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| Photo: Marcia Bates
Yes, there we were, waiting for the show to begin.
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I was happy to join all of the Bates.
They were there in full force. Marcia had come with her family, but when sitting them down in seats, she said that she was sitting by Art—kind of making it a date, though I don’t know who takes three kids along on a date. I guess they do.
I got to sit by Gabe. I looked through the programme notes and came to the list of songs that would be sung in each act.
I asked him if he could name any of the songs that we would be hearing. “One, maybe two,” he said. I said, “Go for it, and I will check the programme here and see if you get any right.”
He started to name the songs and he could give me the titles of all but two of them, and then on reflection, he even got the two he had missed. He did ask me if a Reprise counts. I told him anything counts. He scored a 10 out of 10 with me. I bow to Gabe. He came to the show far better prepared than I to hear it. If a person can name the songs, they can probably do most of the lyrics, but I didn’t ask him that.
The crowd was a young one – not many people with white hair there. Tim and Lurene was sitting just one balcony below us, and with Greg and Wyona there – that was pretty well all the Bates’ there to watch a popular musical.
If you don’t know the show, Dear Evan Hansen, it features a book by Tony Award winner Steven Levenson, a score by Grammy, Tony and Academy Award winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land, The Greatest Showman), and direction by four-time Tony Award nominee Michael Greif (Rent, Next to Normal).
Lots of powerful theatre people came together for this show and it played to a packed house the night we were there.
Arta
I knew nothing about the show until Mary mentioned she had taken her children to it. Is it as radical as it appears to me from reading about it? I wish I could have heard the family discussions around the arbirite table after you all went to see it.
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