I Love a Piano

 
Going back to the weekend in Indiana. So much great stuff happened that I still want to share. The play we went to was a musical review of Irving Berlin songs, called I Love a Piano. It's been said that Irving Berlin does not have a place in American music, he IS American Music.

The show featured 56 of his songs... not just excerpts either. Here's how the stage looked.



The orchestra was located behind the scrim Art Deco piece.



The scenes were divided by decade, beginning with the 1910s. The kids in the cast pretty much non-stop danced and sang for over two hours. How about a little Charlston? My mother always said she could dance it, but she never offered to show me!



I don't remember exactly which song this went with, but it was set in the 1930s in Manhattan during the height of the Depression.



And of course, there were plenty of heart-tuggers associated with WWII



One of Berlin's late works was Annie Get Your Gun, which is one of my favorites. They did several songs from it. Here Frank and Annie sing "An Old Fashioned Wedding."



And, of COURSE, "There's No Business Like Show Business."



The finale was appropriately, "I Love a Piano."



The kids did quite a good job! And I'm pretty sure that although many people my age know the words to many of those songs, I suspect the students had to learn most of them cold. Great performance!

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Begin and End with Food

 
Loretta had tickets to the President's Dinner at Taylor University, which was the defining reason we took this trip when and where we did. There were 700 diners in the dining commons. It was set up beautifully.



The purpose of the dinner was to thank people who donated to a scholarship fund for international students (I was just a guest). So recipients of the scholarships were also seated at the tables. This is Kyala from Kenya talking with Loretta.



We also had David from Afghanistan. He was very outgoing. Both guys have already lived in many places around the world.



This was easily one of the best meals I've ever had for a large group. There was a tomato and basil salad, shrimp cocktail, mixed cauliflower (white, green, purple), roasted carrots, yellow peppers stuffed with a rice-corn-red bean mixture, chicken, and prime rib. Everything was cooked perfectly. The veggies were real (not from a can) and cooked perfectly. That's a real feat for that many people. Dessert was little cakes- raspberry or chocolate. Yummy and not overwhelming.

We ate brunch at Cracker Barrel on Sunday, and dinner at a restaurant in Bluffton called Milli's. We each had a "special," and they were huge.

Monday we had a light breakfast at a new place in Upland called The Bridge. That left us one eating slot before leaving and going our separate ways. We'd been trying all weekend to find room in our stomachs for a "must-do" experience.



Ivanhoe's has been operating in Upland for 50 years. They boast 100 flavors of shakes and 100 flavors of sundaes. They were there when we were students! So we decided on ice cream for lunch. We ordered regular sundaes. Makes sense, right? They were HUGE! We should have split one. Nothing like fixing yourself with a sugar high for the rest of the day.



I ate enough food over the weekend to last a week. Too bad I continue to get hungry at mealtimes.

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