Garfield Park- Indianapolis, IN

The view of the Garfield Park Conservatory from the Sunken Gardens:

Here's an interesting page about the history of the park and the pagoda.

MacAllister Center for the Performing Arts:

Plaque honoring Al Feeney, Mayor of Indianapolis from 1948-1950.

Statue of Henry Ware Lawton:

What is it with the squirrels at Garfield Park? They've got to be the most people friendly squirrels in the city. Several years ago, we had a little one get as close as a squirrel has ever gotten to us as we were sitting on a bench in the Sunken Gardens. The Heidelberger Papers has mentioned that they'll get up close and personal with you and that was the case when we were there over the weekend. Luckily, we had some leftover popcorn from our visit to the Ice House so the squirrels kept us pretty entertained while we fed them.

Garfield Park is just a wonder. It's like Indianapolis' version of New York City's Central Park. The Sunken Gardens are just gorgeous. The pool was buzzing with activity on the hot day as was the infinitely cool pagoda. Several years ago, we went to a performance of Long Day's Journey Into Night at the MacAllister Center for the Performing Arts. Check out the Bard at Garfield Park website- they performed Much Ado About Nothing this past weekend and, in September, will perform Twelfth Night which we might have to go see. It's FREE for goodness' sake. This park seems to have it all.

A Wicked Good Time at the Murat

Seemingly everyone else already has read the book Wicked or seen the play in another city but, yesterday at the Murat, Mrs. WYA! went knowing little about it (besides that it was about the Wizard of Oz witches) and loved it. We tend to dismiss things once they reach a certain level of mass popularity, it's just the contrarian in us, but there's no denying that this was a really enjoyable production. The sets were gorgeous (we've never seen the Murat stage with a dragon above it), the story was great, and the actors were wonderful. It was nice to see not a vacant seat in the house and to be among such an enthusiastic audience, at the Sunday matinee even. Evidently there's a reason that some things become widely popular- it's because they are really good.

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at Walker Theatre, Indianapolis

Detail of exterior
One of the sphinx statues that flanks the stage

Elephant detail from inside the theatre

The stage

If you like jazz at all, we certainly hope that you were at Walker Theatre last night to hear the Jazz at Lincoln Center musicians. We felt really lucky that these musicians played a show in Indy and particularly at the historic Walker Theatre. Wynton Marsalis was just as charismatic as ever while he acted as host for the evening by introducing us to the band members and telling us the pieces that they were going to play. The show started off whimsically with arrangements such as Itsy Bitsy Spider, La Cucaracha, I Like to Take My Time (a song written by Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood), and It Ain't Easy Being Green made famous by Kermit the Frog. Then they started covering the masters like Ellington and Monk. It was a wonderful evening. We aren't even especially knowledgeable about jazz, we just enjoy it. Mrs. WYA! doesn't really have much of a musical education, she just knows what she likes and something about jazz is in her soul.

Walker Theatre continues to tempt us; on March 20th they are presenting In The Mood: A 1940's Musical Revue with big band music and dancing. It looks like we might be back "on the Avenue" soon.

Big Fun with Cirque Du Soleil at Conseco

We thought that we were way overdue in seeing a Cirque show so we made sure we grabbed tickets for their Saltimbanco show that was in Indy over the weekend. We absolutely loved it. It was exceptionally fortuitous that this show was here in mid- February because, as things outside look like someone turned on the sepia setting, we really needed to see all of the color that the sets and costumes had. Many of you have probably seen one of the many shows of Cirque Du Soleil, here or across the country. Mrs. WYA! has never even been to a traditional circus but she has a feeling that this is more to her taste anyway. The show started with acrobats jumping from pole to pole high in the air and then seemingly defying gravity by holding their bodies horizontally from the pole. Mrs. WYA! feels like she has a long way to go with her handstands because she still needs to do them by a wall while one of the performers here did it on his bicycle's handlebars (after he had gotten the bike up to speed and kept it moving). There were a couple of ladies who moved as one and at points appeared to stay on their trapeze by nothing more than the strength of their toes. Not to be outdone by the ladies, a couple of the gentlemen provided jaw dropping feats of strength including having one do a one armed handstand on the other's head! There was a comedic mime who got the audience involved (we're glad that we were out of his range in the wonderful Club Level). What looked like the most fun to us was the big swing that they brought out after the intermission. Several performers would stand on it and get it swinging really high and then fly in the air off of it. We'd really like to give that a try. We hope that another Cirque show comes back through Indy soon.

