It was a WICKED day yesterday!

Last night, my son, Tony and I went to the Pantages Theater in Hollywood, CA to see the musical, Wicked. It was Wicked, too! Wicked GOOD!

For Tony's birthday last year, I promised him we'd go see the show and I had to wait for it to come to the west coast. Finally, in February, it came. I waited for the ticket frenzy to slow down and then got us tickets for last night. We left here around 2:30 and got to Hollywood around 4:00. We drove around a bit and then decided we'd have a bite to eat. We ate at Mel's Drive-in. No, not the one down on Sunset - the one they filmed "American Graffiti", but the one down near the Hollywood Walk of Fame with all the stars on the sidewalk.

We parked the car across the street from the Pantages on Argyle Street and walked over to the theater. We heard lots of cheering going on, so we went to investigate. Apparently, there is a lottery system for theater tickets that haven't sold on the day of performance. You get a chance to win 2 tickets per person if your name is drawn. The tickets cost $25 each. I paid $100 per ticket, but there's no chance of actually getting a ticket with the lottery unless you pay full price. Some of the orchestra tickets cost over $300. We left that craziness and walked down the street in search of martini bar.

We thought we'd walk down Hollywood Blvd to the Pig'n Whistle, a restaurant & bar we had gone to on another visit to the area, but we walked 6 blocks and still weren't there, so we opted for a mexican cantina. I really wanted a martini, so I ordered an apple 'tini and Tony got a double screaming orgasm. It was delicious! Long story about the drinks, but I won't bore you with that since his post is about Wicked, but I thought you'd like to hear about our whole day... So, about 7:15pm we headed back down the Blvd to the theater. Perfect timing: they were just letting people inside. If you've never been inside the Pantages Theater, you need to go. It is spectacular. Click the link to get info and pics of the theater.

Let me just say, that this production was spellbinding from the opening note from the orchestra. I was entranced by the costumes as well as the music. To get the story, click here or on the Wicked link in the first paragraph. After the last song of the first act was over, there was a standing ovation. People yelling, clapping and hollering. It was so freakin' fantastic!! After the second and final act, and another standing ovation, Tony and I were filing out of the theater and we stopped at one of the souvenir booths to have a peek. The nice gal there told us that we could get our program autographed outside at the cast door on Argyle, so we hot-footed out of the theater and went around the corner to wait in line. We were maybe the 5th or 6th people in line and that line ended up going around the building, so we go there just in time. We got to chat with the actors and got their autographs in Tony's program. The actors even stopped to have their pictures taken with the fans who requested it. They were just so awesome.

Our ride home was uneventful and took us about 1.5 hours. I got lots of chat time with my favorite boy and we had a great time together. Oh, it looks like "Wicked" is going to be playing there until at least March of 2008, so you have time to order your tickets.