Weeknight treat, realism and sticking it out

- A few weeks ago, friend Laura asked it I'd like to attend a play at Serenbe on Wednesday, August 10.  Serenbe is a community south of Atlanta that was created to be "connected to nature."  They have a farm with vegetables that residents may purchase and really beautiful homes to live in.  There's also a lovely inn.  It takes an hour to get there from my home, but I said I was IN!  The plays at Serenbe are put on by their playhouse and performed outdoors with mostly local actors.  I snapped three photos before the show, when the actors slowly started coming out and taking their places.

- I had seen Miss Saigon about 20 years ago at the Civic Center in Atlanta.  There's a prop helicopter usually used in the fall of Saigon scenes, but on this night a real helicopter flew in and hovered.  It was an actual Huey helicopter flown in the Vietnam war, rented for the run of the play.  Very dramatic.  And there were humorous moments from local frogs, who had decided to visit those pools of water for the duration of the play.  Someone came out during intermission and fished some of them out, but the remainder took up their song for the rest of the play.

- This guy, who played The Engineer, stole the show. but everyone was great.  And the live orchestra was inside the red container there in the background.  We were lucky to be on the front row.  And I survived a late night out on a weeknight.

The play was held rain or shine, and there was a little light rain in the beginning, but everyone stuck it out.  There's a youtube film of a demo of the helicopter flight here.  It was very dramatic to see it come in at twilight during the play.