And Kevin, box wine at the ballet...
This was a long time ago.
In upstate NY we had something called the Saratoga Performing Arts Center or SPAC. SPAC is an open air thater or shed with lawn seating. It is the summer home of the NYC Ballet, the NYC Opera and the Orchestra.
They have seating in the shed and much less expensive lawn seating. We were poor and we had lawn seats. Picnicing was encouraged.
We had decided that we should take advantage of the culture that was right in our backyard, so one summer we decided to go to the orchestra (we fell asleep), the ballet (we got thrown out for talking during the dancing) and the opera....well thats an entirley different story.
We had never been to an opera before, so we bought lawn tickets to Tosca. The theater had been outfitted with something called "super titles" which are one of those scrolling signs you see under hotel signs that give additional info. The lyrics and dailogue were going to be translated into English for all of us that dont speak Italian. We thought this was our chance to see "art".
What they dont take into consideration is that it doesnt get dark during the summer until much later. we couldnt see the lighted scrolling sign as it was still too light outside.
We also didnt know that the female singer took a bow and got flowers after what seemed like every aria. We got up to leave every time they stopped singing and the woman behind us kept telling us it wasnt over, so we'd sit back down. Well, she apparently got tired of tending to us...so she eventually told us it was over, so we took our stiff and headed out. In truth, it wasnt over and she just wanted to get rid of us.
Needless to say...we didnt go back to the orchestra, ballet or opera
