All The World's A Stage

We are very lucky that our family enjoys doing many things together.  One of the things we all truly enjoy is live theater.  We enjoy great stories told well, great writing, innovative use of the stage, memorable music and great sets and costumes.  Both of our kids enjoy performing themselves and so they really get a kick out of seeing how different actors choose to interpret roles.

Yesterday, on New Year's Eve day, we saw our last (and 27th) show of the 2017.  Our first show of the year (on January 5th) was "Dear Evan Hansen".  It was definitely one of our favorites for the year and the original cast recording has been played many times in our home and car over the course of the year.  Our last show was "Once On This Island" which we enjoyed but didn't love.  The performances and voices were excellent, but the music never rose to the level that we would want to play it over and over the way we have with many shows.  The story is basically a simple, straight-forward Haitian fable.  It was 90 minutes with no intermission but still felt a bit tedious at times.

At brunch with our kids before the show, we all went through our calendars, Facebook and Instagram stories to compile a list of the shows we saw this year.  We limited the list to Broadway and off-Broadway and excluded the shows our kids performed in and other regional performances.

Here's what we saw:

Amelie

The Band's Visit

A Bronx Tale

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Come From Away

Dear Evan Hansen

The Great Comet

Groundhog Day

Hamilton

Hello Dolly

The Humans

Indecent

Kinky Boots

Meteor Shower

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Once On this Island

Oslo

The Play That Goes Wrong

The Portuguese Kid

Present Laughter

School of Rock

Spamilton

Sunday in the Park with George

Sunset Blvd

Sweeney Todd

Time and the Conways

War Paint

Despite our rather impressive list, there were still shows we missed. I won't complain too loudly.

Can't wait to see what 2018 will bring.

On a final note, given that this is January 1st, that means the end of our blog for this year.  Very proud of my family for keeping new entries coming to the blog every day of December.  This was our sixth year of doing the blog as a family and I love that it will serve as a time capsule of what was on everyone's minds each year.

Thanks to everyone who followed our blog again this year.  See you again next December!

-- Frosty