Side Show

Class in Anaheim continues today. Tonight I return to Sacramento.

Last night, in the Carl's Jr. drive-through, I got a salad (for the roughage), and consequently dreamed about chewing apart a crystal-clear drinking glass to soothing music. Some roughage: I need a better diet!

Last night, I blindly went to Elizabeth Howard's Dinner Theater in Tustin, not knowing what I'd find playing (I had thought about visiting Hollywood, but it's too far away). The show at the moment in Tustin is "Annie Get Your Gun," but that show was dark on Wednesday night. Instead, a fundraiser was being held to support 'The Academy For Performing Arts,' the magnet component of Huntington Beach High School. The show featured many recent Academy alumni in performance, plus as much cheesecake as one could eat.

Act I featured a number of songs from a musical I'm unfamiliar with: "Side Show." It's about the occupational and romantic dilemmas of the Hilton sisters, Siamese twins in a traveling circus. The Hilton sisters (not Paris and Nikki, but rather Daisy and Violet) were played by Amie Shapiro and Nicole Gerardi. It's a modern-style musical, where the dialogue is all sung, and there is a lot of dialogue to sing. Amie and Nicole sang several anthems: 'By Your Side,' and 'I Will Never Leave You.' The two were strongly matched (as might be expected) and they both sang very well. The best of the ensemble numbers was 'The Devil You Know.'

"Side Show" seems to be an anti-Carnival-type musical. Instead of the thrill of life changes by joining the circus, plus the anticipation of romance, there is the dread of life changes by leaving the circus, plus the anticipation of romance. The former seems inherently more interesting, at least to me. Musicals seem to work best when they place ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Here, extraordinary people were placed in more-or-less ordinary circumstances. Well, whatever gets the beautiful songs sung: that's what counts most of all!

Act II featured a number of songs from other musicals: 'Hey, Big Spender' from "Sweet Charity," 'Lida Rose' from "The Music Man," 'Good Morning Baltimore' from "Hairspray," 'Waiting for Life to Begin' from "Once on This Island," etc. "D" Pull and Matt Bartosch made a good team of male singers in several contexts: "Side Show" in Act I, and 'High Flying Adored' from "Evita" in Act II. The singer I most enjoyed, however, was Katie Dixon, who sang 'Come To My Garden' from "The Secret Garden." Beautiful voice!

In the same shopping center as Elizabeth Howard's Dinner Theater is "Deva's", the bar run by Reva Renee Renz, one of the 135 gubernatorial candidates from the 2003 Recall Election. Last year I narrowly and stupidly missed seeing her. This year, I quickly peeked in, unannounced and unanticipated, to see if she was running bar: it seemed to be a slow Wednesday, and I didn't see her, so I didn't go in.


'Welcome to the Sixties' finale, from "Hairspray." Looks kinda cool (in an abstract way). Energy and enthusiasm conquer all shortcomings, including my inexpert photography!