The Night Fairy
A play about fairies?? Are you kidding me?? We were all over that. It was at the South Coast Repertory and it was wonderfully done. Several of the characters were elaborate puppets some of which took several people to operate. Really neat! Georgie loved this show. I think it might have been one of her favorites so far.

The Full Monty
Next on our Candlelight Pavillion series was The Full Monty! I'd seen the movie years ago and enjoyed it. Our normal table is front and center. This is usually great for most shows. I like being able to see clearly. But, for the Full Monty, front and center may have been a little TOO close... those were really small G-strings they were wearing ;-)

Having said that, the food was great! the show was very funny! and an evening with my mom is always enjoyed.

Cinderella Ballet
Georgie and I have enjoyed the Nutcracker performances the last few years so when I saw they were going to be doing a version of Cinderella it was an easy call. It was a great, kid-friendly performance. The costumes and dancing were wonderful! At intermission Georgie mentioned to me that she'd noticed that there was no talking. I thought it was funny because she's seen the Nutcracker at least three times but I guess she never put it together before that ballet would mean just dance and music.

The stepfamily was hilarious! Stepmother was danced by a man, something I thought obvious but from listening to the comments of many audience members after the performance, it wasn't universally understood. Funny.

 Georgie's favorites were the birds and mice. They were awfully cute!

 Hitting one of her own ballet poses I guess :-)

The Phantom Tollbooth
This was the last show of the children's series at our local theater. I recall my boys reading the book years ago in school but I didn't know the story. Reading the summary of the show I was a bit concerned that Georgie wouldn't be able to follow the story. It sounded weird and complicated.

For anyone who isn't familiar, the premise is that Milo is a teen boy who is perpetually bored. One day, a magic tollbooth appears in his room and takes him to a faraway land The Kingdom of Wisdom where he encounters dueling kings: The King of Dictionopolis who thinks that words are more important than numbers and The King of Digitopolis who has the opposite opinion. Milo is helped to navigate this strange world and escape "The Doldrums" by Tock a "watch" dog that wears a very large clock around his neck. After some adventures the two eventually manage to rescue the kings' sisters Princesses Rhyme and Reason. With Rhyme and Reason restored all is well and Milo realizes that the world is a beautiful and interesting place.

It's an odd little story but fortunately G had no trouble following it. Although she did require an explanation of the word "bored" with which she was not at all familiar. Not surprising, G is never bored! Overall cute show. G and I were even thinking we should read the book so we can learn about some of Milo's other adventures!

 G with King of Digitopolis

 and one of the demons (scary!)

 and finally Tock.

Beauty and the Beast
I think it might be my favorite play... well, at least in the top few :-) BATB has always been my favorite Disney movie and the musical is even better. I saw it a year or two ago with my mom and we had AWESOME seats, much better than our regular ones. I had to do an exchange and we ended up being seated in the Golden Circle which are the seats that people leave to their children in wills and cost a FORTUNE! I'm not sure how we got so lucky that time but it was great.

It was was excited to see BATB pop up on our Calif Theater series. The same production was also going to be at the Pantages a few weeks later but hey! I already had seats. Uh yeah, not sure why, but the series performance was cancelled about 6 weeks before it was scheduled to run. How annoying. If I wouldn't have thought we were going to see it at the other location I could have purchased seats about 8 mos earlier during presale. But, I really, really wanted G and Bobby to see the show so I ended up getting the "best available" seats for what turned out to be the last day of the run. The seats weren't great, several rows up in the balcony, which is always a problem for me because of my crappy vision. Fortunately, Bobby and G had no issues and I enjoyed the music and the big picture :-0

Good news? It was just as wonderful as I remembered. The sets, the costumes, the music... fantastic! G loved it too.

G decided not to wear her Belle dress choosing comfort over aesthetics... smart! But, just because you're not wearing a princess dress doesn't mean you can't let your inner princess show through with a bun and tiara.

Jekyll & Hyde
Our Pantages series continues! Wow, what can I say? It was an incredibly dark story... murder, intrigue. It was a far cry from the typical musical that's for sure. Constantine Maroulis was pretty good. He's gotten really bad reviews but I think they were undeserved. He doesn't have a typical stage voice. The actress who played his love interest was amazing! What a beautiful voice. Overall I really enjoyed the show and appreciated that it was something very different than usual.

Aladdin's Luck
Next on our children's series at our local community theater. Georgie wore her Jasmine outfit, so cute! The play was well done. It's an Aladdin story; as explained to us a modern day telling of the original Arabian Nights version rather than Disney. The female lead was not named Jasmine but something else that I cannot recall at the moment. As is usual for our local theater, it was quite well done.

