My mom got tickets for me, Berta, and the kids to see A Year With Frog and Toad today at the Arden theater on 2nd street in Philadelphia.
It’s primarily a kid’s show, a musical about two friends, Frog and Toad, who live in houses next door to each other. The show consisted of a series of short stories. In one, Toad bakes cookies, and he and Frog can’t stop eating them. They go through great lengths to prevent themselves from eating the cookies, but end up eating them anyway.
In another story, including my favorite song from the show, Toad goes for a swim. He asks Frog to look away until he gets into the water, which he does. He explains that he looks funny in his bathing suit. Then Turtle shows up and Toad tells Frog that he must tell her to go away. So he tells Turtle that she must go, and when she asks why, Frog lets slip that Toad looks funny in his bathing suit. She thinks this is funny, and breaks into song, as more characters are brought into the former secret. Eventually, Toad gets out of the “water” (a creative use of a hole in the stage) and he indeed looks funny in his bathing suit. Of course, then you see Frog in his suit, and it’s pretty strange-looking, too.
At the end of the show, the actors and stage hands took turns answering questions from the audience about the production, which was interesting. They explained how the big houses in the sets were able to rotate (on spindles with spools cranked by stage hands), and how the fire was made by the propmaster (a silk held in front of a fan, with light shone on it). Nothing surprising surfaced from beyond my experiences in theaters, but it was still entertaining and worthwhile for this production.
Abby and Riley had a reasonably positive reaction to the show. I think they liked the show, but were disappointed when we didn’t buy them popcorn (did they even have popcorn?) at intermission, so Riley’s remarks reflected his disfavor of that. Berta, Mom, and I had a good time.
I forget that the kids haven’t been into the city often in their lives, and I want to make them familiar enough with it before they become adults that they’re comfortable if they find themsevles there. After the show, we walked around the city, took the subway west of city hall to “see the skyscrapers” (which to the kids turned out to be less impressive standing beneath them than one might imagine), and then came right back to avoid being towed for leaving our car parked too long. Still, the things that the kids pick up on their trips (Look, a tunnel! Look, gum on the sidewalk!) is always an amusement, and I hope they benefit from/enjoy their overall experience as much as I do watching them experience it.
