We’ve long had the tradition of purchasing tickets to special shows as holiday or birthday gifts for the girls. And we take advantage of so many of the free shows offered in this city – from the summer Shakespeare performances in Forest Park, to the weekly symphony shows at the Piper Palm House that both girls attended every summer as little ones. We seem to always have friends involved in local performances, and we try to make time to see as many as possible. But we’ve never been season ticket holders to anything before this summer.
Back in the spring I took a photo of the Muny show flags while I was running past them. M and the girls got the idea to purchase season tickets this year – they figured that we could all manage staying up pretty late on a few summer nights, and the season lineup looked great. The Muny offers a certain number of free seats to every show, so purchasing tickets isn’t really necessary. But we knew that if we did purchase them and get them on the calendar, we’d be much more likely to follow through. It turned out to be a really fun summer plan.
We saw The Wizard of Oz (terrific tornado scene), 42nd Street (curtain call tap dancing was fantastic) and The Music Man (can’t get much better than 76 actual trombones on stage at the end – and also, the rotating set was ingenious).
After vacation we had Young Frankenstein (a bawdy washout on the final night of the run – so we gifted our replacement tickets to friends), Mamma Mia (so-so, but the ABBA concert at the curtain call was worth the price of admission), Fiddler on the Roof (loved having the orchestra on stage, and F still throws up her arms and belts out “TRADITION!” as an answer to most morning questions), and Aida (where we had front row seats to a Black Lives Matter singing protest just after intermission – an experience and conversation starter with the girls that I’ll never forget).
So it made for a powerful and eventful summer – and a lot of sleepy Wednesday mornings!
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The other musical obsession in our household? Hamilton.
The girls gave M the soundtrack for Father’s Day, and they are obsessed. Especially E. She loves when she’s alone in the truck with M because they can blast it and sing, and not worry about F shouting out some choice language the next day at school. E’s got a serious talent for memorization of lines and lyrics – she can listen to something a couple of times through and then repeat it on demand. Her goal is to master the entire thing at some point – I have no doubt that she’ll get there.
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We attended The Party That Shall Not Be Named at Left Bank Books a few weekends ago to celebrate the midnight release of The Cursed Child, Parts One and Two. Both girls made it to midnight – although F was pretty much done by 10:15. The whole release part was really lost on her. She got a butter beer and found a spot in the children’s section and demanded to be read to by her vary patient father while E had her body painted and fortune told and waited for the book.
While browsing the store, M and E found the Hamilton book – and promptly requested it as a shared gift. Here’s the photo that was taken of her at the event by the RFT. (More photos at that link.)
Since E was already getting a bike for her thirteenth birthday, I picked it up for M. I highly recommend it for anyone equally obsessed in your household.
Which segues nicely into my next bit – more season tickets! (Stay with me, there are some circular references here.)
M used his birthday money from his parents and my parents to buy season tickets to the Fox this season. We love seeing shows there, but probably wouldn’t consider becoming season ticket holders quite yet, except… for the the news that Hamilton will be here in the 2017-18 season. So season ticket holders this year will have the option to purchase next season’s tickets before the remaining tickets are offered to the public. You know, before they sell out in 4.8 seconds flat.
We only bought two tickets, so we’re hopeful we can snag a third one to Hamilton, but if not, I’ve already offered up my ticket to E.
I just haven’t figured out my price yet.
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And back to that Harry Potter party at Left Bank – we all entered a raffle while we were there. The prize was tickets to see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at the St. Louis Symphony – and we won! So now our cultural calendar is full to bursting, with some nice gifts – and a little luck. Or maybe magic.
