I stayed in Boston Thursday night and after the ARL FTY site ended I parked the truck and rode the T into Boston to meet Teri Page and see The Queen of Versailles”, a new musical on it’s Pre-Broadway Run staring Kristen Chenowith (Broadway: Originated Glinda in “Wicked”) and Academy Award Winner (“Amadeus”) F. Murray Abraham whom I most recently saw in Season 2 of “The White Lotus.”
Seven years ago Ambiana and I saw “Book of Mormon” in the Emerson Colonial Theatre and I was blown away by how beautiful a theatre it was and couldn’t wait to see more shows there but it closed soon after and then was renovated. It it even more beautiful now!
Teri and I had seats in the balcony and the show was enjoyable; big and emotive with lush costumes and an ambitious set. They used a huge monitor as a wall or backdrop to make a set within a set. It was carried off well and was gorgeous to look at. Kristen belted out all her songs and she can sing and we all know F. Murray can act! The story was pretty simple but carried on too long. I would have been happy if it had ended with the first act. Teri and I spent the night in Cambridge and drove home on Friday morning.
The Boston Public Garden
I had ample time to get to the theatre so i got off the T at the Charles stop on the salt-n-peppa bridge and walked through the Public Garden. I love this spot and have 50 years of memories of it but in all the years and different periods of my life I have never walked up to some of these statues and checked them out. The one above is what one gets for spending the cash to create and maintain the place…
but this one gets weird; it is in tribute to the inhalation of ether to reduce the pain and suffering of the human race first utilized at Mass General in MDCCCLXVII (1847)
The skyline of Boston has changed radically since my BU days 40 years ago but still there is the Batman building!
Circus Smirkus in Greensboro VY
We haven’t been to the circus in Greensboro in 5 years so we gave it a go again driving out on a sunset Friday evening, picnicing in the parking field and sitting under the big top watching teens and kids put on a show.
The performers are seriously talented but the creative team is not the same without Troy Wonderly and a lot of the magic was missing. It was a pretty drive home with an orange moon ’cause of all the wildfire smoke in the atmosphere.
Great Great Great Granduncle Doe
When we was in Charleston Patti gave me an old Travis family photo album with lots of pictures from the mid 1800’s. It is unclear who’s album it is but all hints point to the Doe family which Abraham Travis married into when he took his second wife Harriet Doe. This is a picture of Harriet’s brother the Rev Walter Price Doe. He was born on March 30th, 1813 in Milltown, Putnam County, New York and died December 15th 1887 in Providence, Providence County, Rhode Island.. He would have been an uncle of my grandfather’s (Charles B. Travis Jr) grandfather (Walter Doe Travis)
