"The Story of My Life"

Since we couldn't get away for our anniversary, we decided to make it special by going to dinner and a play. We have never been to the Goodspeed Opera House and as I was checking out the options there, we found out that Goodspeed produces plays at the Opera House and at Norma Terris Theatre. We still would love to see a play in the beautiful Opera House, but for this time we chose the Norma Terris Theatre, which is a converted factory.

This is a nice intimate theatre--about two hundred seats, but a little too intimate for us. We found the seats too narrow for our size and a little hard. We were in the third row which was on the same tier as rows one and two and therefore, I did have one tall person obstructing my view a little, but not too badly because the stage was high enough.

The play we decided to see was "The Story of My Life" which ended up being a perfect choice for me. This is a new musical with only two actors. It's the story of two boys who become friends at age six and how their friendship affects their lives forever, even when they don't realize it.

I am a "It's A Wonderful Life" junky. This play has many references to the movie and the two characters are a writer and a bookstore owner--couldn't get any closer to my heart.

Will Chase played Thomas and Malcolm Gets played Alvin. Both had strong voices and sang clearly and emotionally. My only negative critique to this play is that the songs are not the type that you would hum later or buy the CD. I wish the writers had tried harder in that department, however, the songs got the points across. I also enjoyed when Will and Malcolm sang together and that did not happen enough for me. The songs were mostly conversational solos.

That being said, the play did not lack in emotions--there were times of laughter, times of empathy, times of sorrow and for wimps like me, times to cry--from the very beginning you know one character is struggling with writing an eulogy for the other--you would think knowing that that I could control myself. Not.

Some may think the storyline corny or unrealistic. I lost myself in it and thoroughly enjoyed it. If I get the opportunity in the future, I would definitely see it again. I hope this play becomes successful and that I can say I knew it when it was new.