Something Wicked This Way Comes . . .

We went to the theatre last night. Don’t have the opportunity to go very often, but the touring company of the Broadway musical Wicked is in Dayton for two weeks, and the advance writeups in the local media made it look too good to pass up.

For the uninitiated, Wicked is the story of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North before Dorothy and Toto blew into Oz. It takes some liberties with the story as we know it, and it’s really good. If the show comes to your area, I would recommend it highly. Great music and an enthusiastic company. And our audience was electric – they went nuts the first time Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) came onstage.

The Schuster Center in Dayton is a nice place to watch a show. It has a glass atrium that runs the length of the theatre, and spiral stairs that lead to each level. We got to walk them all – our seats were in the gallery of the upper balcony. The atrium also offers one thing that you normally don’t see in Dayton, Ohio . . .

Palm Trees . . .

I learned at an earlier show that gallery seats (on the side) are very airy and comfortable and offer a great view of the stage. So I got online the first morning tickets went on sale and snapped up a pair.

My cell phone doesn’t take great pictures in low light, but this is a shot of the four seating levels from where we were sitting on the side. You can tell we got there early – as an added bonus we got to park free on the street across from the theatre! And there was a mechanical fire-breathing dragon suspended above the stage, but I couldn’t get a good shot of it.

I might try to drop down a level next time we go, but the only thing we couldn’t see from where we were was part of the backdrop. Other than that, I was much happier with the $41 seat I had than I would have been in a $120+ seat on the floor . . .