Weekend

I am really looking forward to this weekend; anything that gets me away from my toxic workplace is extremely welcome (clarification for those who don’t know: Style is not my full-time gig and I never actually go into the offices there).

But there’s more to it than that. Earlier this week I was perusing the last New Yorker and feeling pangs of regret. There are so many intriguing productions opening or in previews. Sondheim’s “Road Show,” directed by John Doyle, is at the top of the list of my list of eagerly anticipated productions. Whether good or bad, it’s sure to be intriguing. But you also have Mamet’s “American Buffalo” with a somewhat zany cast of Cedric the Entertainer, Haley Joel Osment, and John Leguizamo. Peter Brook is directing “The Grand Inquisitor” and Ken Russell is making his Broadway debut directing “Mindgame” (with Keith Caradine, by the way). Campbell Scott is in “The Atheist” and Jeremy Piven is in “Speed The Plow.” And this list doesn’t even include relative long-runners I still haven’t seen (“South Pacific”) or relative new-comers that sound incredible (“Blasted,” “A Body of Water” with Christine Lahti!)

If I was in NYC right now, my head would be spinning just to figure out which of a dozen choices I should check out. But you know, “Billy Elliot”’s fight director is David Leong and I’m going to see “Shadowplay” tonight – a world premiere of a marvelous looking show – that he co-directed. And tomorrow I’m going to “tick…tick…Boom!” a local premiere by a brand spanking new theater company. And on Monday, I’m going to hear Frank Rich, cultural critic extraordinaire, speak at U of R.

So this weekend should be a nice wake-up call to remind me that Richmond ain’t exactly a cultural backwater. In fact, throw in “First Friday” tonight and it seems like we’re a pretty darn hopping town. So waiting on New York for some other weekend doesn’t seem like such a bad thing after all. And my head spins enough during the week here; why should I want it to spin on the weekend too?