Peter Pan: starring Cathy Rigby 
Bobby, Georgie and I caught a matinee. I was concerned about our seats because they were REALLY far back but, as it turned out, they were on the aisle and actually provided a great view of the show. Like pretty much everything at the Pantages, it was extremely well done and Cathy Rigby was awesome! Its incredible that she's 61 years old... she flipped and tumbled and flew. Wow! Georgie absolutely loved it! It didn't hurt that we'd just returned from the ship where she'd had such amazing interactions with Peter Pan. I think he might be her favorite character now :-)

How cute is G in her little purple hat? G figures if its purple, it matches... I think she's right!

A Snow White Christmas
They had me at Snow White and.... uh.... Christmas :-)

As it turned out it was a super cute show that had absolutely nothing to do with Christmas. Seriously, no Christmas songs or anything. I'm not complaining, it wasn't a big deal but it was odd. Oh wait, there was a nod to the Noel... in the dwarfs cottage there was a fireplace at the back of the stage with with 7 small stockings hanging from the mantel.

Anyway, the show was advertised by the Pasadena Playhouse as a "panto". I guess they're commonly done in Britain during the holiday season. They take a familiar fairy tale and add in lots of modern music, pop culture references and encourage audience participation. It was really fun! Snow White was played by a cute little Nickelodeon girl I'd never heard of, the Evil Queen was played by Charlene Tilton from Dallas, and the Mirror was an on screen appearance by Neil Patrick Harris.

When the show was over they had these little snowmen set up in the courtyard that shot out foam "snow". G thought they were the most wonderful things she'd ever seen. At some point she was completely covered in sudsy "snow" so much so that she resembled the snowmen a bit :-)

Donny and Marie???
Hmmm... was my first thought when I saw it as one of the performances in our series. I really couldn't muster up any enthusiasm at all. They're just so. darn. cheesy. But, what the heck! We'll give it a try!

Guess what? The show was really good. I know, it shocked me too! It was Donny and Marie so there was a bit of cheese :-) but not so much that it was bothersome. In fact, it was kind of endearing. And overall the production value of the show was really high. I learned a couple of things that night too.

First, Marie Osmond can SING! Truthfully, she has an incredible voice. This was primarily a Christmas show but also included songs that each of them had done over the years. For Marie, this meant several songs from her many Broadway shows. I was surprised and impressed.

Second, Donny Osmond has some really intense fans. Really. They're mostly about my age or maybe a bit older. Some of them brought their adult children along. A few of them were practically panting from the excitement of the situation. A shocking number of them lunged past their seatmates for the opportunity to touch Donny's hand as he made his way up the aisles. It was hysterical!

In retrospect, I'm so happy that we do the musical subscription because we end up seeing shows we normally never would. This one goes right to the top of my list of surprises!

The Nutcracker
Its become an annual pre-Christmas tradition: me, my mom and G going to see the Nutcracker ballet! The last two years we've gone to the same performance put on by a local ballet school. Its extremely well done. This year, they did some additional performances at our even more local theater so we thought we'd give it a try. The performance itself was still extremely well done but, due to the constraints of the smaller stage, it seemed they had to downsize some of the sets. Also, because they were only doing a few performances at this location, they didn't have all the neat decorations in the lobby. Overall not a huge deal but still slightly disappointing. The upside is that the seating was fantastic and we were fortunate to have 5th row on the aisle so we had no problems with the view.

A few days before the performance I read G the Nutcracker book so she'd be re-familiarized with the story. It was adorable to listen to her explain certain aspects of the ballet as she watched. The dancing, costumes, and music were wonderful as always and we all enjoyed it tremendously. In fact, I think I like it more each time I see it!
 
The girl who danced the part of Clara was wonderful and only 12!

The Little Mermaid
Friends of ours invited us to attend a performance of The Little Mermaid at a local high school where one of them works. A high school performance of Little Mermaid?? Sure, why not, we're usually up for whatever. As it turned out it was a community theater production at the high school and it was REALLY well done. The sets and costumes were fantastic! Georgie absolutely loved it!

As a special treat, G and her friend got to go up on the stage in the last scene! At the intermission a costumed page came out and asked her if she'd like to be a part of the show. G couldn't bob her little head up and down any faster in response. Luckily, she was able to bring a friend. It was only for a minute or so and just to stand as part of a group of wedding guests but G was so happy.

After the show, the characters were available for photos. I swear Prince Eric's hair did not look anywhere near as strange in person as it does in this shot :-)

I've always been a fan of Ursula, Flotsam, and Jetsam. How great is that makeup? I so love the baddies.

Scuttles, Flounder, and Sebastian. The little boy who played Flounder was only 8 yrs old and pretty much stole the show. I found out later that he's actually a student at Georgie's school. I'd met him only a week or two before when I went for a tour as part of the application process for kindergarten. Very smart kid!

All the princesses and their princes were part of the wedding party as well. I'm not sure why Fiona from Shrek was there... she's not Disney. LOL. The girls didn't care a bit! They thought all those princesses were AWESOME!

