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The
Guest These aren't exactly magnets, but they were off of a wonderful wall at my friend diane's house in England. Unfortunately this is the last one.
He says: You're only a feminist because you're
ugly. * Discussion * Talk about it here. WHAT I'M READING...
Becoming
a Man: by My Amazon wish list WHAT I'M WATCHING... Opening night of Samples of slide shows I've been making are available for download at Beechbrook Cottage Pictures from our The England and Orkney trip are on my own Club Photo page. Not to be missed: Steve has uploaded some of his new songs to the web. Check 'em out
That's it for today!
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ANOTHER OPENING, THE SAME OLD SHOW 28 October 2001 First of all, go check these two links: I am sitting in a darkened room. The computer has just told me it has updated my clock to reflect the return to standard time (it's so nice to have a computer to take care of these things!). It's a little cold in here, so I'm shivering a bit. Somewhere in the dark at the other end of the house, my mother is stirring in her bed. Across from here, I can see the red lights of the coke machine at the community center. I came here yesterday afternoon because I was going to be introducing my mother to The Last Session at its opening performance last night. I came down early so I could bring the CD with the slide show of our recent trip to England, which she hadn't seen yet. (Walt said I was the only person he knew whose computer took more room than my overnight bag--I'd just tossed a nightgown and hygiene kit into a paper sack). When I got the computer all set up, I discovered I'd brought the wrong disk, so we couldn't watch the slide show after all, though I did show her some of the other shows, which she enjoyed. Eventually it was time to leave, and we drove to a nice fish restaurant in San Rafael where we had a terrific crab louie for dinner. (I do love fresh crab!) It was an odd dinner, since the waiter never brought us any bread--we finally asked for some (later we saw that other tables were not only given bread, but olive oil to dip it in. I'm wondering if there was some sort of "message" in here for us!), and as we were finishing our meals, the waiter whisked the plates away and presented us the bill without even asking if we wanted coffee. He didn't get a large tip. Since dinner had been so rushed, and since traffic was so light, we made record time to San Francisco. It was a beautiful night and I remarked to my mother, as we approached the Golden Gate bridge, how people come from all over the world to visit the City, but here we had it in our back yards and could enjoy it whenever we wanted. I do love my city, even though I haven't lived there since I was 18. I never get tired of looking at it. We got to the theatre with an hour and a half to spare, so we were able to park almost directly in front of the door, which is one perk of arriving before everyone else. The New Conservatory Theatre Center is a huge building which once belonged to the Masons, I think I heard someone say. I'm not sure what is in most of the place, but the theatre is in the basement so we went downstairs, got our tickets (we were told that there were special seats saved for us, along with Steve & Jimmy), and settled ourselves on the couches in the lounge to wait till time for the the house to open. At one point, Ken McPherson, who is the stage manager, and Steve's good friend, passed by and said Steve and Jimmy were going to stay in the theatre until the show started--you know, that "star" stuff. However, the show's producer, Ed Decker, passed by and spied my mother. His mother is her hairdresser, and my father taught him to swim when he was a little kid, so they go way back and so he sat and chatted with us for awhile. The lobby began to fill up and it would soon be time for the show to start. Walt and I went to see the show a week or so ago and were pleased to note that it was going to be a good production. However, as the lights went down and the first notes of "Save Me A Seat" started and the show began to move through the first scene, it was obvious that much work, much tightening, had been done since that first preview. What was, a week ago, a good production, is now a very good production. The weak cast members have improved by leaps and bounds, and the strong ones only got better. Looking around me in the theatre, I saw the audience laugh at all the jokes, wipe away tears at appropriate moments, and yell out "bravo!" at the end of some extraordinarily well done song. Steve and Jimmy relaxed and heaved a sigh of relief. Productions of this show around the country haven't always been wonderful and there have been times when they've groaned at how the director has interpreted their "baby." But director Dan Kryston (who, ironically, was once a director of shows in Davis many, many years ago) got this right. At the end of the show, the cheers were well deserved. There was a reception following the show. My mother found someone in the audience whom she knows from her work with Hospice, so I left them chatting while I took Steve's camera and took lots of pictures for him to post on his web site. We were invited back to Ken's to rehash the show, but it was late, so we said our goodbyes and turned the wheels back toward the Golden Gate Bridge, now bathed in lights, and we returned here to the park. I'll be seeing this show several times during its run (and if audiences from last night are any indication, the run may be extended), as I try to introduce the show to everybody I know in the area. I was going to do that anyway, but it's so much nicer to know that this is a first-rate production. So--everybody who can get to San Francisco, go to see this production. I guarantee you won't be disappointed. One Year
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Some pictures from this journal |
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Created 10/26/01 by Bev Sykes |
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