9 to 5

The woman I was blowing glass with today provided the iTunes for our listening pleasure. We were taking a break when I heard a beat start up I recognized from a mix I have on a CD in my car. (Ironically, that mix is for working out.) The CD starts with Dolly Parton belting out "9 to 5". Well, after the initial beat I was mentioning. I mentioned it and she said she'd just added it to her iPod after seeing "9 to 5, the musical." Four times. It wasn't that it was so good she had to see it four times, but it was good enough that she was not willing to cry off when she wound up there an additional 3 times.

I had been intrigued when I heard Dolly promoting the show on radio a few weeks ago and made a mental note to see it. With the reminder today that it was closing soon, starred Allison Janney, and that there were rush tickets available, I decided today was the day I would *finally* make it to the theater in LA.

Unfortunately, I had to drive back home from the Valley, then back through the valley and into LA which took a while through pockets of dense traffic. Fortunately, I've gotten better about figuring out how much time I need to get places and knowing that I should arrive early to get rush seats. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten better about leaving on time. Fortunately, I did leave early enough to get there more than an hour before the show started and had no problems getting a vertigo inducing nosebleed seat.

Even with my new contacts, I was too far away to see faces very well. In big scenes, unless the spotlight was obvious, I sometimes didn't know who was singing every so often. Still, I could see a lot, the view was unobstructed due to the frightening balcony angle, and there were fun visuals and sets to watch. I could see how some of the mechanisms worked, which is fun for me.

I enjoyed the show. Like the movie, it's campy good fun. They had it set in the late 70s still, with typewriters and everything. There were a few audience directed laugh lines with current references that did get the laughs. The newer musical numbers were alright, but didn't quite have the kick of the original song. I wasn't inspired to grab a soundtrack, but there was only one song that I would have cut to be a lot shorter. They might have needed the time for set and costume changes though. There was a fairly large cast of essentially extras doing a lot of dancing in the background. Allison, she is not a singer, but she does put on a good show even if she has to sing. A lot of the rest of the cast hopped over from "Wicked", so there were definitely some quality vocals going on. If it winds up taking off, you should go see it. There are too few shows that star women, and this is good entertainment.