Saturday, May 13, 2006

Theatre

This summer I am going to be in London during the Utah Festival Opera's 2006 season. I'm so sad. This will be the first summer I have ever missed a production. Yes, that's right. I have seen everything they have ever performed - including Loralee's season - long before I knew her. I love opera and I especially love plays. What I don't love are musicals. I hate Andrew Lloyd Weber (don't even get me started on Phantom) and tolerate Gilbert and Sullivan only in small quantities. I will admit that there are few things better than an excellent production of the Mikado, but I refuse to see Pirates of Penzance ever again. Three times is two and a half times too many. There are many musicals I love, but I'm a writer. I refuse to sacrifice the plot for the music.

My very first opera was La Traviata when I was in high school. This is interesting to no one else but me, but here is a list of theatre productions I can prove that I have seen, by category. There have been more, but I have playbills or ticket stubs for the following. I remember them all.

Operas and Operettas
Barber of Seville
Carmen
Crucible
Desert Song
Die Fledermaus (twice)
Don Pasquale
Gianni Schicchi (twice)
Girl of the Golden West
Greenwillow
Impresario
I Pagliacci (my favorite ever!)
Julius Caesar
Kismet (twice)
La Cenerentola
La Traviata (three times)
Madama Butterfly (twice)
Magic Flute (twice)
Merry Widow
Mikado (twice)
Nabucco
Naughty Marietta (twice)
Porgy & Bess
Rigoletto
Student Prince
Tales of Hoffman
Tosca
Trial by Jury
Turandot
1776

Musicals
A Really Big Shew
Annie Get Your Gun
Anything Goes
Brigadoon (twice)
Camelot
Cardigans, The
Carousel (twice)
Cotton Patch Gospel
Diamond Studs
Fanny
Fiddler on the Roof
Forever Plaid (twice)
Footloose
Hello, Dolly!
How the West Was Won
I Do! I Do!
Into the Woods
Jane Eyre (with Loralee Burnett as Grace Poole)
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (starring Donny Osmond)
King and I (twice)
Little Shop of Horrors (three times)
Man of LaMancha
Monkey Business
Nunsense
Oklahoma
Once Upon a Matress
Peter Pan
Secret Garden
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Scarlet Pimpernel (twice)
She Loves Me
Song of Singapore
Sound of Music
South Pacific (twice)
Sunday in the Park with George
Susannah
Taffetas
Two by Two
Phantom of the Opera (three different productions, Weber's twice)
Pirates of Penzance (three times)
Unforgettable
Unsinkable Molly Brown
Wizard of Oz

Plays
A Bedfull of Foreigners
A Midsummer Night's Dream (three times and a favorite)
A Murder is Announced
All For Mary
An Inspector Calls
And A Nightingale Sang
Antigone
A Winter's Tale
Beehive
Blithe Spirit
Blood Brothers
Cash on Delivery
Cherry Orchard
Christmas Carol (twice)
Diary of Anne Frank
Diviners, The
Dresser, The
Foreigner, The
Frogs, The
Goodnight Desdemona
Harvey
Helen
Heiress, The
Henry V
Henry VI
Holes
I Hate Hamlet
Importance of Being Earnest (twice)
Iphigenia in Tauris
Jungle Book
King Lear
Lettice and Lovage
Lend Me a Tenor
Lost in Yonkers
Merry Wives of Windsor
Miser
Miracle Worker
Mousetrap
Much Ado About Nothing (twice)
Night Watch
Noises Off (three times)
Our Town
Othello
Plaza Suite
Pool's Paradise
Rainmaker
Rumours
Servant of Two Masters, The (twice)
Sherlock's Last Case
Sunshine Boys
Twelveth Night
Unexpected Guest
Wait Until Dark
Winnie the Pooh
Woman in Black, The

I've also seen several ballets and many, many concerts. I love live theatre and see it more often than I see movies. The only glaring omission is Les Miserables and I must see it soon! This summer I will miss Marriage of Figaro, The Music Man, La Boheme and Man of LaMancha. I'll have to make up for it by seeing as much as I can in London.

2 comments:

Loralee Choate said...

I've been in 35 of those and directed 1. I don't know how I feel about that.

THANK YOU for the shout outs. Playing Grace was one of my favorites.

I am going to see the Music man this year. I want to see what they do with 76 trombones!

I envy the west end experience you'll have!

Holly said...

I hope you're proud of that. Which are your favorites? Which one did you direct?