My lovely friend Amy, bless her, offered me a free ticket on the lawn of Ravinia for a "Concert Performance" of Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle which was this evening. After work, I cabbed it over to the Metra station and jumped on the Northbound train at 6:35 (for $3.70). The ride up was nice--I sat on the upper level of the train (so cool!) and tried to read but was frequently distracted by the pretty suburbs we kept riding through.
Ravinia itself is a a beautiful venue. It reminded me of the tent in Aspen, only smaller and nicer. It wasn't really like a concert venue in the sense that I've been to lately--no messy crowds and dirty bathrooms. The clientelle was dressed up and the sandwiches cost $8.50. There were trees spattered throughout the lawn and flowers and shrubberies accenting the venue.
The company was good: 4 of Amy's friends from church were there, and they were all very nice and we all had theatre/music/musical theatre in common. We had a little picnic with the muffins and other breakfast pastries Amy had stolen from some meeting she had today. Yum!
And the concert was amazing. It wasn't merely a concert. There was full on staging. And it was almost the entire show--they skipped some music in the cookie ballet, apparently, but I wouldn't have known if Kelsey hadn't been in the show when she was in college.
Patti Lupone was amazing, and Audra McDonald was simply magnificent. I was also quite impressed with the scenic and costume designs which were quite simple and functional, yet very very effective.
Sigh. Audra was so great...
No comments:
Post a Comment