A Wicked Good Time

It was of the utmost importance that I take Alexis to see Wicked because The Wizard of Oz has been ruined for her. The last time she saw it was a local production that yinzerfied it. Yes, yinzerfied it. Dorothy was from Pittsburgh, not Kansas, and there were little Pittsburgh jokes all through the show and ZOMG DON'T DO THAT, PEOPLE. Some things are not to be tampered with and your dumb Baltimore Ravens joke does not belong in the midst of the majesty that is the fantastic original story that is Wizard of Oz.

But, like, Wicked is better. I've seen it before so I already knew that so I had to take Alexis.

(Just for the record, this isn't a sponsored post. I paid for the tickets, which was no small feat because I think EVERYONE bought them before I did.) (In other words, if you want to go, you better get on it. There are very few tickets left.)

The goal was to share a great story, beautiful sets, and an overall amazing production with Alexis. Which, that worked. She is now all in on all things Wicked. I expect she'll have the soundtrack downloaded by this time tomorrow and will already have memorized at least three of the songs. What I wasn't banking on was discovering something myself.

The conductor.

We had seats near the front because it turns out that the seats that are waaaaay off to the side are less expensive than some of the ones that are much further away. There are times when you can't see all of the action on the stage, but WHO CARES? I'll take an obstructed view when it means I get to be close enough to closely study Elphaba's green hands and decide if they're makeup or gloves or what. (I actually didn't decide. BUT I TRIED.) That means I had an unusually good view of the conductor.

First of all, he's adorable and animated and clearly passionate and everything that a conductor should be. But the thing that I noticed a billion times over was that he really enjoys his job. His face lit up with pure joy multiple times during the show. A smile spread across his face as he sang along with the cast during a number of songs. Mostly, though, he was just plain happy.

Everybody should be having that much fun when they're working.

It was such a delight to see someone having SO much fun while working that I made Alexis pay attention to him for a few minutes. I watched as his face lit up and then her face lit up and then I'm sure mine did too because obviously. Alexis leaned over and whispered, "I hope I love my job that much when I'm older!"

Me too, kid. Me too.

Comments

[bluzdude]

OMG, I would have LOVED to see yinzer Wiz. If they didn't have someone imitate Myron Cope for the voice of the Wiz, they missed the boat. Yoi!