Imaginary Jesus... THE STAGE PLAY!

This November will be the world premiere of the stage adaptation of Imaginary Jesus!

The adaptation was written by the award winning playwright, Deanna Jent, whose play "Falling" is also opening off-Broadway this fall.

The play will be premiering at the Mustard Seed Theatre in St. Louis. I'll keep you updated on details, but right now it looks like Krista and I will be flying out for the premiere. I can't miss the opportunity to see an actor playing the part of me while I am sitting in the audience.

I've read the first 75% of the script and I couldn't be more pleased. It's clever, true to the source material and adds a few new, enjoyable bits as well. I laughed out loud while I was reading it, and I can't wait to see it live! If you live in the St. Louis area, I hope you'll be there, too!

If you're not in the St. Louis area... well, Deanna will make the play available to theatre companies in other cities, so who knows? You might get a chance to see it, too.

Mary Poppins on Broadway

Our last night in NYC we went to see Mary Poppins. We bought these tickets ahead of time because I love the movie and we thought it would be a good show.

And it was. The new music and the changes to the original music were done in conjunction with the Sherman brothers, the guys who wrote the music for the movie.

The acting was great and the costumes and set were spectacular. The set in particular caught my attention. It had enormous moving parts, and much of the show took place in some section of the Banks home, and the third floor and roof could be raised up and down onstage.

Also, Mary Poppins has an evil nemesis in the play. Which was good for a laugh, but of course MP is practically perfect in every way and she really had no trouble dealing with the interloper.

At the end, Mary flew up over the audience never to be seen again. Until she showed up for the curtain calls.

It was a great show to end a great week together.

The 39 Steps

Thursday night Krista and I went to see "The 39 Steps" at the Cort theatre. The play is a sort of comic retelling of Hitchcock's movie of the same name, with the four actors playing about 30 or 40 characters, which sounds ridiculous and is. It's played up for comic effect, of course, and I, in response, laughed heartily. We had a good time. The staging was ingenious also, and the cast gladly pointed out from time to time how silly it was that they were pretending to be in car, or that they had one door frame to suggest every portal that must be crossed. It was a good show, and a lot of fun. Below is a short clip from the show that someone from the theatre uploaded.

Wicked, Wicked Broadway

We scrambled down to the Gershwin theatre this afternoon to attempt to win the "Wicked lottery." About two hours before show time the theatre draws about ten names, and those lucky individuals who are drawn get to buy front row (!) tickets for a HEAVILY discounted price. It comes out to about $25 a ticket, which is probably about a tenth of the price others in those seats are paying.

So Krista and I put our names in and, wouldn't you know it? We won! My name was the next to last name called, so I happily traipsed up to the front of the line and pulled out ID and cash to buy our way to the best seats in the house.

I know some of you are probably concerned that the system was unfair or biased in some way so that I won, and not the hundred other people who had put their names into the pot. I don't think that's true. Although afterwards, it was like we had left behind Kansas and our old black and white lives and somehow stumbled into a world of vibrant color.

Here's a picture of me with all the winners of the Wicked lottery (we're on the left):

I have never had such great seats. I actually found the beginning of the show slightly frightening, as it seemed the actors could reach through the fourth wall and grab hold of me with no effort at all, and the flying monkeys were gibbering and leaping about.

The main actors, Julie Reiber and Kendra Kassenbaum performed beautifully. The entire cast, in fact, was amazing. The music, the sets, costumes, everything was great. I loved it. Krista and I had a great, great time.

I have some thoughts about the story overall, but I think I'll save that for another time just in case there is some Wicked-equivalent to Clay Aiken fans waiting to jump me. I'll just say that taking fantasy narratives and bringing moral sophistication rather than clear, black and white morality to them is difficult and I don't think the play quite pulled it off without raising a lot of questions. I imagine that if any of the good citizens of Oz saw this play they would say "conspiracy nut jobs." But we don't have to worry about that happening, anyway. That didn't (at all) diminish my enjoyment of the play. I laughed. I cried. I believed a monkey could fly. Krista liked it enough that she signed off on our children having Broadway careers.

Tomorrow... Mikalatos, Letterman and McCain, together in one room. TUNE IN TOMORROW FOR A COMPLETE REPORT. Until then, your BHR correspondent in NYC is signing off for the night.

Monty Python's Spamalot with surprise guest

Tonight I went to Spamalot, my first Broadway show, and I have to say that we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Part of the fun came from being with my beloved wife, without a doubt.

As we rounded the corner of the theatre, we knew little about the show. We knew it was based loosely on the "Holy Grail" movie from Monty Python and that Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria had been in the Broadway debut. What we didn't know was that the big name in the show for right now was... Clay Aiken.

Krista and I laughed about that and she assured me that she hadn't known. I'm not a big American Idol or Clay Aiken fan. A lot of people in the audience must have been because they applauded and screamed every time he said his lines without messing up. He's famous, I guess. As the guy next to us in the theatre told his father, "Clay Aiken's the Announcer-Guy on American Idol."

The first act of Spamalot left me grinning. It's funnier than the film it's based on, honestly. "The Song That Goes Like This" kept me laughing, as well as our heroes and their encounter with the Lady in the Lake and the Laker Girls. I could have done without much of the second act.

I would have gladly gone my entire life without hearing or seeing performed the songs "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" and "His Name Is Lancelot." Attempting bravely to balance these two travesties out was "I'm All Alone" and watching the Black Knight get hacked to bits on stage, followed by the ferocious rabbit. Please, someone, let somebody else read the Holy Hand Grenade instructions instead of Aiken. It's outside his range, I think.

All that to say, we had a great time. They closed the mezzanine for some reason and moved us to better seats in the balcony. Oh, and then we went for dessert afterwards and saw P Diddy. Yeah, apparently he was watching "Lion King" and fought his way out through his fans afterwards with his entourage. So we saw Clay Aiken and P Diddy in one night. Life in NYC, I guess.

Good night, everyone! See you tomorrow.