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A Night at the Theater…
Friday night, we headed into the City for an evening of dining and theater. We’d planned this in December, before the reviews came out for the show, and have been looking forward to doing something fun.
For those unfamiliar, Lestat is a pre-Broadway production based on the vampire character by Anne Rice. San Francisco seems to have been chosen for the test runs of a few pre-Broadway shows and this one has mostly received between 1 and 2 stars so far. Ugh. But since we’d already paid for the tickets we decided to head into the City and make the best of it.
The show was set to start at 8PM and arrived in the City, via BART, at around 6:30PM. Starving, we quickly wandered the streets for a quick, but nice, place to have a nice dinner. We figured the closer to the theater the better, so we quickly found this little Mexican Bistro called Colibri, right across the street from the Curran Theater. Perfect. We went in and although they usually take reservations, they quickly found us a small table at the back of the restaurant. Our server, Luisa, was very informative and gave us great service, explaining how the meals are served tapas style, meaning that they are meant to be shared. They’ll also come to your table and make guacamole at your table.
Wifey™ ordered Camarones Tamarindo, which was prawns with a nice mole sauce. The mole was really nice and sweet, perfect since Wifey™ doesn’t like any kind of spicyness. I ordered Chamorro de Cordero, which was a lamb shank with a Muscat wine sauce wrapped in banana leaves. Our sides were Mexican Rice and Papas Gratin, both exceptional. The restaurant was a real find and I’d totally recommend it to anyone heading into the City, either for a night at the Curran or just to hang out around Union Square.
Our dinner ended around 7:15 and we were able to head right across the street to wait for our show to start. I think they finally let us in around 7:30 and the show started shortly after 8. Our seats were fantastic—third row center Mezzanine. The only better seats would be front row Mezzanine or Loge. What I don’t like about Orchestra seating is that you have more of a chance that you’ll get a fat head in front of you.
I won’t get into too much about the show other than to say it wasn’t as bad as one and a half stars. I think most of the audience found it entertaining and enjoyed it enough not to leave mid-performance. The songs by Bernie Taupin and Elton John were catchy, my favorite being the song by the character Claudia, “More”. I think the production as a whole is aimed at people who know the stories “Interview with a Vampire” and “Lestat”.
The first half the production deals with the second book “Lestat” giving you his background, and after the intermission they go over the first book “Interview with a Vampire”. Overally, the show was easy to follow and enjoyable.
I have to say though that the most interesting part of the evening was before the show even started and we’re waiting to head in. This guy dressed in drag walks in and waits in line. Now let me tell you, if this was a woman, she’d be the ugliest woman on the face of the planet. Even though it’s not odd to see in San Francisco, it’s still a bit on the weird side. I guess it’s more that as much foundation as this guy had on, his stubble also came through a bit. Maybe he’d look hot when you’re drunk off your ass, but by the morning you’d be suicidal.
Regardless, the show itself was fun and we’ve decided to do it a little more often. I’ve already seen Death of a Salesman with Brian Dennehey in New York and in San Francisco I’ve seen Cats, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Lion King and Sweeney Todd. But it’s always a good time heading over and seeing something else.
It’s nice to read a book or go to the movies, but if you really want a different experience there’s nothing like heading to the theater to see a story performed live. It’s just one of the finer things in life that everyone needs to do at least once, if they can, but it’s definitely for those that are willing to spend a couple hundred bucks on entertainment. It’s the difference between spending $50 on dinner and spending $150 on dinner. You just have to do it sometimes. We did and had fun, so we’re planning to do it again once we find another show to see.
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2 Responses to 'A Night at the Theater…'
you guys were SCARY CLOSE to us last night (i’m visiting adam this weekend). adam walked by while i was reading your entry and said, “who went and saw lestat last night?”
colibri is near a jack-in-the-box, right? how funny, we probably walked along the same street at the same time!
glad you had fun, anyway 🙂
Yeah, we walked right past the Jack-In-The-Box and were thinking that if we couldn’t get into Colibri, we’d just go in there. We even looked in the window to see what they had in there, so yeah, we probably passed right by each other. Funny. Too bad, I would’ve said “hey” if I’d known. 🙂