2) Attended the opening night of the Encores! presentation of On the Town. It was marvelous hearing a full, proper orchestra; seeing Leonard Bernstein's timeless, elegant choreography; watching a uniformly excellent cast (including, as a dipsomaniacal voice teacher, Andrea Martin -- who chews the scenery, steals her scenes, ad-libs up a storm, and basically runs delightfully amok) go through their utterly professional paces; and, best of all, spending over 2 hours looking at Tony Yazbeck in tight, white bellbottoms. And trust us, he looks 100 times better in person than in any photo we could find of him. If you see this production, you'll want to take him home to meet your mother, then just take him home. His uniquely appealing combination of stumbling boyishness and utter humpiness had us reaching for the smelling salts.
3) Went to a preview of the soon-to-open White Christmas, based, of course, on the 1954 film. It's a mixed bag; where we give On the Town an unqualified rave, weI have some reservations about White Christmas. There's not one fully fleshed-out character in the entire show; everyone's a Show Biz Caricature. Rather than actually feeling like the 1950's, everything's a bit too brightly Technicolored; it's ironic, rather than evocative. (Whereas On the Town seemed lifted directly from 1944, in a very good way.) Everything's a tad too calculated to be truly transporting; but it's still a glamorous, entertaining way to spend an evening. Of course, those glorious Irving Berlin songs still sound fantastic; and the admittedly grand Grand Finale will negate any Scrooge-like quibbles you may have with the show as a whole.
