So, what I’ve really brought you all here to talk about is musical theatre.

I didn’t grow up in the theatre, but I had decent exposure to it. (Almost typed “explosure”, which would have taken things in an interesting and different direction.) Although we had little music in the house (a reel-to-reel player, a mono radio on my dad’s nightstand, and the “don’t touch that on pain of death” Grundig [I think it had a turntable in it? Dunno, never touched it.]), my mom had done some musicals in her day, and most importantly, my grandmother in New Jersey worked the box office at the Papermill Playhouse. We visited Grandma once or twice a year, and always went to see shows. The first one I remember was “Camelot” (well, doesn’t _that_ explain a whole hell of a lot about me?!): we sat in the front row and the fog machine was on high in the last scene, so as Arthur was talking to the young boy, the fog was rolling over us…

I saw tons of shows there, and throughout school was always in chorus/chorale and thus in a few shows. I’m not sure if “HMS Pinafore” in 3rd grade counts, but certainly my high school music teacher was a big influence on me, sucking me into Gilbert & Sullivan (I was Edith in “Pirates of Penzance” and the attorney for the prosecution for one night of “Trial by Jury”; my big line was "to marry two at once is...burglary", which no doubt explains my illustrious law school career). I know I occasionally went to shows locally as well. Of course, on TV we had “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Sound of Music” every year, and “Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang”, and that sort of thing.

Somewhere along the line, though, I got out of the habit of seeing live musicals. I saw “42nd Street” when I studied in Britain in 1987 (and still don’t forgive the two girls I was in London with, because _I_ desperately wanted to see “Chess” instead), and in the mid-1990s I saw “Jesus Christ Superstar” with Cat and “Chess” (finally!) with a whole bunch of folks. I know I caught a few plays in there, but not many.

But this past January we went to London and saw both “Pirates of Penzance” (with Anthony Head as The Pirate King!) and “We Will Rock You”, and I was reminded of how damn much I love musical theatre.

The other day, I was noodling around on half.com and found the Buffy musical ep soundtrack for a decent price, and I snapped it up. The CD arrived yesterday, but I decided I had to watch the ep again before I listened to it. When Ken wandered in from the garage at midnight (he’d been helping Dennis build a box on a trailer for Dennis’ upcoming move to Texas), he wanted to watch it from the beginning, so we did, plus some of the DVD extras. (We saved the karaoke for when Cat would be home.) That ep is one of the best Joss Whedon ever wrote, you know? He did exactly what musical theatre is supposed to do: the songs not only show the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters, but they make major plot advances that you couldn’t show so succinctly otherwise. Mmmmm.

Then, today, we went to see a production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” in Canyon Country, because Cat’s mom was directing, and her sister and nieces were in it. I haven’t seen the show for years, and it was a blast.

Cat and I want to see “Mamma Mia” at The Pantages, but it ends on 12 June, so I’m not sure if we’ll have the chance. Ah well. We shall see.

So that’s what I brought you all here to talk about. Musical theatre. It rules.

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After the show, we went to Hollywood and met Fran for dinner. We ate Indian food and talked for almost 3 hours, much to my amazement. Not that I didn’t think we could talk for 3 hours, but how fast the time went.

Now we’re home, and I think we’ll curl up and watch some season 2 “Angel” soon.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually get back to accomplishing things!