Packin' 'em in

It's safe to say that, though now there is something of a lull, we've been continuing a rapid pace of live performances here into August.

After two shows on one weekend in mid-July, we then caught "Dead Man's Cell Phone," Paper Lantern Theatre's first production in Winston-Salem, on a Thursday night. It was a chiefly pleasing script and well-done by the performers -- certainly a production that suggests we should keep our eyes on Paper Lantern!

On the weekend following that performance, we also caught our first live rock concert in a while -- Kenny Loggins and his band, performing at App State in Boone. It was a warmish wait to get into the space, but quite a fun night of good songs and memories. It also wasn't a long trip home, since we were staying in Fleetwood.

We followed Kenny with a play called "Dead City," performed by Rorschach Theatre on the Georgetown University campus in D.C. As is often the case with shows we see in D.C., the lighting designer was our son, Andy. It was a show full of ideas, and most of them paid off pretty well.

The very next evening, we had a fun experience in seeing the live Paul McCartney concert at FedEx Field in Landover, MD. Again, a pretty hot/damp experience getting to and from the stadium by way of the Metro, but the concert itself was again a wonderful sing-along night of nostalgia. For us old folks. And to be polite, they had just about every current theatrical/stage lighting toy you could think of, and they sure used 'em. "Flash and trash," as Andy and his lighting friends and gurus call it. But kind of fun, too!

Most recently, on a Friday evening during the 2009 version of the National Black Theatre Festival, which is held nearby in Winston-Salem, we saw the thought-provoking "Halley's Comet," a one-man show powerfully and pleasingly performed by John Amos. Wow. A fine theatrical experience. I will never understand why, in the so-called City of the Arts, so many white folks who attend other theater tend to skip nearly all NBTF events. It's been that way as long as we've been attending shows during this every-two-years event. Sad. But true.

But now, two actual full weeks off without a show that I know of anyway, while I continue the wait on three different play submissions that are SUPPOSED to be decided by the end of this month. We'll see if that actually happens.