Performances

Apparently, Adrienne was serious about our text exchange of a couple of weeks back.

Because she had an extra ticket for a Shadowlands production of the musical Waitress, & she invited me-ee-eee. For free!

She wants me to feel befriended.

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Shadowlands is a 1920s vaudville theater, built when Ellenville was at the height of its Borscht Belt glory.

It was scheduled to be demolished in 1985 until a group of theater people pooled their funds & bought the building. A lot of NYC theater luminaries have summer homes in these parts.

Dunno what I was expecting exactly. Shadowlands is the kind of theater that attracts actors who got their Actors Equity union card 'cause their grandfathers are the dentists who work on Hugh Jackman's veneers. Talent is a consideration. But not a big one.

I enjoyed the production, though.

Indifferent score but witty lyrics & libretto. Performers could sing, but they couldn't phrase.

On the plus side, it's a small theater, so you got to get up close & personal with the performers, which is always a lot of fun.

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We got to Ellenville early, so we explored this dynamite thrift store—which meant I got to stalk around & take ArtPhotos™!!!!!!!









Adrienne & I will never be besties, but I like her well enough when she's not running hard for political office. She's such a Queens girl! Shrewd & tough. And I know the reason she's running hard for political office is because she lost her husband a year & a half ago & is keeping herself distracted by filling up every single minute of every single day.

Adrienne's husband died a particularly awful death. Liver cancer. And he died at home where she was taking care of him.

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We'd avoided it throughout most of the evening, but on the drive home, we began talking politics.

"Not that I give a shit about John Bolton, you understand," I said. "Creepy guy, creepy policies. But, you know. Setting the FBI on political enemies. Bad portent."

"Not good," Adrienne said.

"The National Guard in D.C. is just performative right now. But it's gonna get real when Trump's minions lose the 2026 midterm elections, & he ends up declaring martial law. What are we gonna do? How are we gonna plan for that? 'Cause you know. It's a civil war."

"I agree 100 percent," Adrienne said. "If I had an incurable disease, the answer would be clear: Get as close as you can; take as many of them out as you can get. But I don't have an incurable disease."

It actually shocked me to hear Adrienne talking like this.

Though not in a bad way necessarily.