Musicals, Musicals, Musicals

This has been the year of the musical for us. We started off the year with Sabrina being a performer in "Jack and the Beanstalk" with Missoula Children's Theatre. She was a merchant.

A few weeks later, after we watched our neighbor's kids while they went to see "Riverdance," and I was trying to come up with a great date for Ryan and I to go on so they could return the favor, Ryan pulled out 3 tickets for "Little Women," which was coming on a National Broadway Tour. One for Ryan, Sabrina and me. I bought the soundtrack so we could all get familiar with the story line. Then, I decided I should read the book as well. I don't believe I had ever read that book before. It is really good. I recommend it. We went to see "Little Women" the night before our trip to Oregon. The show started at 8pm, was playing at a theatre 30 minutes away from our house. Needless-to-say, it was a late night for us. Especially with an early morning drive the next day. We listened to the soundtrack throughout our trip. LOVE THE MUSIC!

While eating at Burger King one snowy/rainy day (April 9) with Stacy and kids, we got our hands on a copy of the Idaho Statesman. It had an ad for Boise Music Week. Free music events for a whole week. Including a free Broadway musical. Apparently they have been doing this for 90 years. This year the musical was "Singin' in the Rain." I really enjoy this musical. I don't know how many times I saw this movie growing up. Keturah was in the chorus of this musical when she was a sophomore in high school. Loved watching her in it.

I requested 4 free tickets for any of the performances with the official request coupon from that copy of the Statesman and mailed them in with a SASE on the due date. The next Tuesday, I received that envelope back with NO tickets in it and NO explanation as to why. So I sent an email and got a reply that they had 20,000 tickets available for "Singin' In the Rain" and more than 22,000 requests for those tickets. They even ran out of 'sorry' slips. Not to be deterred, I planned to go standby. We invited Sara S. to accompany us and left our house a little after 6 pm. When we arrived at the Morrison Center ticket office, we were #20 on the standby list. While waiting for our number to come up, I taught the girls the hand game about the McDonald's menu. The tickets we received were on the first row of the balcony, on the side. Perfect for the girls, there were no "big heads" in front of them. They absolutely loved the musical. I asked them during intermission if seeing this was causing them to want to learn how to tap dance and both said, "Yes!" It was a late night, with musicals lasting 3 hours. Sabrina was asleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow.

On Friday, Stacy and went to the Egyptian Theatre downtown to watch another Boise Music Week Event, a silent movie accompanied by a live theatre organ! The featured movie was Laurel and Hardy staring in "We Faw Down." Before seeing that movie, we saw a Charlie Chaplin movie and then had an old-time sing-a-long. I think next year, I'll pull Sabrina out of school and take her to see the silent movie. The organist was amazing. He sat at the front of the Theatre facing the movie screen, playing the organ to match the mood of the movie. Talk about talent! And either they put a fire scene in every silent movie because the organ has a siren sound, or they put the siren on the organ because there is a fire scene in every movie.

This was my second time going to Boise's Egyptian Theatre. The first time was December 31, 1999. I went with Sabrina, Shanda, Jason and Keturah to see "Singin' In the Rain." They were showing classic movies all day for free to celebrate the Millennium. If we would have had food and Sabrina not needing a nap, we would have stuck around to watch "Superman."