Take it From an Old Spectator. Life's Not a Spectator Sport. If Watchin' is All You're Gonna Do, Then You're Gonna Watch Your Life Go By Without Ya

Last night Drek took me to to live performance of Stephen Schwartz songs (isn't he the best?!). We've been on several live-theater dates before, but this one was definitively the most...odd.

Their performances were about what we expected; not professional, but fun and the variety of singers made it better. The songs were a little surprising: They sung almost every single song from Wicked (including As Long As Your Mine. I'm not going to lie, I love listening to that song, but watching it performed is...awkward. I had a hard time watching that scene when we went to go see the professionals perform Wicked. I had an ever harder time watching this performance. Why would you chose THAT song?) and had a huge chuck left over for Children of Eden. One song from Pippin, One song from Pocahontas, one song from Prince of Egypt, one song from Godspell, one song from Rags and one song from Hunchback of Notre Dame (Stephen Schwartz did Hunchback?!). So why did Schwartz do so many religious-themed musicals? Anyone know the history there?

But that wasn't the odd part. The odd part was the audience. It was clearly comprised of friends and family of the performers. There was a surprising number of cheers when certain people were on stage and even a few catcalls. When one girl finished a solo someone in the audience started selling her autograph.

During intermission, the theater sold plastic cups of wine and raffle tickets for an enormous bottle of vodka. The winner of the raffle and he broke open the bottle during the second half of the performance. Since most of the audience had those plastic cups left over, it was easy to share. Needless to say the audience during second half was a bit more rowdy than the first. I didn't realize an audience could be that vocal.

I think the audience cheered up the performers a bit: they were a lot more energetic during the second half than in the first. But really, I thought they did a good job in both. I highly enjoyed the night and liked all the performances.

Walking back to our car we saw a raccoon scamper across the street. Yeah, a raccoon. A real one. That was possibly my favorite performance.