South Pacific!

Here's something wonderfully coincidental: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and ME are celebrating our 50th anniversary of existence in 2011. And I'd have to say that after half a century we've both seen our nicks and scrapes and neither one worse for the wear! Ergo, every month's playbill in 2011 will feature this image of JFK's inauguration. Cool, eh?

Just a little preamble to the fact that I attended the Broadway touring company production of "South Pacific" this afternoon as the guest of my dear friend PMS. (PMS are her initials not
her state of mind!)

It was a delightful production of a play that really hinges on one performance: Ensign Nellie Forbush. And I am happy to report that it succeeded grandly thanks to Actor Carmen Cusack. To the performance's credit the work of David Pittsinger as French plantation owner Emile de Becque was very up to par. His rendition of "This Nearly Was Mine" was the show stopper of the afternoon. Both male and female choruses were also grand. And the eye-candy of male nudity in the set up to "Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair" was also well appreciated--but I've always been a fan of fresh loaves of bread!

For anyone who has never been to the Kennedy Center, it is a wonderful complex of performing arts theaters for which the Opera House is the most resplendent. I have seen productions in all of the theaters and stages there. Each has it's own charm. As a place of community, it is rivaled by none in Washington, D.C.--though challenged by many.

The grand lobby of the main theatre (the opera house) is watched over by this huge and amazing sculpture of John F. Kennedy.

While I doubt most visitors to Washington include a visit or attendance at a performance, that really is a deficit that can easily be rectified.