"Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812" - San Jose Playhouse - May 13, 2023

Wonderful afternoon watching Jared Lee, F. James Raasch, and the rest of the cast of "Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812" at the San Jose Playhouse, with Rachel Rycerz and Ia Rycerz. The show's run has been extended to June 4th. 

 Beside Jared and James, I really liked the performances of some of the other cast members too. I thought Paloma Maia Aisenberg was perfect as Natasha. Annie Hunt was great as Sonya. I really liked Osher Fine as Princess Mary, and admired her dancing skills. Nicholas Rodrigues was already familiar from the Shotgun Players, and he was an excellent Dolokhov.

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We got off to a late start from Sacramento.  I drove.  Rachel's phone kept a handy-dandy running commentary on how we couldn't possibly make it on time, given the heavy Bay Area traffic on a typical Saturday.  Curtain was to be at 2:30 p.m.  Maybe if we raced mightily we'd get there by 2:40 p.m.  

At first we were going to use Interstate 80, but the usual epic Yolo Causeway traffic jam was too thick, so we detoured back on Highway 50 and headed down south on Interstate 5, and crossed over towards San Jose through Livermore.  The phone offered a surprising detour to us to claw back a few minutes by passing through downtown Pleasanton (!), so we went that way.  Slow-moving traffic there and ambling pedestrians carrying bags from the tidy shops clashed mightily with our monomania to claw back seconds of travel time.  Rachel texted ahead to the theater and I understood that they were going to hold curtain for us (!).  We arrived during the opening number!

I know both Jared and James from DMTC days.  Jared was the lead in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in 2017 and James was Anthony Hope in "Sweeney Todd" in 2015.  Both gentlemen are excellent singers.
 

Jared Lee (Anatole) and F. James Raasch (Old Prince Bolkonsky/Prince Andrey)

Jared, me, and James.

I've never been to the San Jose Playhouse before.  Here is the snack bar.

I like the ceiling here.

Ia and Rachel at the poster for their favorite, Nicholas Rodrigues (Dolokhov), who was also Anatole in the Shotgun Players' production of "Great Comet" in Berkeley earlier this year. 

Jared!

James!

View at the very end of bows.