Liz A.
Yelp
I may have been to this venue before - possibly in the 70's or 80's when I was a kid. But as an adult, this was my first time. The reason for the visit - taking Mom to see Cats for her 89th birthday. Both first time viewers of the play.
It started with a phone call to the box office. Day 1 of calling - LONG hold so I left my phone number - promised a call back in the order calls received. Never happened. Day 2 - stayed on hold and call was answered relatively quickly. From there, I was lucky to get a delightful sales rep. I knew I wanted the last Sunday matinee in November and that they wheelchair seats were sold out. Mom's in a wheelchair but can kind of walk a little. So I knew wheelchair seats were $100 - so I was prepared to pay top dollar. The rep found us 2 seats on the aisle in the 12th or so middle aisle row. She explained how I could get Mom from the garage to her seat - PERFECT. She said an usher would stash the wheelchair once Mom was seated. Sure enough- worked like a charm. I went ahead and bought the garage pass so we were ready to go!
I was to go up to Cleveland the night before play and stay at Mom's. We'd go to church, lunch and then the play. Unfortunately, a HUGE storm was forecast which would kill our plans. I waited until Sunday to see how much snow Mom got. GOOD NEWS - she got NONE of the west side. But downtown supposedly got hit (per Mom). Knowing how much $ I dropped on the outing, I was determined to make it happen. I drove up, picked up Mom and we headed downtown. Lo and behold - NO SNOW!
The line to get into the garage was long, but we had time. Then the walk from the garage to the seats was long. Thank goodness I'm in good shape and we had the wheelchair for Mom. We made it to our seats which were AMAZING! And the wheelchair was whisked away by the usher. We only had about 10 minutes until the program started.
Now I grew up in a middle class family with an appreciation for the arts but without the money to buy good seats. So all the ballets, plays, and orchestra programs I'd been to had to been experienced from the last row in the theater. Still, I understand I lived a blessed and privileged life when compared to others. However, the couple we sat next to had season tickets, a notion I can't really wrap my head around. But then again, I refuse to spend the money it costs to get into professional sporting events or musical concerts. I find value elsewhere.
So the details we could see from our seats was simply beyond belief. The costumes extravagant and orchestra fantastic. Neither of us had looked into the story being told - so we were a bit lost in following it. Regardless, the dancing was so complex and done perfectly.
So when the play was over, I went back to get the wheelchair. Mom being pig-headed insisted upon starting to walk to the rear of the theater, grasping each seat to hold her up as she worked her way back. I couldn't really get the wheelchair moving against the crowd - so I got her as soon as she hit the back row. Then we worked our way back to the garage. It was a little tough getting inline to leave as I had not backed in. However, I was able to manuever and get in the outflow. It moved very quickly and we were on our way.
I highly recommend this venue as a place to see a show. I would give it five stars if it weren't so darn expensive. But well done and thank you to the sales person who prepared me to host Mom there!