Friday (non)Film Focus: Something Rotten at the Ahmanson Theater (theater review)

Yesterday was my 26th anniversary with my wife Lisa. And my wife, knowing me all too well, said we should see a show to celebrate, and so off we went to the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles to see…

Something Rotten!

The musical, written by John O’Farrell, and Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, follows the Elizabethan trials and tribulations of the two Bottom brothers, Nick and Nigel, as they attempt to write plays in the shadow of that current rock star of a playwright, some dude named Shakespeare. Fun premise, funny characters, some really witty songs. A good time to be had by all (even non-Bard aficionados, methinks).

For me, the highlights were “A Musical,” a first-act number in which Thomas Nostradamus (the nephew of the famous one, he doth “promise”) tells Nick that musicals will be all rage in the future, and “Make an Omelette,” a second-act song from their new musical Omelette: The Musical (Nostradamus tells Nick that Omelette will be Shakespeare’s greatest play… he was soooo close). Of course, the numbers “God, I Hate Shakespeare” and “It’s Hard to be the Bard” were fun (and possibly useful to introduce Shakespeare in a return to the classroom), but really they didn’t pack the same punch as the former showstoppers.

Is it deep? Meaningful? A Classic? No. But it was funny and fun.

And here is where this post is going to go a bit sideways…

We had a great time.

There was some fun stuff there at the theater for one’s social media presence…

But what was more interesting was part of the 50th anniversary of the Music Center… along the walls, they had a timeline of the productions of the three Music Center theaters: the Dorothy Chandler, the Ahmanson, and the Mark Taper Forum. And those who’ve read this blog from the beginning (or at least the beginning of our current discussion of The Tempest) probably know where this is going.

Plopped right in the late Seventies/early Eighties section of the timeline, I found this:

My first Tempest!

Loved that. For those, who don’t know why I’m all happy about this, check this out…

And here it is it gets even more interesting. I’m doing Othello early next year (it was supposed to be in September and October, we had a casting change, so we postponed the production). Well, I was sharing the with some members of the cast what I knew (very little) about a rock musical version of the play, Catch My Soul. And what did I find on that timeline?

YES!

Cool stuff, indeed.

So thanks, Lisa, for a great anniversary…on so many different levels!

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