Have a great time, doc & Mandy!
We saw Mary Poppins at the Toby Dinner theater in Columbia, MD yesterday afternoon and I was blown away! I've never seen a dinner theater cast where every actor was equally strong. There's always someone who sticks out on the cast for just being not quite up to par with the rest of the group. No the case this time. Even the children, scratch that, ESPECIALLY the children were FANTASTIC. They didn't miss a line or a note and Benn even commented when we left that he liked them better than he liked Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber! The characterizations were a great blend of keeping true to their film counterparts and showing a deeper side of each character.
The story & music differences from the movie to musical are plentiful, but most of the changes are ok. I still prefer the film, but after seeing it so many times, the film IS Mary Poppins to me (sorry, Mrs. Travers), so it was hard to not hear Sister Suffragette, The Life I Lead, Stay Awake, and Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. Some of the added songs were great, but there were some that I would have happily swapped for one of missing songs from the film.
As for the theater itself, it's a very small theater in the round that seats 300. I thought they did an amazing job of making sure that everyone got plenty to eat and that traffic was flowing well throughout the meal. The quality of the food was mostly ok to good, but there was plenty of variety and for dinner & a show of the quality that we saw, I think that $53 each was a very reasonable price. So if you live in the area or are taking a trip to the DC area, it might be worth your time to investigate the schedule and see what's planning. Poppins is supposedly sold out for the remainder of its run and I didn't see any other Disney shows, but it was a nice enough experience that I would go to a non-Disney show there as well.
Bella
