I’m using my laptop this morning. I was so irritated (and tired) last night when I lost a full hours work on my phone.

Besides I’m 3 or 4 times as fast on my laptop.

First I have to tell you about the Manatee Performing Arts Center. Easily the nicest theater I’ve ever been in. It has two theaters, a small theater that is sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club. Didn’t get to learn how big it is. The main theater has 300 to 350 seats – all with great views of the stage. Ticket was $30 6th row center. The further back or off to the sides you sit, prices are less.

The theater is clean, modern, elegant and makes you feel good just to be there.

The lobby is long and wide with lots of tables to sit at, a beer and wine bar at one end and a guy playing songs from musicals on the piano at the other end. I have a photo of the lobby on my phone.

The theater is magnificent. A full fly lets them lower and raise sets, tons of lighting and lots of room on the wings. There were probably five times as many big prop pieces as we had in Spamalot.

Now to The Full Monty: I really liked it but it was long : 7:30 to 10:20 with one 20 minute intermission.

The humor was funny, there was very little dancing and what there was was more like basketball moves than choreography. Most of the songs helped to move the story along but some just seemed to be just stuck in to fill the time.

The location was changed from England to Buffalo. It lost a lot in the change: In the movie, the mine had closed down, leaving the whole town in trouble. In the musical, a factory had shut down leaving a bunch of guys out of work but they didn’t want to take lower paying jobs to support their families. Made them seen kind of whiny.

The show had 12 men and 7 women with a little doubling of the smaller roles. One has to be a body builder who can pull off being a professional stripper, one has to be black and the others can be whatever. Among the 6 principals, three had good bodies, 2 had not good bodies and one was very obese.

At the very end, they are standing facing away from the audience, naked (When the Calendar Girls did it they were nude, these guys were naked). They take their hats off, cover their privates and turn to face the audience then drop the hats. As they drop the hats, the lights go out and four very bright lights blind the audience so all we could see of the guys was like they were cut out of paper – we could see the outline but no detail.

As a director, I thought the last moments went too fast. From the time they started to turn towards the audience until the final blackout was just 2 or 3 seconds. I taught it could have been slowed down considerably without the audience seeing something they shouldn’t have.

All in all a fun show.

Heading South in a few minutes to see a Neil Simon play tonight.

Still having fun.

Doug