Sturgeon Bay Speed Racer
I was in Sturgeon Bay over the weekend and went to see the Third Ave Playhouse's matinee of Shooting Star with Doug Mancheski and Amy Ensign. It was a great play about old lovers that meet up by chance years later while they are snowed in at an airport. The house was packed-sold out-which was great to see. This is such a wonderful theater and the plays I've seen there are intimate and outstanding! I'd never seen Amy act before and she was amazing! And of course, Doug was his usual magnificent self! He has such a range of skills. If you've only seen him in his comedic plays, you owe it to yourself to try and catch one of his shows at TAP and see his more serious side.
The average age of the crowd at this play was 75+. It's weird to be one of the 'youngsters' in the crowd at 54! Reminds me of the time I went to Irish Fest on a Burkhaulter tour bus out of Madison in my 30s. The average age on that bus was 812 and all they adopted me as the naughty grandchild. What a trip that was! But I digress....
So it's closing in on 2 PM when I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye and turn in time to see a man in a wheelchair careen down the sloped aisle and bury himself and his chair in the staging curtains by the right hand side of the theater. No one moved or said anything. I think we all thought it was the start of the show until he started asking 'What happened' and someone from up back came to get him. The man who rescued him told him that he shouldn't have been fiddling with his brakes on his chair, but the guy wasn't having any of it-kept insisting he was pushed. After I found out he was OK...it was pretty amusing. It was even more amusing when, during intermission, the lady to my left, who never moved during, or acknowledged in any way, the entire crash incident, asked me if I saw her husband 'wreck his wheelchair?' I said, "That was your husband?" She said primly, "Yes, the wheelchair thing is new."
After the play, I went up the aisle and there the guy was again, headed down-slope, fiddling with his brakes. I stood in front of him and said 'Hey, you already took quite a ride once there, Speed Racer! How about I give you a ride to the top of the hill?' He through that would be a fine idea so I did. By the time I got to the first flat level, the guy that rescued him from the weeds the first time came up and took over. I think his 'handler' was seated in the middle and couldn't get to him quickly when the fertilizer hit the fan! Poor old guy has got a steep learning curve ahead of him...literally.
As an aside, I wasn't the youngest person in the crowd. There was a ~10 year old and her mother sitting to my right. They knew Amy and the girl had flowers for her and was all dressed up special. There is a uber steamy scene in Act II. It's a pretty small theater and essentially the characters were making out pretty heavily right in our laps in the front row. The look on the little girl's face was absolutely hilarious. She finally looked down at her hands until it was over. I can imagine there was 'discussion' in the car on the way home. If I hadn't been driving alone, there would have been a discussion in my car too! LOL!
It was a lovely afternoon, highly entertaining on all fronts. Again, if you get a chance to go to S.B to TAP, I encourage you to do so. It's worth the drive!
The average age of the crowd at this play was 75+. It's weird to be one of the 'youngsters' in the crowd at 54! Reminds me of the time I went to Irish Fest on a Burkhaulter tour bus out of Madison in my 30s. The average age on that bus was 812 and all they adopted me as the naughty grandchild. What a trip that was! But I digress....
So it's closing in on 2 PM when I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye and turn in time to see a man in a wheelchair careen down the sloped aisle and bury himself and his chair in the staging curtains by the right hand side of the theater. No one moved or said anything. I think we all thought it was the start of the show until he started asking 'What happened' and someone from up back came to get him. The man who rescued him told him that he shouldn't have been fiddling with his brakes on his chair, but the guy wasn't having any of it-kept insisting he was pushed. After I found out he was OK...it was pretty amusing. It was even more amusing when, during intermission, the lady to my left, who never moved during, or acknowledged in any way, the entire crash incident, asked me if I saw her husband 'wreck his wheelchair?' I said, "That was your husband?" She said primly, "Yes, the wheelchair thing is new."
After the play, I went up the aisle and there the guy was again, headed down-slope, fiddling with his brakes. I stood in front of him and said 'Hey, you already took quite a ride once there, Speed Racer! How about I give you a ride to the top of the hill?' He through that would be a fine idea so I did. By the time I got to the first flat level, the guy that rescued him from the weeds the first time came up and took over. I think his 'handler' was seated in the middle and couldn't get to him quickly when the fertilizer hit the fan! Poor old guy has got a steep learning curve ahead of him...literally.
As an aside, I wasn't the youngest person in the crowd. There was a ~10 year old and her mother sitting to my right. They knew Amy and the girl had flowers for her and was all dressed up special. There is a uber steamy scene in Act II. It's a pretty small theater and essentially the characters were making out pretty heavily right in our laps in the front row. The look on the little girl's face was absolutely hilarious. She finally looked down at her hands until it was over. I can imagine there was 'discussion' in the car on the way home. If I hadn't been driving alone, there would have been a discussion in my car too! LOL!
It was a lovely afternoon, highly entertaining on all fronts. Again, if you get a chance to go to S.B to TAP, I encourage you to do so. It's worth the drive!
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