Leap of Faith

Friday afternoon Kevin called from work and asked what we were doing that night.

me: "nothing"
Kevin: forlornly "oh."

I think it had been a long week at work and he needed to be out and about, not sitting our on couch for the usual Friday night fare. What could we do that would be really fun? I'd seen signs all around our neighborhood for the new musical at the Ahmanson theater, but didn't know much about it. Leap of Faith is based on the Steve Martin movie of the same title, which I vaguely remember. I learned it is a new musical produced by the Center Theater Group (hoping to make it onto Broadway), with music written by Alan Menken (of Broadway and Disney Fame.) The stars of the show are Raul Esparza (seen him in some b'way concerts) and Brooke Shields. I wasn't so sure about Mrs. Shields in a musical, but the rest intrigued me enough to call the box office and ask about hot tix. Those are the $20 say day tickets. You have to sit in the nose-bleed balcony, but for $20.....

One more call to Grandma Gail (we LOVE Grandma Gail) to see if she could, perchance, on such ridiculously short notice, babysit Zoey. Affirmative. We had ourselves a date!
The first act was good. The second act REALLY good! "Are you on the Bus or Off the Bus" was particularly amazing with three excellent supporting-role, female voices. All cast members were strong. Brooke Shields didn't deliver on parts of some of the songs, but she did okay and her acting was spot on. Not only did the show offer great singing, fun choreography (a little too much at the beginning--an overture would have been better), good acting, and of course the costumes and sets of a Broadway-worthy play, but it had a great message. I left the theater thinking about what good I could do in the world.