So what the heck started this 2 week road trip?? Well, we were invited to go to Milwaukee on Saturday the 4th for a musical performance of Gypsy. Our nephew, Greg has a group of friends that put on musicals, but not in the full extent of the musical. They do all of the musical numbers but someone narrates the story in between the songs so you can get the jest of how the songs play a part in the story. Last year one of their friends did Music Man and hired a high school marching band to march down their Milwaukee street to end the program. That is crazy!!
There were really only 4 leads, and Greg was one of them. He is a fantastic pianist, but I have never heard him sing in a solo manner…just always in groups. His voice is amazing and I actually got tears in my eyes when I first heard him. When Greg was very young, I shared the piano with him and I like to think I inspired him to go in that musical direction. Little did I know, what talent he has…not only playing, but composing, etc. So my little musical talent you could say blossomed 100 million times in him. 🙂 A week before the Gypsy performance Greg texted me and asked if I wanted to do a duet with him. At the end of every show, they have an “open mic” and people can share those talents. I said you mean something like Heart and Soul or Chopsticks? (He and I always played those together in the very early days) He laughed and said maybe something more fitting. So I went to my sheet music source online and found some options and we settled on Somewhere Over the Rainbow. He wanted something that was easy for him to sight read and I just wanted something medium easy. I did send him the PDF in advance so he did get time to practice. He did volunteer to take the lower part, which I think was harder.
Greg and I playing….these people perform in their own houses and the people that owned this house, built it especially for entertaining!! A number of us from Minnesota made the trip to see this performance!
This is the full cast!
It was definitely a great evening! And can’t wait until next year’s performance!
Before we left for Milwaukee, we went downtown and saw “A Beautiful Noise” which was the Broadway show that was on Broadway for over a year. It is the story of Neil Diamond’s life from his perspective once he was told he had Parkinson’s and would no longer be able to perform. The premise was his talking to his psychologist on his life and how he would be able to handle not performing any longer.
The man that played to lead (young Neil) was fantastic…he had been an American Idol winner and was performing the role throughout the travel season.
We left Milwaukee Sunday morning and headed to Oconto so we could visit with Jean and Doc. They could not make the trip to see Gypsy because of their limited walking ability, but we videoed a number of Greg’s performances and shared them with them. Greg is their son! We had a great dinner with them…potato sausage…typical Anderson meal from Christmas long ago. We left from there and headed north!!
The North Adventure begins….
Stay safe…stay healthy…be happy
Dandy Ventures 