Because I love Café Pascal, a French café at South Coast Plaza, I decided to try the Champagne French Bakery Café, which is another French café at South Coast Plaza. My mother and I went there for lunch today. I can sum up our experience very simply: The lack of quality in the service was surpassed only by the lack of quality in the food.
AT&T sent out an independent contractor today to reinstall all of the outside wiring and inside wiring for my cable television (because I’m not getting the interactive guide, the correct time, or half my channels). The reason they wanted to replace all the cables is that the last guy they sent out said that was the problem.
Well, they just left, and after replacing all the cables, it still doesn’t work. Now I have to wait for AT&T to call me (which could take up to a week, like it did the last time) and set up a third appointment, during which they’ll once again try to figure out what’s wrong. Arrgh!
It’s theatre appreciation week here in the world of me.
Last Thursday I went to the final dress rehearsal of Gypsy at APA. It was actually pretty good for a high school show. Katherine was believable as “Louise” and not as annoyingly peppy as usual, and Kellie was amazing as “Mama Rose.” I mean, that girl’s pinky knows more about acting than anyone at APA. The rest of the leads were okay. They weren’t bad like I expected them to be. And Rachel stood out among the three main strippers because of her skills using the light-up hearts on her costume. It was definitely a dress rehearsal, though, considering that the lighting in the show managed to set off the fire alarm in the auditorium halfway through Act I.
Friday night I went to see IVC’s latest disaster, The Good Woman of Setzuan. The show included paper shadow puppets on an overhead projector. Need I say more? It’s one of Ron’s drug-induced ideas: taking a Brecht play (which is bad to start), turning it into a musical, and adding puppets. It’s a great recipe for failure. A few people were noticeably good despite the horrible script and direction of the show, though. Stan (Good Stan), as always, was hilarious in his small role as a god and as “Grandfather.” He’s one of those people who doesn’t have to do anything special to be funny; he just has to be himself. I mean that as a compliment. Paul also did a good job adding excitement to an otherwise boring show, and Theresa (who’s come a long way since playing “Tourist #4” in Guys and Dolls) had several very believable monologues. I was very proud of her. Also worth mentioning was a girl named So¤a, who was an amazing puppeteer even though she was somewhat creepy without a puppet.
As if that weren’t enough theatre for one weekend, on Saturday I went to the Main Street Players for the first time to see Li’l Abner. I love Li’l Abner, and no one ever does it, so I enjoyed seeing it regardless of the fact that they had nearly no men (and none at all who were muscular as the script requests). “Daisy Mae” and “Abner” were great singers, though, so nothing else mattered. They beautifully sang the few beautiful songs in the show, so I was happy. “Mammy” and “Pappy” were hilarious, and “Marryin’ Sam” was pretty good, but the Washington, D.C. crowd weren’t very interesting. However, the greatest thing about this production was that it had a live orchestra, which is hard to find these days except in high school theatre.
Theatre appreciation week isn’t over yet, though.
Tonight I’m going to see My Fair Lady at the Curtain Call Dinner Theatre. Amie and I got show-only comp tickets from her friend Allison (who’s in the chorus), so we just have to pay for drinks and dessert. I love their dinners, so I would have paid full price for admission, but this is the only way I could get anyone to go with me. I’m excited about seeing Michael in a lead role (he’s playing “Doolittle”) somewhere other than IVC.
Friday night Traci will be home, and she, Amie, and I are going to see A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Westminster Community Theatre. Mira is in it (as a courtesan, of course), and we’ll greatly enjoy laughing at her. Also, Stan (Evil Stan) is playing Hysterium, and I’m sure he’ll be his typical goofy self.
Then on Saturday afternoon, I’m going to see Maile’s play. Since Maile doesn’t like to divulge information about anything to anyone for any reason, all I know is that it’s called Old-Fashioned Melodrama and Ice Cream Social (or something like that), and that it’s at OCC. I don’t know how to get tickets, how much they cost, what time the show starts, what the show is about, or anything else important like that. Maile should try doing murder mysteries.
Finally, on Sunday afternoon, Stephanie, Amie, and I are going to see the closing performance of Into the Woods at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles. We’ve heard myriad mixed reviews of this revival production, but we want to see it with our own eyes and form our own opinions. If nothing else, I’m sure we’ll enjoy the dancing cow.
Well, I might as well jump on the bandwagon and post a survey just like Maile and Traci did. It seems to be the cool thing to do. So let me go find a survey to take… ah! Here’s one: