No wonder I'm so pale

This past weekend I saw a fair bit of theater.

* Thursday - Humble Boy at the Washington Stage Guild
* Friday - Ragtime at The Arlington Players
* Saturday mat - Steel Magnolias at Castaways Rep Theater
* Saturday evening - Pippin at Vienna Theater Company
* Sunday mat - Witness for the Prosecution at Providence Players of Fairfax

Like David, I don't write reviews of shows of shows my friends are in (well, unless those friends are in 8th grade), but it's enough to say that I had a good weekend. I enjoyed every show I saw, ran into a lot of friends, saw some friends do some very good work, flirted with some of the flirtable (why, yes, that would be Nano.....), met a couple of very nice people, and drove to hell and gone to do it. I even got to spend a few minutes with David here and there.

Most of my theater friends know that I'm a WATCH adjudicator, so the usual question when I'm found loitering in a lobby is "Are you WATCH-ing this one?" Nope, just here to collect a few friend points. Among the people I know, the phrase "I'll come see your show" usually means "Good luck and have a nice run." It doesn't actually mean "I'll come see your show." So I've had a few folks over the years be surprised to see me standing in their lobbies. (Cue the Machinal story.....).

I see a lot of theater (see the list for this weekend, supra) and I still miss a lot that I'd like to see. We do what we can. Don, another theater person sees more than I do, which is really saying something, so I decided long ago that it's not officially community theater until Don sees it.

Some highlights:

I ushered for Ragtime, which a. made me feel very "I'm with the band" and b. got me in for free. Normally, I'd be "off-duty" a couple of minutes after curtain, but they were short-handed, so Arthur grabbed me at the intermission, saying "Help me with concessions." "Sure. What are we conceeding?" (Aye, I have a pretty wit.)

I ran into a bunch of folks there, including a director whom I know only slightly. She directed something recently for one of the SPT (small professional theaters) that got completely hosed by the critics. I mean, these were the kind of reviews one would expect from bitter and vengeful exes. So, without reference to the reviews, I told her that I'd seen the show and thought that it was lovely. (Which I did and I did.) This definitely seemed to improve her day.

Ragtime is a good show, but, jeepers, it's long. The first act is an hour and 35 minutes. So the first act of Ragtime is nearly as long as a lot of other shows. It was a good production, but it still meant that the audience could bond over how numb our butts were.

Of course, Ragtime wasn't as long as my trip to see Steel Magnolias. There was some kind of race in Richmond on Saturday, so I-95 was at more or less a crawl the whole way. It's about 50 miles from my place to the theater Castaways uses and should have taken me a little over an hour. Nope. An hour and 50 minutes. So that audience got to bond over the ugliness of the traffic. Next time I go down there, I'm renting a helicopter. Curtain was held for 20 minutes and people were still late. Thank goodness I like to get there early and left lots of time because I arrived only 10 minutes before the scheduled curtain time.

I like to sit up front (I'm near-sighted) so I sat in the front row for the first act. I moved to sit next to Kat for the second act. I had fun sitting with Kat, but it gave the cast pause when they came out for Act II and thought that I'd left.

At one point one of the cast had walked out of the light and anyone looking over at Kat and me would have seen us trying to nudge her back. Go, little actor! Go to the light!

They had an evening performance, so they went out after the show to grab a bite. I got to go along and had a lovely time. It's a pity that Castaways is so far away because they really are a nice bunch of folks.

Saturday evening was Pippin. I was in a previous production of Pippin that Lorraine directed and she told me that I'd recognize a few things, which I did. Seeing some steps that I knew gave me a nice, warm glow, even though - as I remember it - dance rehearsals for Pippin made me cry back in the day. I ended up chatting with the nice man sitting next to me (Hi, Paul!) and during the bridge for the first number I leaned over and asked him to please not allow me to sing along. We were given one "everybody sing!" opportunity, but other than that, I behaved myself.

The rest of our row was filled with young ladies who where enjoying the show. A lot. They screamed after every number and sometimes during the number. A hip wiggle from any cast member under the age of 50 merited shrieking. They whistled. They stomped. Paul whispered that we seemed to be seated in the exuberant section. I agreed and nearly quoted one of my favorite lines of the Baroness's in The Sound of Music "Darling, you should have told me. I would have brought my kazoo" but on such a short acquaintance, discretion prevailed.

I first found out about the Providence Players of Fairfax when they joined WATCH and I try to see all their shows. They do some very, very good work. (And I've been there often enough that I know a bunch of the folks and they know me, which is fun.) I haven't been disappointed yet. I got to chat with folks afterwards, including the very nice man who always remembers that he knows me about halfway through any conversation.

The weekend started early when Seth cancelled rehearsal and I was able to see Humble Boy. I found the Stage Guild by serendipity and haven't missed one of theirs since. And Humble Boy featured Bruce, an actor that I've seen in a couple of shows so far whose work I really like. So I was extra glad to be able to make that show. His next one is up in Baltimore and I'm hoping to get there for it.

So it was a nice, sunny weekend and all sane people were outside frolicking in the beautiful weather. Not me. I sat in large dark rooms and enjoyed some lovely performances. It was a great weekend!