Month: February 2018

Several months ago the girl expressed an interest in seeing Colorado Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet, and because families of students enrolled in its dance academy received a 20% discount, we were able to get a good deal on tickets for great seats. The show was entertaining for a variety of reasons, not the least of which were the snippets of dialogue from my family:

Tom: This is the most boring thing I’ve ever done in my life.

Also Tom: They already did the balcony scene, how much left is there?

The boy [after Mercutio is killed]: I can still see him breathing!

Me [during intermission]: Do you think they’ll live happily ever after?

The boy: Maybe in heaven?

The girl: Don’t you know they do a double suicide?

Tom: That guy in the market has been trying to sell fabric for an hour and a half! That’s all he does!

Also Tom [after final scene]: Thank God they died quickly, I was worried it’d go on for another ten minutes.

The show was actually well-paced and enjoyable to watch. The dancing was pretty and the fight choreography had the kids enthralled. Tom struggled with the three hour production but that was attributable to a combination of a bad head cold, our wine pairing at dinner, and his old age in general.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Sb0lGJA7QX7O2rs13

 

I must be easily influenced because in the span of a few short months I went from being indifferent to Hamilton to spending an outrageous amount of money to see it. My friend Grace was obsessed with it and I blame her for making me obsessed with it too. Actually I’m not even as obsessed with it as my kids are. I blame Grace for causing my kids to become obsessed with Hamilton and in turn causing me to spend an outrageous amount of money because of it. We started listening to the original cast recording after we had seen The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. The kids were immediately entranced by Hamilton because it was so novel and so different from Phantom. The girl loved it because the songs reminded her of “music from the car radio” which was her way of saying Hamilton sounded modern. It was a clever concept and I was impressed by its originality, but I wasn’t about to blow my kids’ college savings to see it anytime soon. And then tickets went on sale in Denver and everyone lost their damn minds, including me.

As soon as the Denver Center for the Performing Arts announced Hamilton tickets were available for purchase, Tom and I waited in the online virtual waiting room all damn day and by the time it was our turn to access the theater’s website, there wasn’t a single ticket left. The public frenzy was no joke and I totally got caught up in it. At least we never entertained the idea of waiting in line all night in freezing temperatures at the box office, like some poor fools did. After tickets sold out, we checked some of the secondary markets and saw tickets for sale at ten times the price of face value. In a fit of rage I texted Brian and Ariana and invited ourselves to visit them over Presidents’ Day weekend, booked flights to Seattle, and bought overpriced tickets to see the Seattle production of Hamilton through StubHub. Immigrants, we get the job done.

I experienced some buyer’s remorse in the aftermath of the frenzy, but after having seen the show, I no longer regret my impulsiveness. I’m usually disappointed in live performances because they never quite live up to the recording. Not the case with Hamilton; the live performers were just as good if not better than the recorded cast. The kids LOVED the show. Sometimes I worry that they’ll become spoiled because we so often indulge them, but we indulge them so often because they don’t act spoiled and they’re such great kids. They bring us so much joy that they deserve some joy in return, especially if it’s the kind that I enjoy too.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/PNSUW9ckp1zscfgg1