When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way... I've been a fan of West Side Story since I was a little girl and my best friend's mom turned me on to the show via her Saturday house cleaning performed to the scratchy vinyl soundtrack. I can't remember the first time I saw the movie but I do remember the last time. It was Fall 2008, Obama had just been elected, and I was stuck in bed recovering from major surgery. I don't usually have my old TV hooked up to anything but the DVD player, but knowing I'd be laid up for more than a month, I splurged and got cable. (I quit both cable and pain pills about four weeks in when I noticed that my only "need" for either seemed to come at around 4 pm every afternoon when the LIFETIME Network showed some movie-for-ladies, usually about some recently divorced woman who wound up facing danger of one sort or another-- like, say, taking on a tenant to help with the bills, only to find out later he's an axe murderer).
One night, when I was still relying pretty heavily on the old Vicodin, I'd reached that terrible place. The silly high of the first few days was long gone and I was deep in that combination place of paranoia and constipation Vicodin inspires. I was so stopped up and confused I began to be suspicious of my own sphincter. I can't be certain if I am remembering two different nights as one, since I definitely had mash-up head at the time. But let's say it happened on the same night. Me, waking up at about 3 a.m., my colon feeling more impacted than a Republican with a wisdom tooth emergency watching the election returns. Warren, bless his heart, waking up to console me, trotting down to the 24-hour Fiesta to buy me waxy suppositories to loosen things up. And then-- Miracle of miracle, wonder of wonders (if I may mix my Broadway references)-- we turn on the tube to find out West Side Story is on. I was so psyched at this great triple fortune: a domestic partner willing to go on a middle-of-the-night suppository run, one of the greatest musicals of all time on TV, and the promise of an imminent bowel movement-- that I gingerly got out of bed and whipped us up some cheese omelets. With ketchup.
We sang along with Tony and Maria and the rest of them. And if we ever get married (don't worry...) I think I should like a ceremony that recreates that moment, the two of us in bed with ketchup smeared faces singing about how somewhere there's a place for us while the officiant, perhaps dressed as Rita Moreno's Anita does the honors.
In the meanwhile, I was totally pumped to get an invitation to attend press night at the Bass Concert Hall's presentation of Broadway Across America's West Side Story. We're going to see a sneak peek on Tuesday night. The rest of youse guys can see it later in the week. Here's the skinny:
WHEN: March 29–April 3, 2011
Tuesday–Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Bass Concert Hall | 2350 Robert Dedman Drive | Austin, TX
TICKETS: Start at $20. Single tickets go on sale February 3rd, available at the Bass Concert Hall box office, all Texas Box Office Outlets, by phone at (512) 477-6060 or online atwww.BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com. Groups of 15 or more are available by calling toll free at 1 -877-275-3804, or e-mail Austin.groups@
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