Couple of weekends ago I went to go see “The Musical of Musicals (The Musical)” with the old lady as we were invited by a co-worker of hers who happens to run The Ushers named Joel.
Shameless plug for the group:
“We are dedicated to celebrating and supporting theatre throughout metropolitan Washington, DC, especially MUSICAL THEATRE. We also organize long weekend trips each Spring and Fall to New York City for the best in Broadway, Off-Broadway, and cabaret.”
Altogether it was a really nice evening. The Ushers is a social group, so the plan was to attend dinner beforehand at the really nice Thailand Royal St. Restaurant.
The Thailand Royal St Restaurant at 835 N Royal St in Old Town Alexandria
This was my Pad See Ew with Chicken. Very tasty
I don’t remember the lady’s name, but she was very nice and let me take a photo of her food!
This is the interior of the restaurant
Some very tasty spring roll type dish as an appetizer. I don’t recall the name, but it was good
The stage at… MetroStage
If you know me, you know I generally don’t like Thai food. Seems to me like it’s either really spicy, or tastes like peanuts so I usually get some variety of their fried rice and leave it at that. But the selection of food here was great and I ended up getting the Pad See Ew with chicken which is wide flat rice noodles seared with egg, soy sauce and broccoli. It seems a lot like the Beef Chow Fun I like to get from the local Chinese takeout, but with a slightly different taste, and obviously with chicken. The presentation on the plate was great (see photo below) and tasted *delicious*. My girlfriend had the Garlic Beef which was pretty good, but a little too much garlic (I liked it though). Portions were very good and the prices were very reasonable at $10.95 for each of our dinner plates. The people there knew Joel as a frequent guest and gave us really good service. The people working there were EXTREMELY nice. If your in Old Town, I’d recommend checking the place out, its nicely decorated, very friendly, good food, and reasonable prices. Plus its a short walk from…
MetroStage, where the play was actually going on. From the size of the building outside I was expecting a little bit bigger stage than it turned out to be. But it is a real cozy setting, with the crowd almost right on top of the actors. There is not a bad view in the house.
The play was really good, the actors were top notch. Basically, it is 5 mini-musicals all with the same plot. A lady can’t pay her rent, and she has to find a way to deal with it. Each of the mini-musicals is a parody of a famous Broadway composer’s works. So for example, they spoofed musicals like The Sound of Music, All That Jazz, Chicago, Phantom of the Opera, Oklahoma, and South Pacific among others. The crowd was pretty educated, and needless to say, there were a couple of jokes that went right over my head and the audience busted out laughing… except for me since I don’t actually *know* all these plays. Apparently, this is the type of show (as I was told by the regulars) that you get something new from it each time, and there are lots of “in jokes” throughout. But even with all that, there were many chuckles and quite a few laugh-out-loud moments, the entire play was really enjoyable.