The Grinch

I did it. I went to see the musical How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Let me say that I have never been a fan of the cartoon & I only watched the movie once...on TV. And the voice of the man who sings the Grinch has always freaked me out because it just sounds so frigging weird. So, having said that, why did I go see it? For a few reasons. 1. I’ve been a lil slow on the holiday spirit/cheer this year & I figured it would help. 2. I like to support the arts when they come to my city because for so many years, my area was grossly lacking in musicals & operas so I was forced to travel 85 miles away to get my fix. Now that things are coming here again, I try to support at much as possible, even if its just a cheap seat. And 3, I was curious as to what kind of musical it was.

First and foremost, let me say that this was an uber kid-heavy event. As it should have been.  That actually added to my enjoyment because the kids were having a BALL. Some had their hair done like Cindy-Lou Who, some were dressed liked Whos. Some parents had the wrong story & dressed their kids like the kids from the Cat in the Hat..but its still Seuss so that’s ok. LOL.

I thoroughly enjoyed the musical. There were only 2 songs in the musical that have been used in the movie & original cartoon (as far as I could tell) and those were the Who’s song they sing around the Christmas tree &, or course, the Grinch song.  The musical called for audience participation which always brings about hilarious unscripted moments and the man who played the Grinch (who is in the cast of the PBS show Lazytown) was HILARIOUS! He played with the audience, greatly overacted some parts that were perfect for the kids. The show was just fun.  I wish it played for longer so more people got the chance to see it, but I’m glad I got to see it myself.

Oh, another thing about it being a kid’s show…there was no intermission. The show was over & done with in about an hour and a half. It felt short to me, but I’m not a kid, and there were some little kids in there. I mean, parents made frequent trips to the bathroom, babies cried…definitely child packed. But that was good too because there are so many musicals that are not geared towards children and they don’t get to have that musical theater experience until they are older. Much older. For some of them, up to 13 years older. So it was nice to go to a musical and see the little kids there & see them stay for the whole show.

Case in point, when I went to see Beauty & the Beast, which was a full-length musical, there was a mother & daughter in the dress circle (not the cheap seats) a few seats over from me and they left at intermission because the daughter was sleepy. All I kept thinking was that after I spent $60+ on the “good seats,” my kid would have been taking a nap in that good seat until the show was over. So, musical without an intermission, over & done in about 90 minutes…perfect for a kid.