With Ariel's sisters: Attina, Aquata, Andrina, Arista, Adella, and Alana... probably not in order :-)

Everything about this picture of the girls --I've begun to refer to them as "Cor-giana" --makes me smile

The holiday season is upon us
for real. Every year we say we're going to get the tree and outside lights up on Thanksgiving weekend. It never happens. Best laid plans and all that... it doesn't usually happen until a week or two before Christmas day. But, this year, we did it! Only two days after Thanksgiving and the tree is up, the house is pretty much decorated and we were off to our first Christmas activity at the Candlelight Pavilion.

We went last year and really enjoyed the show. Sadly, although we had a good time overall, it was not nearly as good as before. The food was only so-so, the service was AWFUL, and the show was ok. I was so surprised because I've been many, many times and never had bad service or food. Even with all these drawbacks, Georgie still enjoyed it. The highlight for her was the portion of the show where Santa and Mrs Claus invite all the kids up on the stage for the reading of the Christmas wishes. G's wish, oddly enough, was for a violin :-)  I have no idea what brought on the desire for a violin but she's been alternating between that and a flute. Hmm.

Anywho, after the show, G got another opportunity to visit with Santa. Mrs Claus was there too! This makes five visits with Santa so far this year... and its not even December yet.

G was so excited about going up on the stage. She remembered from last year. She nearly sprang from her seat when they announced it was time.

Another visit with the big red guy. This time they had a cookie instead of a candy cane. G was stoked!

To Kill a Mockingbird
About a week ago, my mom called me to say that she had written down in her calendar that we were scheduled to see a show on Friday. We were both confused. Not only did I not have it in my calendar (which I'm pretty careful about) but it was on a Friday... so odd. We always schedule our theater outings for Sunday nights. Not only that but I had no tix. Hmmmm. Finally she called the theater and confirmed that, yes, we did have tix for the show. Slowly it came back to both of us... it was my mom who had gotten the tix and they were for ME as my birthday gift back in May. Ugh. I'm glad she'd written it down or we would have completely missed it and that would have really sucked.

So, after a very long day for me (7am we left to go to DL, returned home at 2:30, dinner, G's dance class) we went to the show. It was at the local community theater. We had great seats and the performance, as always, was really good.

I read the book many years ago and had also seen the movie several times. Because of this I was quite familiar with the story about a black man falsely accused of attacking a white woman in the deep south in 1935. But, as is common with these things, each time you experience the story you take something different from it. Of course, the man is eventually convicted even though all the evidence makes it clear that he was innocent. Its a sad story and so interesting in many ways. First, 1935 is the year my mother was born. Second, its hard to believe that it really wasn't that long ago that the attitudes represented were commonplace and acceptable. I know that there are still inequities and that things aren't perfect in the world of race relations but seriously, from To Kill a Mockingbird to President Obama in only 70 odd years? Amazing. I won't be around to see what the world is like in another 77 yrs obviously but, wow!

Thanks for a great evening Mom!

Robin Hood
They were doing it at a small theater that's part of the Segerstrom complex. So cute! This was true children's theater. The kids were encouraged to yell out to help the characters and cheer for the good guys and boo the bad guys. Plus, the show was only 65 mins long and still included an intermission :-) Georgie absolutely loved it!

G's been to a lot of theater. And, she's a pretty mature kid for being just under 5 yrs old but sometimes something will happen or she'll say something that makes me realize how much of a little girl she is. At one point in the show, the Sheriff of Notthingham falls onto his knife and dies. I whispered to Georgie "oh, he died". G turned to me and with all sincerity and monumental concern whispered back "for real?"

Sweet baby.

With Robin. They're all wearing clown noses because the premise of the performance is that they were a group of traveling clowns who needed to present a show to make money to buy food. Sounds odd now but it made sense at the time :-)

G's attempt at a scary face with (the very much alive) Sheriff Nottingham

Georgie's favorite, Maid Marion!

We have another two shows. After this experience we're looking forward to them!

Theater night: The Woman in Black
I had no idea what this one was about going in. Sometimes I read up, usually I don't. Odd show really. Only two actors-- both older men speaking in English accents-- and a very sparse stage. I must admit that the first 10 mins of the show I honestly thought that it might be the first one we'd walk out of at intermission. But then it went on and I started getting hooked. As it turned out, I really enjoyed it! It was entertaining and a bit scary. Really fun night with Mom!

Pinkalicious
was the next show on our children's series at the Lewis Playhouse. G was thrilled that her friend Cora was able to join us. Surely the only thing better than watching a musical about a little girl obsessed with everything pink is being able to see it with a friend. G loved this show! She sat on the edge of her seat with a huge smile on her face and wiggled along to all the songs. It really was a cute show.

Yes, you're seeing that right. G is wearing fairy wings!

With Pinky's mom and dad.

and finally, with Pinkalicious herself!

After the show, we hit Johnny Rockets. So high calorie but so tasty!

Fun day!