A Full Day of Theater...and We Will Return Next Year

John had never seen lambs quarters befor

A goat herder and her sausages

Tami buys one bean pod!

GeeGee and Peter in search of the perfect spice

Sunday, July 6, 2014     Saturday was a theater day, but we did spend the morning walking around town, visiting the farmer’s market, talking to the vendors about lambs quarters (an edible weed) and osso buco of goat, and checking out spices in the local spice shop, run by a South African guy who’d had an art gallery in Santa Fe at one point.   

The theater today was superb.   We started with a magnificent rock opera, “Family Album” set in today’s world, but with overtones of yesteryear’s communal life, the search of meaning and the desire to build a family that encompasses the meaning when it is found.  Written by Stew, a rock/hiphop/R&B artist, who recently did a piece that got a Tony in 2008 (Best Book of a Musical for “Passing Strange”), this is a world premiere that Ben thinks should go far.   He’s already been in on the phone with NY theater friends to interest them.

We had dinner at the Standing Stone Brewing Company, courtesy of Tami and Derrick, with lots of very good Oregon ale, calamari, and for John a kimchi pork burger and for Ben a vegetarian burger.   Very nice on the patio.  Jane had a flight of the micro-brewery’s various ales and stouts:  a group of full test-tubes with the brews arranged in ascending lightness.

The evening’s production was an outstanding “Richard III”, beautifully executed in all its evil by Dan Donohue, a regular performer here.   It’s amazing how the play drips with evil— and propaganda in favor of Henry, Earl of Richmond, who became Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch, and grandfather to Elizabeth the First, the reigning monarch in Shakespeare’s day.   

Today, too, at dinner, we were asked if we wanted to become regulars to this July Fourth Trek to the Festival.  With pleasure, we look forward to our visit next year with the same wonderful group of people.