Tuesday, September 20, 2011

What a difference a valet makes

The season of Tennessee Williams is now in full force. Both Style and the Times-Dispatch have done stories on the Williams festival in the past week and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” has opened to at least one largely positive review. How can you not love it? Big characters and intense stories and all sorts of interpersonal craziness. A fall full of Williams will make us all grateful to be able to go home to a relatively quiet and normal life after the curtain falls.

I’ve yet to see a review of “Keep on the Sunny Side,” the cheery and tuneful musical that opened at the Mill this past weekend. I caught the last preview on Friday and will talk more about the production on Thursday. My review of “Lend Me a Tenor” should show up in this week’s Style (crossing fingers, still haven’t had it confirmed by my editor…) Ms. Tupponce chimed in on “Tenor,” adding to the chorus of those who have enjoyed the rollicking farce. The mini-blogosphere-firestorm that erupted after the first “Tenor” review seems to have died down, though I’m still fielding any comments on the objectivity-subjectivity discussion. If you want to just bash people, I’d prefer you’d go elsewhere but I’ll field those comments as well.

Some additional news on the RTCC front: we have secured a donor to subsidize valet parking for the awards event. So if you don’t want to wander up and down Broad Street looking for a space on that Sunday night, you can just pull up to the under-construction Empire Marquee and stroll right in, leaving the search-n-park job to someone else.

It may seem like a small thing but valet parking is one of those little amenities that make an event seem more special, a little more luxurious, and a lot more convenient. It also means that that extra 10-15 minutes that you usually budget to find a parking spot and walk to the theater can be spent IN the theater, voting for the People’s Choice award, catching up with friends and colleagues, or enjoying a refreshing beverage. Won’t that be nice?

Check back here on Thursday for more on “Sunny Side” and, in honor of the positive attitude title song, a few local media-related appreciations.

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