This past Sunday was the Super Bowl, and there are plenty of times that I’ve watched it (mainly to see my friends in the commercials) or go to a party to watch. I don’t follow football and don’t really know all the random rules of the game, but when I can watch it with friends it’s more of a fun afternoon than watching a game. But I also don’t mind if I miss it since it’s not really a big deal for me.
So when I realized that one of our shows for this season at the Pantages was that day, I didn’t think twice about it. I can always watch the fun commercials online later and even though a LA team was in the game it still wasn’t a big deal for me to watch it. It actually made things a bit easier on us because we didn’t have to deal with traffic on the drive to the theater!
We got a quick dinner at Shake Shack before the show, and we had another benefit of going to a show that evening: the restaurant was empty! Normally, it’s a very long line out the door to order and we’ve waited an hour to order in the past. This time, there was nobody in line and we got our food within 10 minutes! While it’s not my favorite burger place, I’ve learned that getting it without the bun makes it better to me and it’s a cheap and easy dinner. I love our more elaborate dinners before a show, but doing something cheap is nice too especially when I don’t have the extra money.
We went over to the theater early because I needed to change the date for one of my tickets (I’ll be out of town the date everyone else is going so I’ll be doing one show this season alone) and it’s free to do ticket transfers in person. It’s not expensive to do it online, but it was easy enough to do in person since we were there and I’d rather save the money. Even with doing the ticket exchange, we were still in our seats with plenty of time to spare before the show started. And this time, we had another classic musical: “Hello, Dolly!”.
I saw “Hello, Dolly!” once when I was growing up. It was a community theater show that I went to and I remembered it being a very fun show. But I know that community theater is a much smaller scale than what is done at the Pantages so I was very excited to see what this production would be like.
And this production was spectacular! The show was as good as always and I love all the songs. I’ve seen a lot of shows over the past few years, and this show seemed to have the fullest sound. It was amazing and felt like they had twice as many people as they really did in the cast. And I knew the costumes would be great too, and they didn’t disappoint. I love all the colors and fabulous things that people wear. We’ve had other shows that were full of awesome things, but this show seemed to step things up a level.
And the cast was so wonderful! Dolly was played by Betty Buckley, who is a Broadway legend! I had heard from friends who went to the show before I saw it that she just added so much to the character. I think we all loved how she really took her time with certain parts of the show and it was just so funny! Of course, she’s an amazing singer as was the rest of the cast, but watching someone really enjoy playing a character and making it their own is so fun! I know I left the show smiling and so happy that I am getting to see more classic musicals again and on a big stage!
Over the next month, we have our next 2 shows (one of them is the show I will be going to alone). We are really only in the beginning of our current season even though we’ve already had so many shows. That’s what happens when you add some of the add-on shows to the season. And the newest season has just been announced and it will be at both the Pantages and the Dolby theater. My group hasn’t decided what we will be doing yet, but I’m hoping at least one other person will want to do the next season. Every time I see a show (and every time I write these posts), I remember how much joy musicals bring to my life. I really want to keep this going and continue to bring this much happiness to my life!
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