Cahn Auditorium

Anything Goes – Music Theater Works (Cahn Auditorium) – August 18, 2018

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Several people who knew I was going to see Anything Goes remarked to me that it had gotten good reviews. I guess they were just trying to make conversation, given that it hadn’t opened yet. Perhaps they were recalling the reviews for the original 1934 Broadway production starring Ethel Merman, or subsequent ones featuring Patti LuPone and Sutton Foster. In any event, though it required great will power, I restrained myself from correcting them, until now.

Usually I do wait for reviews, and don’t like to go to opening nights, having participated in enough of them to know that often something goes wrong. But this was a short run and I had confidence both in the company and in Cole Porter, a real up-and-comer.

But, sure enough, there was a miscue by the star of the show, Erica Evans, as she started her first song. I’m not sure whether she started singing too early, or had word problems, but after one line, she very calmly and professionally, almost as if it were part of the song, said let’s try that again, a cue that the orchestra, through the conductor, flawlessly picked up on as it vamped to allow her to restart. She then proceeded to knock our socks off for the rest of the show.

Also, a quick mention of the percussionist who, in addition to a slew of the usual instruments, threw in a whistle, a bird call, and several other interesting things I couldn’t keep track of.

But, of course, my favorite part was the tap dance to the title song that closes the first act. What is it about someone, who has just finished being part of a 20-person, high-energy tap dance, calling out five, six, seven, eight, to launch the group into a dance reprise as the curtain lowers that is particularly delightful, or should I say delovely?

Ragtime – Cahn Auditorium – January 27, 2018

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Northwestern University’s annual Dolphin Show, billed as “America’s Largest Student Produced Musical”, is in its 76th year.  Yet somehow I just found out about it.  Working sure did cramp my style.

We went to see the students put on Ragtime at Cahn Auditorium, twice. The first time we were there a week early, so we went back a week later when the play was actually being performed.  I’ll take credit for that first troubling sign of senility, but at least we knew where to park when we went back.

Both times it was a lovely ride up Lake Shore Drive and Sheridan Road, though my companion was annoyed by all the Evanston homes that still had their Christmas lights and trees up a month after the fact.  I was okay with the lights.  Evanston streets are otherwise dark at night.  Lights are lights.

With no play to see the first time we drove up, only a few students who were obviously surprised when we entered the otherwise empty and unprepared auditorium (we all stood there staring at each other, dumbfounded, for what was probably only three seconds but seemed like an eternity while I tried to comprehend the situation), we walked to Dave’s New Kitchen for dinner.

Dave’s is tiny – the predecessor, Dave’s Italian Kitchen, was huge (maybe that’s why it went bankrupt). We were lucky to get a table after only a 15-minute wait on a Saturday night. Then again, it’s Evanston, not Chicago.  Great homemade pasta at good prices, optional BYOB.. Students and us.

The show featured a large, talented, student cast and orchestra, some nice set design, and a great Model T prop car.  The show was long (almost three hours including intermission).  But that’s a function of Ragtime, not this specific production.  And not as bad as the one time I went to the Northwestern Waa-Mu show, which, as I recall, lasted well into the next day.