Born to hand jive, baby July 14, 2008
Yesterday we took Nash to his first real grown-up musical, Grease. Salem State’s Summer Theatre has six performances over the next two weeks and I’ve been looking forward to taking Nash since I first heard it would be there. I’ve never seen the musical and honestly can’t even remember the first time I saw the movie (but have seen it at least a bajillion times in my life) but I can’t remember ever not having the soundtrack. I had the LP (that’s an album, kids. You know, a record? Round vinyl thing with grooves??….ask your parents), cassette and eventually CD and can sing every word to every song on it. It was definitely the soundtrack of my youth. I had no idea what Nash would think of all this 30 years later, let alone be able to sit still for two and a half hours. Well, I’m happy to report that he looooved it!! A few of my favorite quotes:
Nash: “Can we always come here?”
Me: “No, it’s just here for six days.”
Nash (moments later): “Is it here every July? Can we come next July?” (dude loves his “traditions”)
Me: “Nope. This is it. So shhhh, and enjoy it.”
Me & Jeff (at intermission): “Do you want to stay for the second half or do you want to leave?”
Nash: “Why the hell would we leave if it’s not done? This is the greatest thing EVER.” (or some variation of that)
Nash (during dance scene): “What celebration is this?”
Me: “It’s called Prom.” (not officially but really the concept of a dance off competition seemed impossible to explain in the dark with Born To Hand Jive playing)
Nash: ”I can’t wait for high school so I can have prom.” (Little does he know that thanks to Aunt Paula’s brilliant idea that will involve him and his date being stuffed into the blue chair)
So dude was a complete champ, lasted through the whole thing and freaking loved it. As soon as we got home he had to draw a picture of it.
It’s actually a pretty good replication of the stage set up with all the ramps and what not. That’s Danny and Sandy up on top. The purple square on the top right is the box the house band was playing from. All those dots are the audience members. I love that the stick girls are all wearing skirts but my favorite is the bottom left. That purple person is “an actor coming out of the bathroom”. I must have missed that part. Maybe it’s Rizzo when she thought she was pg…..













