank you!!

Elden Street, on the other hand, could use an intermission intervention. Their lobby is teeny-tiny, so we overflow into the parking lot. Not their fault, they work with what they got, I completely understand. But when you're hanging around an industrial campus parking lot, in the dark, in 45 degree weather, well ..... coffee just seems to suggest itself. Everyone even tangentially connected to ESP has heard me say that the one thing that stops them from being a really first class theater is the lack of a coffee maker. Enough of their board members have helpfully told me that they have one in the scene shop (or whatever it is) that I may just start regarding that as an invitation to head on back there and make myself a pot. Or I'll ramp up the joking and flirting I do with Dave-the-House-Manager and talk him into letting me keep a thermos tucked away somewhere handy.

What brings all this to mind? Besides that I've been rabbiting on about it for years? The fact that the New York Times must have been listening to me because they ran a fun piece reviewing some of the intermissions up there. (Thanks to the pedantic nuthatch, who found it first.)