I’d like to talk about a dinner theater. A particular one.
Okay.
It’s Toby’s Dinner Theater in Columbia, Maryland. Over the years it has been my favorite venue for watching musical shows.
. Toby’s stages musical performances in the round.
So I appropriate the boxing term “ringside” to indicate that I’m sitting next to the action. That can sometimes mean a person gets involved in the action itself.
And you did?
Yep. One of the shows I saw was Singin’ in the Rain.
That’s a show based on the movie in which Gene Kelly gets soaked.
At Toby’s they set up an overhead sprinkler system to “rain” on the lead singer when the title song comes up. Problem is that the audience members sitting ringside might get wet from the spray. So they handed out raincoats to the vulnerable ones. I was one.
How did that work?
They told us to listen for the thunder sound effects. That would be the warning to put on the raincoat. So, when it thundered, I looked like this.
It kept me dry. And it led to this photo op.
Good one.
On two other occasions, sitting ringside, I became part of a musical number.
You sang?
No, I didn’t have to sing. But I was sung to. Too bad I don’t have a photo of the action.
The first of the two shows was Sweet Charity.
It’s a musical about dance-hall girls.
And at one point one of them came over to me to flirt and sing, “Hey, Big Spender.”
Big spender? I thought, boy, do you have the wrong number. Only wish I had a photo of it.
The other ringside incident was at a Toby’s production of West Side Story.
When the “Officer Krupke” number came up, several of the Jets came over to me and put a policeman’s cap on my head.
Then they sang the song, beginning with
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke, you gotta understand. It’s just our bringin’ upke that gets us out of hand
It was all in good fun. I only wish I had a photo of that one too.