Last night (Thursday) I went to go see Kiss Me, Kate at Music Circus (i.e. theater in the round), which I haven't been to since 9 to 5, pre-pandemic. On the way over I saw the license plate "U222GO," which I took as A Sign given the "will he go to Lion King" question, har har. And another one in the parking garage that said "8ND THEN," which also sounds kind of promising.

I read the program and was deeply amused at the story behind the show, featuring a guy who literally wanted to be a Broadway producer. (I texted Scott a few photos from the program saying this.) The guy (Arnold Saint-Subber) was a stage manager for The Taming Of The Shrew as a teenager with Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, and had A LOT OF STORIES about their super dramatic behavior, "complete with shattered crockery, slammed doors and the scandalous on-stage spanking." He wrote up these details and found Sam and Bella Spewack (a theater drama couple themselves) to turn them into a script in which it features people putting on Shrew and it goes back and forth between the backstage drama and the onstage Shrew: The Musical thing going on. LOL. Then they threw in Cole Porter for the music, and won a bunch of Tonys!

I love anything that goes back and forth between the stage show and real life drama (see Noises Off, would enjoy doing this myself sometime) and this one goes back and forth between the backstage drama of divorced costars Fred and Lilli and the Shrew drama. Fred and Lilli still love each other but also certainly like to throw it in the other's faces about who they are seeing. Fred sends a replica WEDDING BOUQUET to their other castmate Lois (who's dating Bill, a guy who racked up mob debt and signed Fred's name to it), Lilli gets it and is touched, then reads the card later...and she is legit furious during Shrew and THEN COMES THE FIGHTING. Which is kaboombah. Also, throw in a couple of theater-loving mob guys hitting Fred up for money he knows nothing about, and Fred convincing them to keep Lilli from stomping out of the show. And the songs are good and the dancing was amazing. LOVED IT.

It's great when you finally get to see a show you've wanted to see for years--I love Shrew adaptations--and it's actually good and not disappointing, like when I saw Pirates of Penzance. I don't remember much about it other than I thought it was dumb, sadly. (This will be an issue in my future.)

Also fun: I ran into a bunch of people I know at it! Walt and Cathy from karaoke, and Annie and Molly from DMTC, also taking advantage of the night off. Told them I was seeing Come From Away Saturday and Annie said that's her favorite show. Awwww. I think I may hit it off with Annie someday.

Also ended up texting Scott during intermission and after the show (waiting for traffic to clear out), saying I want to do this one. He said he thinks DMTC has done it and I said yeah, I think they've done most everything that isn't super modern but I doubt they'd bring this one back (it's late 40's). He apparently expressed interest yesterday at rehearsal at wanting to see Something Rotten at Music Circus (I think it's the next show up there) and said Steve thought about doing it, but said community theaters would never be able to do it because "it's a fuckton of men and one woman." To which I was all uh, that's exactly The Producers and Evita and I saw plenty of ensemble ladies (also note there's 2 women in Something Rotten with names, which is still more than the other shows I mention) and I called bullshit and started grumbling about sexism :P

Today at work: found out that one of our computer programs was broken (I'm not sure when this happened, I think the last time I was using it a week ago it was fine) and meanwhile a bunch of paperwork has gone out with the wrong date. Vicky (new coworker) said it was 233 papers we'd have to redo. I started redoing them, and then the boss was all "hold off until it gets fixed" and then after it got fixed, said to not bother redoing them. To which I was all THIS IS A BAD IDEA, they already don't believe us with these things as is (and argue with me about the dates) and now we just sent out Official Notifications that are all lies?!? But I didn't waste my time or get into trouble arguing about it because I will get nowhere. SIGH.

After work, I went to go see "Call of the Castle." This appears to be a homegrown production in which one of the cast wrote and directed the play (and also writes novels) and they somehow put on their own show, were able to rent the Vet Memorial theater for a weekend, built a big ol' castle set, had lights and sound...I'm not sure where people without a theater company structure got the money/resources for this, but I was pretty impressed. Looks like folks contributed a few k, according to the back page. (I also talked to someone related to cast members to get this dirt, she was nice.)

I'm also impressed that the playwright didn't cast herself as the lead role (like I know it'd be tempting!), but the brooding violent King Byrn. Sahura is the main character, the loyal but conflicted friend of Byrn. At the beginning of the show, Sahura has somehow betrayed Byrn (wasn't clear as to how) because Sahura hit his limit on all the killing Byrn has done, Byrn loses the battle and his country, and gets sentenced to death. A woman named Orion* helps Sahura rescue Byrn and arranges for them to hide out at Bryggadoone, a castle that moves. The only residents of it are Godin, the steward* and the offscreen alligators he rescued named Bitey,, Smiles and Snuggles. There's not a lot of food around either. Anyway, Orion and Sahura get angsty and wonder if Byrn is an irredeemable bad guy or not, and a fetching poisoner named Lord Riskel eventually comes to the castle to go after Byrn.

* who is apparently both the captain of the guard and a former queen somehow...interesting...I get the feeling she's magic/immortal or something.
** I have already forgotten the exact creative spelling of this even though it was written on the set, unfortunately. Who seems likely to be, I dunno, the physical body of the castle or something...?

I thought it was really well written and thought out and cool.

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