While you folks were watching votes being counted last evening, I was watching tap-dancing. Lots of tap-dancing.
The touring company of the musical 42nd Street is parking for a time at the Pantages Theater up in Hollywood. A friend had an extra ticket and I figured I wasn't going to get much work done while election returns rolled in anyway…so I went and I'm glad I did. I needed a trip to 1933 and Times Square and comfort music.
42nd Street was the first musical I saw in New York and I think this is the fifth time I've seen a production of it. It's scaled down from what I saw on Broadway — smaller cast, smaller orchestra I think, sets built so they can fit on a truck — but the story still holds up as much as it ever did and the dancing is terrific.
I did not recognize the names of anyone in the cast but they're all real good…and they must be getting tired now because this tour started last September in Salt Lake City and it's since been to Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Mason City, Ames, Binghamton, Shippensburg, Waterbury, West Point, Ashland, Orono, Portland, Ogdensburg, the other Portland, Bellingham, Eugene, Boise, Costa Mesa, Palm Desert, San Luis Obispo, Fresno, West Palm Beach, Jacksonville, Panama City, Gainesville, Sarasota, Clearwater, Fort Myers, Athens (the one in Georgia), Easton, Stamford, Utica, Erie, Detroit, London (the one in Ontario), Elmira, Worcester, Danville, Fort Wayne, Toledo (Ohio), Bloomington, West Lafayette, South Bend, Springfield, Chicago, Wausau, Spokane, Tucson, Tempe, Wilmington, Columbia (South Carolina), North Charleston, Columbus, Daytona Beach, Augusta, Durham, Akron, New Brunswick, Brookville, Salisury, Syracuse, Scranton and now here to Los Angeles. From here, they go to Dallas, Fort Worth and finally Tulsa. Doing this show in one place for that long must be like running a daily marathon…but to do it while running to and from planes and strange living quarters seems humanly impossible but somehow they do it. And do it well.
Not much else to say about the show. I took Lyft cars there and back, and I got in the car to take me home just in time to hear Bernie Sanders' speech on the radio. It started out like he was building to the point where he'd announce his concession but when he pledged to fight on 'til Philadelphia, my Lyft driver and I looked at each other as if to say, "Did you hear what I heard?" I don't understand what the Senator's end-game is here. Apparently, after complaining so much that having Superdelegates is undemocratic, the new strategy to persuade them to overturn the national Democratic vote and install the guy who finished second. Yeah, that'll happen.