Where the People Are

I dragged my sister to see The Little Mermaid, this time not against her will. It's probably more accurate to say she dragged me. (The link is to the Houston playbill, because it's not available online for the Austin show, that I could find. Same cast, though.)

So I've never read the fairy tale. I saw the Disney movie when it first came out, didn't like it, and that's pretty much the end of my experience with this story. Denise, on the other hand, was really excited about seeing it. Until we got to the theatre, headed up to the 6th floor, and then still had more steps to go up to get to our seats. She was not excited about sitting in the rafters. (The jury is still out on whether she'll join me for any of the rest of the seasons' shows.)
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The show was fun--it's definitely better onstage than animated and in my TV. After the show, I went down to stage door to get my playbill signed, dragging a reluctant Denise behind. Obviously, The Little Mermaid requires a whole bunch of costumes and makeup that take some time to get out of, but one of the actors' mothers was outside and she and I chatted while we waited. And she also was kind enough to stop some of the actors for me to get them to sign my playbill, because while I'm brave enough to stand around outside looking awkward, I'm apparently not brave enough to actually talk to strangers. Sigh...

Anyway, the actors who play Ariel, Eric, Flounder, Flotsam, and Jetsam are the ones I talked to long enough to ask them to sign, and they were all very sweet and gracious about it. In fact, Flounder asked if he could flip through the playbill to see what it looked like ("a giant ad," he said, and he was 100% correct) while trying not to transfer any chocolate from his fingers onto the playbill. Meanwhile, I was holding myself back from saying, "It's okay if you get chocolate on it!" because that's a level of creepy I'm just not ready for yet.

I have tickets for four more shows this year to cap off this grand year of theatre-going. I probably need to tone it down for 2016. (Ha ha. Only barely likely.)

How do you feel about The Little Mermaid?