I love musicals. As a youth I started off with Disney full-length animated features, buying and becoming obsessed with the sound tracks. I then graduated into the Rodgers and Hammerstein via the classic movies, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music… When Hamilton started picking up steam, I was right there to lend my ear to the original broadway cast recording. Over and over again. When the Hamilton Mixtape came out in December I was thrilled. So good.
Then MJ surprised me with tickets to see it in San Francisco. I was over the moon! We went with a couple we’re friends with on Saturday.
Prior to the show, we had reservations at Quince for dinner. It’s the newest San Francisco inductee into the Michelin three star club, but it had been on the list with fewer stars for a few years. Now, we had just been to a Michelin-starred restaurant the weekend before, but this is highly unusual. We might go to one per year, it’s an expensive meal and I like taking the weeks afterwards to enjoy the memory. I wasn’t going to say no to an amazing meal with some friends though ;)
In order to get to the show in time, we secured a 5PM reservation and let them know about our time constraint, shortening the typical 3 – 3 1/2 meal window to just 2 1/2 hours, which they were able to accommodate. We also learned that there was a nearby table with the same plans.
The meal was a multi-course set tasting menu, advertised as “Contemporary Californian and Italian” cuisine. The focus was on seasonal and local, with a handful of delicate pasta dishes and a couple featuring asparagus.
With a show ahead of me, I skipped the wine pairing and just had a single glass of Riesling to accompany my meal. It was a nice, sweet choice that went well with the dishes, all of which were as exceptional as expected. The caviar dish was probably my favorite, but my love for pasta made the whole meal quite enjoyable.
We made our exit just after 7:30 and got to the Orpheum Theatre just in time to get to our seats for the 8PM show. We had great seats, nearly centered on the stage aisle seats in the front row of the Mezzanine.
I may have teared up when the show opened. And several other times throughout the show. It was everything I was hoping it would be! Satisfied left me Helpless. I really enjoyed the actor who portrayed Aaron Burr, he kind of stole the show for me.
Since it was my first time seeing the production played out (not just listening to the soundtrack) I was also to catch a bunch of things, like how hilarious King George is, and the very opinionated portrayal of Thomas Jefferson which landed him in “bad guy” territory.
We had a great night, I’m so glad we went.
It is possible to get tickets for showings at the Orpheum now, with a handful of available seats here and there. They also are still running the next-day lottery for the chance to win a pair of $10 tickets.
There are some more photos from the evening here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157680336767594