As I mentioned before, I got season tickets for the Pantages for the coming season. I’m going with my friend Jodi, which I’m very excited about. She joined me for two shows in the past season, and we talked a bit about getting season tickets for this season. She wasn’t sure about it, but once the tickets were for sale and she and I both looked at our own budgets, we both could make it work so we got the full season! We’ve had to change the dates for a few of our shows, but we are still going to all of the shows in the current season. And I’m so glad we are doing this since seeing the shows have been a real highlight for me each time I have a show. And I didn’t want to go alone so I’m glad Jodi was able to make it work so she could come too.
Our season just got started and we got to see our first show this past weekend. Our shows this season are a mix of shows that I’m either familiar with or familiar with the material they are based on and new shows for me. And this one was a bit of a mix.
Our first show was “Jagged Little Pill” and I knew it was essentially a jukebox musical with the music being songs by Alanis Morissette. I knew many of the songs from that album, but not all of them, so I knew there would be some songs I knew and some that were new to me. But even though I knew the songs, I didn’t know what the story of the show was. For a lot of other jukebox musicals, they are about the singer or songwriter they are about. So it’s a bit of a biography and follows their life or career. But I knew this wasn’t that way even though I didn’t know the plot.
Without giving too much of the story away, the show is about a year in the life of a family that has a mom, dad, son, and daughter. And while each person might look from the outside that they are doing well or succeeding in life, all of them are struggling with different traumas in their lives. The show gets pretty intense at times, but I didn’t feel like it was overwhelming. Sometimes if a show gets to be too much, I can’t exactly focus on it and I miss some of the story. But this one just pushed the limit of being overwhelming and I was fully engaged while watching the entire time. But it was emotional and dealt with a lot of serious things, so it was very different from other musicals that I’ve seen.
I really enjoyed this show. Even though it wasn’t a happy or joyful show, it was beautifully done. The performances were really incredible. Some of the songs are really intense, and the actors really nailed it. And the dancing was amazing too. Some of the dancing was to represent the character’s inner feelings and thoughts and I loved how that was done. And I think the issues they went through in the show are things that so many people have to deal with and I think it was a great way to show how you never know what someone is going through in their life.
For most of the shows that I have seen at the Pantages, I sat in the orchestra in pretty much the same seats each season. But this season we are up in the mezzanine which is a very different viewpoint. It is a bit further from the stage than my past seats, but because we aren’t off to the side like I was in the past, we can see more of the stage which is nice. And I don’t think it feels that much further from the stage since before we were much further to the side.
I’m really looking forward to the rest of the shows this season. I think Jodi and I are going to have so much fun with the shows we are going to get to see and I’m just so happy to be continuing my tradition of seeing musicals on a regular basis!
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