It looks like '09 is going to be a good year for the arts in Indy. We are pretty frugal (and kind of homebodies at heart) so it takes something special to get us to part with our money and get out for an evening, but we've already picked up tickets for Saltimbanco (which will be our first Cirque du Soleil show) and Jazz at Lincoln Center at Madame Walker Theatre (which we used an Xmas Ticketmaster gift card for but were ready to buy tickets for ourselves before we got that). By the way, it has probably been awhile since we checked it out, but the Walker Theatre website is much more user friendly now. This will be only our second time there so we are excited to visit this lovely, historic theatre again. The first show that we went to there a year or 2 ago was Savion Glover and it was an outstanding evening.

Free theater!!

Mark your calendars- on October 10th, 4 local theaters will give away a total of 300 tickets as part of a national promotion aptly called "Free Night of Theater". American Cabaret Theatre is offering "Solid Gold Soul", Indianapolis Civic Theatre is offering "Golda's Balcony", Indiana Repertory Theatre is offering "MacBeth", and The Phoenix Theatre is offering "November". The performances take place on specific dates between October 16th and October 30th and the details are on the Indy Arts page.

Don't forget, individual tickets for the 2008-2009 season at Clowes go on sale today at 10AM. Patti LuPone should be amazing!

There are diverse options for the penultimate weekend of August. For food, sidewalk sales, a walk/run, cornhole tournament, and music; head to the Bears of Blue River Festival in Shelbyville, IN. There's a FREE Indian dance performance at Pike Performing Arts on Saturday. The Feast of Lanterns is on Saturday in the adorable Cottage Home neighborhood. There's a Weekend with the Zombies at Key Cinemas (and a showing of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? on Sat. and Sun.).Whew!

The Strand Theatre in Shelbyville, IN

We recently had the really amazing opportunity to take an, in-depth tour through The Strand theatre in Shelbyville. Restoration hero Steve Frazee kindly took us through and showed us every nook and cranny of the 1916 treasure. This landmark has been lovingly restored through the efforts of a core group of volunteers with the aid of what seems like a great percentage of the Shelbyville community. Pictures here include the 1938 seats that are in the balcony, gorgeous long Art Deco lights, the adorable ladies room sign, and the glass block aisle lights. We got a little chill when Steve ushered us in and said "Welcome to The Strand". What struck us most through our tour was the love and dedication that Steve and the other volunteers have brought to this theatre. There clearly has been an untold amount of blood, sweat, and tears that has gone into this project and there is a deserved pride in what it has become. Live shows and business conferences can be held here and, this very week, a movie screen is being installed so classic movies will be in the future. As old movie buffs, we are unspeakably excited about that. We are really humbled and inspired by all of the work, dedication, and love that has been brought to this place. This is clearly a community that is doing things right. Shelbyville is a quick, easy drive for Indianapolis residents so we encourage you to watch The Strand's website for upcoming events.

We think that it is very cool that there will be Shakespeare in the Park in downtown Indy on Saturday. We hope that this is the beginning of a trend (although we wouldn't have minded an earlier start time than 8PM).

In Praise of Peewinkle

We admit it, we like a puppet show. However, we do not have children and we don't even know any to take with us to puppet shows. Luckily, Peewinkle's Adult Cabaret is back and it is this Friday, May 9th. We have seen the adult Peewinkle shows a couple of times but we don't think that they offered any adult ones for the past couple of years. Let's be clear, there is nothing salacious here. It is just that they offer a no kiddies show with wine and snacks. The shows that we have been to have been wonderful. You can tell that there is a lot of love in the productions and you can't help but to be charmed to be amongst other adults who think it is fun to watch a puppet show. You've probably seen Peewinkle's building. It is diagonal from the Slippery Noodle (we like to imagine that Peewinkle hits the Noodle after a performance). We are out of town on Friday, darn it, so we have to miss it but please let us know what you thought if you go to it.

