Trina's page of Blogginess

... Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch.... Again!!

Yesterday afternoon, Dick and I saw the matinée performance of the revival of "A Chorus Line" at the Curran Theater.

I had never seen a professional performance of this show - I'd only seen the movie (albeit, many, many times) and a local high school performance back in the 80s.

Dick was lucky enough to see it in London's West End over 30 years ago when he was an early teen. He has great stories about the first time he saw the show, and how much of an impact it had on him. He absolutely loved it. (...and yes, he knows all the words to all of the songs, and he even knows all of the names of the steps in the dance choreography! (see above!) )

I had high expectations of this production, and it did not disappoint. We both thought the cast was very strong, and that the show holds up incredible well. You can't beat the music - so many great songs. The thing I love about this show is how "raw" it is compared to all of popular Broadway shows. It's stripped down to the basics - minimal set, minimal costumes... and let's you really focus on the story lines of the individual characters.

This is the revival that started out in San Francisco two years ago before going to Broadway. This touring production has some of the same cast members.

Dick and I had planned to see the show two years ago. We had planned to go for weeks, and my sister had arranged amazing seats for us. Unfortunately, I got really sick the night before the show, and although I was still hoping to make the show on the day of, I just wasn't well enough to see it. We were really bummed. As it turned out, the symptoms that I had that weekend were the same as I had about a year afterwards, and was the precursor to my appendicitis. How about that?

The show runs through July 27th.

Here's a review of the show from sfgate.com.

Labels: san francisco, theater

The name says it all...



Friday morning I got a call from my friend, Cynde. She was in the car, listening to the radio as she was driving to the gallery. She had just heard about a Star Wars theater show, and had to let me know about it.

"Cool!" I said, "I'll have to look into it."

I met my friend Andrew for lunch that day. During our conversation, I mentioned that my Mom had recently digitized my "Story of Star Wars" LP for me.

Andrew said, "Speaking of Star Wars, have you heard about the new show in town?"

I said I had just heard something about it from Cynde, but I didn't know much about it yet, because I hadn't had a chance to look it up yet.

Dick came home from work later that evening. He told me someone on Caltrain had told him about this One Man Star Wars show which was showing at the Post Street Theater.

Clearly, the universe wanted to make sure that I saw this show!

So, we looked it up that night. We found it was showing at the Post Street Theater for just over a week, and decided that we should try to see it this weekend! I didn't read much about it. I figured, the name pretty much says it all, right?

We saw today's matinée performance at 3:00pm.

The theater was pretty full, and what surprised me the most were how many kids were in the audience.

The show did not disappoint. It was exactly what I had expected: one man, reciting lines, and doing sound effects for all three of the first three original Star Wars films. It was an hour long in total. I checked my watch at the end of Star Wars: Episode IV, and it was about 20 minutes in length. Barley taking a few seconds to take a sip of water, he launched straight into The Empire Strikes Back.

I was amazed at the amount of energy and enthusiasm this guy had! He put in just as much energy into "Return of the Jedi" as he did into Episode IV. It's clear that this guy was/is one heck of a Star Wars geek. He nailed the lines, and even nailed the special effects sounds.

If you are a Star Wars fan of any level, you really must see this show.

Here's a clip I found on You Tube showing some highlights of the show.

Labels: Star Wars, theater