Weekend activities

This weekend was full of food and a play. Not a bad weekend. Unfortunately, now it's Sunday, aka "chore day."

Friday night I met a friend down in the Rittenhouse Square area for some food and beers. We started at Bard's Irish Bar for dinner. Good solid Irish food. And they have Guiness on tap (naturally), but they also have Smithwick's, which is one of my favorites. We eventually migrated down to Barristers Bar and Grille to catch the end of the Detroit Red Wings game (they lost...GROWL). Not a bad selection of beers on tap. They purchased the NHL Center Ice package, so now I know where to go to watch the hockey playoffs!

Saturday night I went to dinner and a play. A coworker was the assistant stage manager and ran the sound cues for a university production of Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening (not the musical version currently on Broadway). I met AH and her husband DS for dinner at White Dog Cafe for dinner before the show. The White Dog is rapidly becoming one of my favorite restaurants. All their food is made with local, sustainably grown products, and is delicious. Since they focus on local products and produce, their menu does change slightly from season to season. I love the chicken sandwiches. Their burgers are incredible. Of course they always have at least one vegetarian, and usually a vegan option as well. I have yet to eat anything there that wasn't yummy and satisfying. Lately they've had this delicious lemon vinaigrette for salads that's fresh and tart and even has chunks of lemon peel in it! Drool...

Anyway, after a delicious dinner, we headed over to campus for the play. Spring Awakening is not exactly an uplifting play. It's quite intense. This production was done in a black box setting, so everyone was close to the actors and the scene. It made it hard to distance yourself, and I found myself sucked in to the intensity. The play is about young adults, adolescents, experiencing a coming of age and sexual awakening in Imperial Germany. The overall play is tragic, with one character committing suicide and another dying, and yet another consumed by self-hatred. Like I said, it's quite intense. But it was very well done. The students did an outstanding job playing their characters. The set and lighting was minimal but worked well with the intense emotions played out by the actors. For all the intensity, the production itself was well done and enjoyable. And of course my coworker did a fabulous job with the sound cues!