“Is it always so…close like that?”
Dania indicated her feet, still tucked up under her chair after the set had been constructed mere inches from her.
“Usually,” Gwen said. “I believe every show I’ve seen at The House is arranged into alley seating, or in the round. They want the audience to feel like part of the action.”
“Well, I was definitely almost kicked in the face.”
“They rehearse so that doesn’t happen,” Gwen added. “Surely.”
“Did we already look at the Great Lakes animals?” Gwen asked, glancing around. Shedd Aquarium’s unique architecture, designed around a rotunda that served as the hub, was both simple to navigate and easy to get turned around in.
“Yeah, that’s where the huge crabs are,” Dania said. “And the eel petting.”
“Eel petting was in the Australian wing,” Eleanor corrected.
“What about this one?”
Dania was pointing to a relatively bright room, off to the side of the main hall. Almost no signage indicated what the room contained, save for a two word title treatment affixed on the wall.
The house lights rose – as much as they could in the already illuminated space – just as Eleanor was already standing. The patter of rain against the concrete step could be heard through the open door, though she noted that it had been stronger during the performance than now.
“We should bolt,” Eleanor said to Dania and Gwen, still seated. Gwen might not have even heard, her gaze fixed intently on the author’s note.
“Hey,” Eleanor repeated, tapping Gwen’s shoulder.
“What?”
“So you’ve seen the John Legend one,” Dania began, as they walked away from the imposing facade of the Civic Opera House.
“Yes, the live one NBC just did,” Eleanor said. “Which the Jesus in this version was apparently in, but I wouldn’t recognize anyone.”
“Well, duh,” Dania said. “On TV there’s a million people in the ensemble, and at an opera house he’s about a million miles from your seat. I could barely make out which apostles were which.”
The Hanslick Girls 