Adventure with Sound of Music

Recently an e-mail from the Ordway Theater reached me, telling about upcoming events. One was the Sound of Music Sing-a-Long. I thought the Ordway was really working to get events to fill the house since the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra which normally plays there many times a month has been a long performers' strike.

I thought my older daughter and I might enjoy this event, so got tickets. Thankfully the rain disappeared in the afternoon, and we were able to walk.

Just before entering the theater I noticed how beautiful the nearby Landmark Center was looking in the late afternoon sun.

 The Ordway Theater is quite elegant, complete usually with a doormen to assist one's entry. I quickly found the Will Call window and picked up our tickets and then we were on our way our seats on the Mezzanine Level. We were given a program and yellow plastic bag with objects a bit mysterious as to their use.

The Ordway as seats were filling up for Sound of Music

 While waiting I read the program and learned that a sing-a-long such as this was originated by British nurses working in a retirement community who wanted good interactive fun for the clients. This has swept the UK and in fact the company who brought this show to St.Paul is from the UK.

At 6:30 the mistress of ceremonies appeared. She explained we had fabric in the goodie bags we could show Maria when she wanted to make new clothes for the children; we had a card that said flibberdegibit to hold up when that word appeared; we had white flowers to wave for Edelweiss, and most importantly we had a party popper to be used the first time that Maria and the Captain kiss.

We were also told to say "The hils, the hills" every time to saw the mountains, to make meow and hiss noises when the Baroness appeared, to make dog noises when we saw Rolf and do say Boo and show thumbs down for anything associated with the Nazis.

The film began and soon everyone was into their "parts." The words for each song were captioned on the screen.

Participants were encouraged to come in costume and after the intermission everyone in costume appeared on the stage.

There were a lot of women dressed like nuns, but the people in grocery bags stumped me until I discovered they were "brown paper packaged tied up with string." One group that simply amazed me were a group of children-- apparently sibs -- who had navy costumes like the children wear at the beginning of the film complete with a father with a whistle. The prizes went to little girl who was being Gretel, had to be a child
because the prize was admission to the Children's Museum, and to a woman who simply nailed the red dress the Baroness wears when she first appears in the film.

Then we were onto the second half of the film, and when Maria and Captain kissed, indeed the Party Poppers when off. I quickly discovered I had confetti in my hair.

It was 10:30 when we began to leave the theater and oh, what fun we had! I was surprised to see lighted trees in the window, thinking this only happened in the winter. To my surprise, one tree by the theater still looks glorious at night.

We walked over the Science Museum Plaza hoping we could still use the pedestrian walk there to get back home.

Got this great view of the University of Minnesota Showboat.

Had to walk the long way around since there was no way to go down the bluff from the Science Museum at this time of night. Got home a bit after 11:00. My daughter wanted to relax with a bit of TV, so it was nearly midnight when we went to bed -- and 11:15 AM this morning when I woke up and decided maybe it was time to make breakfast. What a fun evening we had!