Having A Wicked Good Time With Grandma

A few years ago, Nathan and I watched the Broadway musical Wicked on its first-ever trip through Tucson. It was a great experience, which I documented in some detail. Very shortly after watching it, Nathan and I agreed that Wicked would be a great show for our girls to watch someday; it has two strong-willed, dynamic female leads, both of whom get awesome character arcs complete with awesome songs. We were certain they would love it once they got a little older.

Finally, four and a half years later, "someday" arrived, and it was time to make good on our promise! In the intervening years, Wicked made one more appearance in Tucson; Nathan and I considered going again, but ultimately decided against it for financial reasons. Early this year, we heard that Wicked would be coming to Arizona in the fall of 2015.

This time, however, it would be playing in the Phoenix area. Arizona State University (in Tempe) is home to the Gammage Auditorium, which was designed by none other than famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright! I was definitely intrigued. Gammage sounded like a nicer venue than the University of Arizona's Centennial Hall, which is a little old and has trouble accommodating a full-scale musical production.

At first, we weighed the pros and cons of taking the girls this year. By October, Lorelai would be ten years old and Celeste would be almost eight; we reasoned they would be mature enough to sit through the show and stay alert and focused (it was an evening show, so we did worry somewhat about their stamina). We were less sure of Aurora; she would still only be five years old, and a still-adjusting-to-school kindergartner to boot. For a time, we considered leaving Aurora in Green Valley, to spend the night at Grandma Barrett's house. However, we got a surprise when Grandma herself expressed a desire to go! With that decision made, we decided to make our Wicked night a whole-family affair. In addition, we decided to spend the night in Phoenix; since we were attending an evening show, we didn't want to deal with a long drive home in the middle of the night.

So, keeping all that in mind (and thanks to a small financial windfall), we purchased six tickets to Wicked for the night of October 1, 2015. We purchased them in early April 2015. Can you tell we were very excited to go?? That gave us time to get the kids prepared. True, Lorelai and Celeste had attended Beauty And The Beast last winter, but this time, they wouldn't know the play's story going in (given Wicked's many significant differences from The Wizard Of Oz). In addition, this would be Aurora's first time a a full-length play. We wondered if the girls would be confused the whole time, or spend all night asking us questions. We also wondered if they would simply be bored and "give up" on the show halfway through.

We did our best to prepare them for the experience. Nathan and I gave them several talks about theater etiquette and behavior. In addition, we decided to "spoil" our girls as much as possible (within reason) as to Wicked's plot. Lorelai in particular is hugely curious and asks a ton of questions about movies & television shows we watch; she likes to know what to expect. Rather than endure that questioning the night of the show, we decided to give her the basic story so she could discover the details on her own. We also got the CD featuring the original Broadway cast, and we listened to it often at home and especially in the car on the way to and from other activities. By showtime, the girls knew the lyrics to many of the songs!

Getting Aurora prepared was perhaps the trickiest part. She was excited to go, but I knew she would have a hard time staying focused, and I worried she would try to wander around and disrupt other patrons. I ended up bringing a coloring activity into the theater in my purse; Aurora colored during pre-show and intermission. Celeste had a coloring activity as well, but it wasn't as "needful" for her as it was for her younger sister.

At last, the day came and we all excitedly piled into the car and headed up to Tempe. We first checked into our hotel and unpacked our suitcases for the night. Then we headed to an early dinner...Rudy's BBQ, of course! It is one of our favorite Phoenix restaurants, and we finally got to share it with Grandma Barrett on this trip. Once our bellies were stuffed, we headed back to the hotel to get prettied up.

It was fun to see all the girls put on their pretty dresses, and to curl and style their hair for the big night out. I even got Lorelai to consent to some small touch-ups (remember, this is the girl who would be happy to never brush her hair or wear a dress for the rest of her days). But the thought of our "big night out" had everyone in a festive mood.

 

We were all impressed by the beautiful theater, and we had plenty of time to explore it; we arrived pretty early, before the theater doors had even opened! It was nice to see this striking building from many different angles.

We were very excited when we finally got to take our seats. We were on the upper balcony, but we were pretty far down, and our seats were dead center! We had a nice view of the stage.

My only complaint about the Gammage? The rows of seats were really steep. You can sort of see it in our group family picture. The rows descended at such an extreme angle that it gave the illusion they were slipping away from each other towards the floor. In addition, the lowest balcony row had only a very small guardrail protecting theater patrons from a potentially deadly fall. For someone as afraid of heights as I am, this was not the most comfortable place to sit.

Thankfully, none of this was noticeable once the show started up. In my last post about Wicked, I critiqued the play at length, so I won't do that here. But I will say that overall, this was a slightly better viewing experience. Our view of the show was clear and unobstructed (with a couple of exceptions. Tragically, the large mechanized dragon blocked our view of Elphaba flying during the "Defying Gravity" number. Alas!). Our audience was excited and responsive, clapping and laughing at all the right times (there were a couple of catcallers in our Tucson audience that disrupted the flow of the show somewhat). The actors all did a wonderful job and had lots of energy (although that waned a bit towards the end).

Most of all, it was thrilling to occasionally peek over at our girls (and Grandma Barrett, too!), and see the smiles on their faces as they took it all in. No one asked any questions; they were all able to follow the plot easily and they really got invested in the story and the characters. Even Aurora survived the night! Things got hard for her in Act 2, which was very late in the evening. She ended up curled up on my lap crying softly for several long stretches. Fortunately for everyone else around us, the lights and sound from the stage managed to (mostly) drown the poor girl out. And even though she was clearly tired and sad, she didn't ever fully lose her composure; she tried to behave herself, even though it was becoming very hard for her to do so.

After the final curtain call, there was one more neat bonus to our evening: we were able to approach the stage and sit down for a special Q&A with several of the actors from the show!

It was neat to see them up close and personal, without their makeup or costumes. We got to listen to a couple of the Company performers (including the stand-by actress for Elphaba). The actress who played Madame Morrible and the actor who played the Wizard of Oz were also in attendance. We stayed for an extra 15-20 minutes, listening to them describe their lives in a traveling theater production. They also revealed some secret details about the set construction and their ordeals in the makeup chair. Nathan, Sandy, and I would gladly have stayed for a while to listen to the actors, but the girls were very tired by this point, so after a while we quietly excused ourselves and headed back to the hotel.

The next morning was our reluctant return to reality; we got up, packed, ate breakfast, and then drove home to Sahuarita. We didn't have much time to linger; that same afternoon, we had to start packing for our trip to Rocky Point (blog post coming soon!). But we were so grateful for the opportunity to have a fun, cultured night out with the whole family. Here's hoping for more nights like it in the future!