We went to a showing of Nate the Great, a musical playing at the Byham Theatre in downtown Pittsburgh. It's always fun to get in some culture and we're lucky to have easy access to downtown to go see shows like this. The last one we went to was the Backyardigans. Maybe even John and I could go see something without the kids! It's surprising that we don't go downtown more often. I think it's the paying for parking. I hate paying for parking! During special events, it's not that expensive, luckily. We almost got into a garage tonight for 5 dollars! The garage filled up with only 2 more cars in front of us. Oh well. There was another garage a block away. It's also exciting to walk down the street when it's filled with people. It doesn't matter that the majority of them were either families going to the Byham or Steeler fans going to tailgate parties before the game. I have been around Heinz Hall on a Saturday with no games going on, and it was pretty busy too. That's always a good sign. You always want a bustling downtown. Otherwise your city may be in trouble.
So back to Nate the Great. I think I may have read some of the series before, but since the title character is a boy, maybe I didn't get past the first book. ha! Anyways, I think now that Zach saw the musical, he may be interested in reading the books too. In this 50-minute musical, Nate has to help his friend Annie find a picture she painted of her dog for her mom's birthday. They eventually figure out that it's her little brother who painted over it. Annie always likes yellow, her brother likes red. There's a painting of an orange dog in Annie's brother's room. I asked Zach - what two colors make orange? Red and yellow!
The clever thing about the musical is most of the supporting actors played multiple roles and were the stage hands to move the scenery around. Two parts of the scenery were these triangular columns that could be rotated to show a different scene - doors fom the street, shelves from Annie's room, etc. Some of the actors played multiple roles. I think Annie's dog was also Annie's brother and her best friend's cat. Then one of Nate's imaginary detective friends was also Annie's best friend, etc. And another neat thing was when they would transition from scene to scene, they would incorporate the actor's into the transition. Like Annie and Nate would be talking while they're rolling a white picket fence out of the scene. Or one of the imaginary detectives was unlocking the wheels for a rolling bed and then would pretend that he forgot that the audience wasn't supposed to see him. I really liked the direction and production of this play. The kids really liked it too. When Annie was singing about what girls could do and said something about boys having short necks, Asia asked me if that was true.
It was just great to get out of the house and go see some more of downtown Pittsburgh.
