When the moon says I love you...

         Every time I see a musical I notice things I didn't notice before.
         Last weekend I went to the Looking Glass Playhouse in Lebanon, Il., to see "The Addams Family." I'd seen the Broadway tour in Grand Rapids, but I was anxious to see what a small community theater would do with it. Although this community theater is not up to the professional level community theater that I routinely review in Michigan, my mother and I enjoyed several of the performances and songs.
          One song that I overlooked before, "The Moon and Me," caught my attention because of my recent release of Full Moon Friday. I guess you'd say I've become a moonie of a sort always looking for moon trivia.
         This number, if you haven't seen the show, is a love song between Uncle Festus and the Lady in the Moon. It's such a ridiculous, Addams Family sort of premise. It fits the script perfectly.
         I went online to find a copy of the song to share in this blog, and to my surprise I found a performance I absolutely love...and it is from a high school production! The soloist is a freshman of all things! And the staging is fantastic. I hope you enjoy.
         It IS a dream that's coming true when the moon says "I love you."

Building a boat

What I like most about a quiet little drama, such as "The Boatwright" at Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, is that it starts the wheels turning in your head. Days later, I find myself thinking about ideas the play has planted.

Written by Virginia playwright Bo Wilson, the script won a national play writing contest sponsored by the American Association of Community Theatres and is receiving its world premier production this month at Civic. It's the story of a retired widower who combats loneliness by building a boat in his garage.

It sounds like a ridiculous project for someone in the middle of Kansas with practically no sailing experience. But it got me thinking about the "boats" all of us build as a means of coping. One person might take up golf.  Someone else might plant a garden. I usually take on more projects than I can possibly accomplish. Like buying a pottery wheel and turning out bowls and mugs for Christmas presents. Or getting a dulcimer and never taking time to practice. Or writing a series of mysteries. Ah, yes. That's like building a yacht.

Is building a boat -- or whatever project a person chooses -- a healthy coping mechanism? Or is it "tilting at windmills" like Don Quixote?  Does the way we spend our time need to be logical? Should our hours be meted out to activities that will accomplish the most good, be that financial gain or health improvement or world reform? Or is it okay to build a boat that will never make it out of the garage? And who decides what's okay and what's a waste of our precious time?

Mooning over the Moon

    

Isn't the moon beautiful tonight? Thin wisps of clouds streak across the face, like a bridal veil. Oh, yes, this is a lady moon. Peeking through shyly. You can only imagine the beauty, the shape, with the edges blurred by clouds. And then all and once the clouds part. She is beaming boldly, round and full. A woman, unafraid. Disarming. Dangerous.
     Tonight is the romantic moon poets write about, not that insidious evil moon that drives people to do crazy things. That beckons the werewolf out of hiding. That bedevils emergency rooms and  police dispatchers. Not the kind of moon I wrote about in Full Moon Friday. No, not this moon. Surely not this moon.
      And yet, here am I.  Sitting on the deck admiring the moon. Wishing I had some wine in the house to open. Forgetting the cookies in the oven. It's just so beautiful.