This performance at the Drury Lane Theater marked the 20th play at 13 different theaters that I have seen in 2017. That’s not even in the ballpark compared to the numbers put up by people I know on the Jeff Awards Committee, but I can narrow my selections of what I see to the kind of shows I prefer, which, if you haven’t figured it out yet, means ones that make me smile and laugh, and, even better, include tap dancing (which is why I loved SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical and its tap dancing squid, which might destroy my credibility but for the fact that The New York Times loved it also).

I went to see 42nd Street on a last minute whim. You can do this a lot when you’re retired. Every day is Saturday. Okay, this time it actually was Saturday, which is why there was a 5:00 performance. I bought my ticket online at 3:00 and was out the door by 3:45.  I love that theaters hold back house seats. As a result, I wound up sitting in the 7th row center, with an empty seat to one side for my puffy coat.

At intermission a woman two seats away on the other side, leaned across her husband to tell me that she was enjoying this show more than Hamilton. I haven’t seen Hamilton (I’ve never seen 1776 either – hmmm) – I can see a half dozen or more shows for the price of one Hamilton ticket – so I couldn’t respond regarding my preference, but I did comment on not wanting to spend the money on Hamilton, which immediately made a best friend of the husband, who apparently had made that same, albeit losing argument to her.

As hoped for, 42nd Street made me smile. The tap dancing was fabulous and there was a lot of it. Going to the 5:00 show enabled me to avoid traffic in both directions, get a good parking spot, and make a quick exit. It’s the little things in life.