Being laid off in San Francisco was a bit of a double edge sword for me. I had never been to San Francisco before so I wanted to see and do as much as possible, but I was not making as much money as if I had actually been playing. Plus the run in San Francisco led into 3 more weeks of layoff before we went to Hawaii. The end result therefore was that I was more careful with my money, and one place that I saved money was with theatre tickets. That did not stop me from making my normal pilgrimage to see all the theatres in every town that I play.
The view from our hotel window included the Orpheum Theatre.
I actually have seen Wicked before in New York and Chicago so I did not have a burning desire to see it again. But San Francisco is where Wicked began in its pre-Broadway tryout so the thought of seeing Wicked in the city where it began did have some appeal. I therefore tried to make a compromise. Wicked offers a daily lottery for cheap tickets so I tried on two occasions to get a ticket that way. Sadly I was not successful and I was not about to pay any more to see Wicked again so I decided that it was not meant to be and moved on.
There is some great detail on the exterior of the building, and I would have enjoyed seeing the inside of the Orpheum. Oh well maybe a more interesting show will be playing there the next time I visit!
The Curran is the other of San Francisco's touring venues. In fact during the second week of Beauty's run, the tour of Dreamgirls started a run at the Curran. This actually marked the second time that our tours played the same town having crossed paths in Dallas just a couple months earlier.
American Conservatory Theatre is on the same block as the Curran, and is a really well respected regional theatre. Sadly nothing was playing when I was there. It looks like it is probably a really cool theatre though.
My other option to see a show besides Wicked was a touring production of Peter Pan. This tour is bit different from most though in that it plays in a tent. I had heard about this production before when it played in London. Apparently the show uses projections that make for a 360 degree playing space. I had half-heartedly looked into tickets for Peter Pan, but this version was not a musical which was not that exciting to me. Oh well fate decided that I was not going to get to see any theatre (aside for my own show) in San Francisco!
No comments:
Post a Comment