Despite the fact that there's a restaurant on the street level, the Opera House building must be behind the restaurant and above it, because you walk in the Opera House door and up a few steps, and turn right and lo! You're in the Opera House lobby, and many stairs later, you find your seat in the front row of the balcony. I think that must be behind the top row of windows. But maybe not. I don't know.
There are no bad seats in the Boston Opera House. They say it, and it's true. On the other hand the sound doesn't carry through the house evenly. But I do love the sound track, so almost all of it was familiar. It's a good story (the Oz prequel, by someone else, not L. Frank Baum, about the life of the Wicked Witch of the West) and the singing by the two female leads is out of this world. There are many homages to The Wizard of Oz, and the story (and show) ending is unexpected. The staging is terrific - Les Mis and Lion King raised the bar on staging and visual effects, and there are neat stage things galore. A good show!
Boston is a good 3 hours from Brookfield (assuming no traffic problems) but I only had to drive an hour each way. Knitting friends told me about the Dartmouth Coach, a bus service from Dartmouth College to Boston. Getting there and back cost a little more than $60 - $15 for all-day parking in Hanover NH (where Dartmouth is), $45 for a same-day round trip, and a couple of subway fares on the Boston MBTA. The hour of driving is to and from Dartmouth.
I left at 7:45 am, caught the 9:00 bus, was in Boston by 11:30, ate a food court lunch, and wandered up and down Washington Street (big downtown shopping street) in Boston, and then took in the Boston Common. It was a glorious and very windy day. I got one picture (above) and then the batteries died, and although I'd brought knitting I forgot about camera batteries. In Boston Common there were men in colonial garb leading walks and talking about life in Boston during the Revolutionary times. The two I heard were either actors or re-enactors, because they were playing their roles to the hilt. Boston also has handsome police horses (Metropolitan Mounted Patrol), but no batteries, no pictures ...
The show ran from 2pm to 5pm. Afterward I went to a restaurant in Chinatown for dinner, then back to the bus terminal for some serious knitting (what else to do from 5:45 until the bus came at 7:15??). The bus left at 7:30 pm, arrived in Hanover at 10 and I was home by 11. The bus provides single-serving bags of pretzels, bottles of water, wireless, music, and a movie ("Invictus" on the way down and "Date Night" on the way back). I didn't do the movies: I knit all the way down and slept most of the way back, which is why I'm still awake at 12:40 am Sunday.
Not having to drive to Boston and back in one day made the entire excursion worthwhile. I might think about doing it again sometime, for tourist purposes. My only other trip to Boston was in 7th or 8th grade, with a church youth group, and I don't remember anything except that it rained the whole time.
Mission Accomplished
Now it's 6:25 pm. I finally got the wood stacked. I just told myself to go out there and do it. 4 hours of serious work. This wood is a pain in the neck.
Three of my granddaughters are crazy about WICKED and I think they did get to see it when it was around here. I love Boston. John and I were there years ago and I love all the historical stuff. That was when all the road construction was going on. It takes a lot to scare John, but the Boston traffic accomplished it.
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