Die! Mommie! Die! at TOTS

In short, Go! Indianapolis-ites! Go! We went to Theatre on the Square this past weekend to check out Charles Busch's play Die! Mommie! Die! This attracted our attention because we had heard the raves about the New York production of this show last autumn. It was doing big business while the other shows were dark because of the strike. So, when we saw that it was being presented in our own backyard, we excitedly headed to TOTS on Mass Ave. This was only the second time that we had ever been to TOTS. If you have not seen a production there, here is the scoop. It is intimate. There are only about 5 rows with a wide center section and smaller left and right sections. All seats are good which is why all seats cost the same amount. The box office opens an hour before showtime and we got there about 1/2 an hour before showtime and were able to get tickets. The location is a convenient reason to patronize nearby Aesop's Tables, the Rathskeller, SI, MacNiven's, or any of the other tasty Massachusetts Avenue eateries. The show is a riot, especially if you are a sucker for campy Hollywood stuff, which we are. We aren't theatre critics but we can tell you that we laughed out loud (which we rarely do at plays or movies). Check out TOTS' website for a plot synopsis http://www.tots.org/index.php?id=season but, be warned, it does have spoilers and might tell you more than you want to know. In short, Brent Marty as superstar Angela Arden is a riot, there is a simulated LSD trip, an unbelievable suppository and it all comes in under 2 hours even with a 15 minutes intermission. What a bargain for $25. You only have this coming weekend up, and April 25th and 26th catch it.

We also found out that next season TOTS will be presenting Evil Dead: The Musical. We went to see this in New York City in 2006 so we can't wait to check out the local version.

So you think you can watch dance?

Look, you couldn't fill up a ballet slipper with what we know about the art of dance. We know that Martha Graham is a big deal but we aren't really sure why. We know that we loved it when Ballet Internationale sent us free season tickets as part of a promotion a few years ago and we were bummed when they dissolved. However, mention Edith Piaf, Toulouse-Lautrec, and 2 for 1 tickets and we are there! Finding ourselves with no Easter obligations, we checked out Dance Kaleidoscope's The French Connection at the Indiana Repertory Theatre.

We are admittedly frugal so a big motivator for us getting out was our Indy Arts card. If you don't have one of these already, you really should sign up for one at http://www.indyarts.org/. It is free and you get emails so you know what is going on and what discounts are available for cardholders. So, we got 2 tickets for The French Connection for $34- we love that!

Now, we don't want to rave too much about the production since Sunday was the last performance and, if you missed it, you are out of luck. However, you can learn a lesson in this and be more watchful about upcoming Dance Kaleidoscope productions. Being more used to Broadway style shows, opera, and the ballet, we went in expecting that the whole show was going to be very Edith Piaf and Moulin Rouge intensive. It was not. However, the first 2 dances were absolutely lovely. Compared to other types of shows, it goes very quickly. There was already an intermission after the second dance which we appreciated since it is always nice to stretch the legs periodically. Then came the big draw, the number with the beautiful costumes, the Piaf music, and 1890s Paris. It was so lively, so gorgeous, and so graceful. There was one more intermission and then a last dance that was stripped down to simple white costumes and artistry. The whole show came in slightly under 2 hours. C'mon, it is Indiana in March; almost everything still looks dead and the sun is usually MIA. It is so worth it to seek out beauty like the Dance Kaleidoscope gave us. http://www.dancekal.org/

Now for a few words about the venue. Shame on us, this was the first time that we have seen anything at the Indiana Repertory Theatre; although we have admired the facade for years. It was more intimate than we expected. Not that it is Theatre on the Square tiny, but it is not Murat massive either. It was actually pretty perfect. We enjoyed a great view from the balcony. We really appreciated that bottled water was allowed in the auditorium. They offer stronger libations but you have to consume those in the lobby during the intermissions. We sincerely hope that the small crowd was due to the fact that it was a holiday. The Circle Centre Mall parking lot was extremely convenient and extremely affordable at $1.50 since we were there less than 3 hours. We will seek other shows out that come to the IRT now that we know what a nifty theatre they have. http://www.indianarep.com/