Last Musical Of The Season (or A Classic Pantages Night Out)

This past Sunday was the last show for my current season at the Pantages. This has been a great season and I have really enjoyed it. Even the shows I didn’t love were still enjoyable and I was glad that I got to see a bunch of classic shows that I hadn’t seen before or had never seen on a big stage.

It’s been a slightly different season this past season because my group had a few date conflicts from time to time. We rarely all made it to a show, which was fine. But I do wish that we had been able to go as a group more often. And for this last show, it was just me and my friend Dani as the other 2 people in the group couldn’t make it.

But Dani and I had a lot of fun. We started our evening at one of our favorite pre-show dinner places.

I think this was the first time that it was just 2 of us for dinner at Wood & Vine. One of the things I love about Wood & Vine (besides the amazing food) is that everything is designed to be shared with the table. That allows us to order so many different things so we can try a lot and not be overwhelmed by too much food. But with just me and Dani, we had to limit what we ordered so we weren’t stuffed.

For our dinner, we got some of our favorite things like the charred romaine salad, the pork shanks, and the shells and cheese. They were all as good as we remembered them and I think we ordered the perfect amount with a mix of some healthier options and some splurges. And since we made our dinner reservation on the earlier side, we had plenty of time to enjoy the food and patio before we had to head across the street for the show.

But before we left, the manager at Wood & Vine sent us 2 of the new desserts on their menu to try.

We got to try the dark chocolate cake and the banana caramel cream. The dark chocolate cake was so luxurious! It was like the most perfect mousse and the caramel on the side was so good! But I think my new favorite dessert is the banana caramel cream. It was one of the lighter desserts we’ve had there and the perfect summer dessert. It wasn’t overly sweet and every bite was a little different. I hope the banana caramel cream stays on the menu because I know I want to get it again!

Once we paid for dinner, we headed across the street to the theater for our show. And just like so many shows this season, this was another one I had seen before.

I had only seen “Miss Saigon” one time before and it was almost 19 years ago. I saw it on my 17th birthday when I was in New York on my drama club trip in high school. I remembered the show a bit and had some random memories of things like how we learned how some of the actors had to wear their mike packs under their wigs instead of on their backs. It’s so odd what I remembered about the show, but I was excited to get to see it again to remember more of it.

Once the show started I remembered how much there is in the plot. It’s very busy to get in the story and it can be confusing. I, fortunately, remembered enough about it to be able to follow along well. I also took a glance at the main plot points online before going to the show, so that probably helped too. But it still was a bit overwhelming to watch it again.

Also, this show had some of the most obstructed views for us. Because we do cheap seats, we are off to the side. And because of how the set was done, we didn’t get to see a few moments that were far off to the side. We didn’t miss much, but it does make me a little sad whenever we have a blocked view like we did that night.

But even with how busy the show is and the obstructed view from time to time, it was still an amazing show. It was just as good as I remembered it and I loved the performances. Everyone was very talented and I especially loved The Engineer. He was so funny and Dani and I joked how there should be just a show of him and his fun songs. His character brought some needed levity to the show because it is a very heavy show. Even though I knew that going in, it still hit me really hard.

And I think it hit me hard because of some of the things that Dani and I discussed after the show. Whenever you see a show, you see it from a specific viewpoint and mindset. And when I saw this show before, it was a different time. And now, with there being so much hate regarding immigrants and the “other”, this show connected on a different level. It was similar to how I connected to other shows this season that weren’t as heavy for me in the past. It’s interesting to have very different memories of seeing this show, but they both are good memories and make me think of very different things which isn’t bad.

Our first show for next season is in October, so it is a bit longer until the show than I originally thought. For some reason, I thought our new show started at the end of August. But that’s ok because we have had a lot of shows recently and it will be a little break. I do have another musical thing this weekend, but it’s a little different (and I’ll write about that next week). Looking back at the entire season, it’s very close to what I thought it would be before the season started. Lots of fun shows, some great classics, and a chance to see a show again that I hadn’t seen in a very long time. Next season will be very different, but I’m excited about that!

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