November 25th, 2019

Yup that's me. All gussied up and ready for my evening at the theatre.

It's fun to occasionally have an opportunity to dress up a little bit.  It doesn't happen very often these days.  Florida is a very casual place, even more so than Colorado.  And Colorado was far more laid back than Connecticut where we lived before that. 

Florida is so casual, that I suspect you could show up to a play in a bathing suit and flipflops and nobody would bat an eye.  Seriously, at the theatre here, I saw  people in shorts, people in glitz and everything in between. But because I enjoy the rare excuse to be fancyschmancy, I did dress up a bit and I wasn't out of place either.  Mostly, I am good with casual.  But every once in awhile, I enjoy going full gussy.  Technically, I suppose this is only about 3/4 gussy since I wasn't wearing heels (this time).

Regardless of the non-existent dress code,  I was eagerly anticipating my first theatre night in awhile.

This was the first of 4 theatre nights that a group of ladies I know are attending.  We did this last year too and it was pretty dang awesome.  The member of the group who organizes this event, get this tickets WAY ahead of time.  I tuck the tickets in a drawer without even looking at the names of the various performances we are going to see because, let's face it, I'm going to forget the names anyway.  

Instead I write on my calendar, "S-Play 7:30" on the dates in question.  That's all I really need to know.  When the month comes along finally, I see that I have a performance coming up and I start to get excited and I plan my month, my week and finally The Day around it.  I am absolutely going to be sure to not miss whatever play I have tickets for!  

I never actually read the ticket until I take it out of the envelope in the drawer and put it in my little clutch purse. Y'see, it doesn't matter to me what play I'm going to see. I already know I'm going to have a good time.  The actual performance is just icing on the cake. It's kind of like a terrific surprise! I love surprises.

So okay,  the day rolled around this month, I made certain that I was available, my evening was clear. Around 5:30 I showered and, after a few false starts, figured out what I was going to wear.  I did my hair and my make-up.  I located my evening bag, decided which shoes I was going to wear and then pulled out my ticket.

Here it was, the big reveal, What Play am I going to See??

To my surprise, I had never ever heard of this play.  The ticket said, "Fall Musical". Interesting. I've never heard of this one.  A musical about autumn?  I contemplated this as I walked down the street toward the theatre, collecting a few fellow theatre goers along the way.  

We chatted about this'n'that. Nothing of any consequence. And the entire time, the back of my brain is still ruminating on what sort of songs there are about fall?  I'm thinking, Frank Sinatra, "September Song".  Or maybe, Eric Clapton's "November".   Or maybe Kenny Chesney's, "The Boys of Fall". But then there is, "November Rain" by Guns 'n' Roses and Neil Young's, "Harvest Moon".  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't twist those songs into one collective, unified story line. It was a mystery.

So in short order, we arrived at the Venice Theatre and blend in with the throngs,  We milled about for a little bit then eventually we found our seats and got comfy.  About sixty seconds before the play began, the person sitting on my left said, "I'm so excited to see this".  I said, "Me too" .  She said, "I think I've seen it 3 times now".  Completely surprised, I said, "You've seen 'Fall Musical' 3 times?  She looked at me as if I was an idiot (because I am) and said, "No, I've seen Mama Mia 3 times"  I stared at her blankly, mouth open and then suddenly all of the marbles  in my head fell into the proper holes. 

 We got the tickets so early that the theatre must not have decided on which Musical they were going to perform on the date in question, so they merely referred to it the Fall Musical.  And the tickets, at that time, were printed that way.  At some point they chose 'Mama Mia' as the Fall Musical but of course, our group already had the tickets in their hot little hands.  There is no musical called, "Fall Musical".   I am an idiot.

But it was time for the play to start. So I closed my mouth and looked at the stage. It was wonderful! It was amazing. I loved every minute of it.  The set  design, the costumes, the singing, the music, the dancing....it was all superb!  Really and truly one of the best musicals I've ever seen there. And I've seen a lot of really good ones.

I think I was the only person in the theatre who had never seen any version of Mama Mia before.  And, from the talk around me at intermission, it sounded as if most people had seen both the film version and the play version.  There was a lot of hot debate about which was better.  Universally, everyone disliked Mama Mia part two.  I did not know there was a part two. And since this was the one and only version I had ever seen, I could not weight in on whether the film or the play was better.

The film would have to be completely amazing because the play was really really really really good.  But of course, now that I have seen the play, I also need to see the movie.  It's officially on my list of movies I need to see.

At the very end of the play, all the performers were on the stage singing and dancing and the audience was singing along, a few people dancing a little bit.  It was obvious that everyone there had a great time.  Including ME!

Despite the fact that I'm foolish enough to believe that there actually is a musical called, 'Fall Musical', it was a great night!  And honestly, it was a wonderful surprise. I already knew I was going to have a good time, seeing a play I'd never heard of before (the "fall musicsal") But when it turned out to be a play I had long wanted to see, well that was even better. So the fact that I didn't know kind of made it a surprise surprise!

Double the Fun!