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.

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.

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!

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!

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!