12-07-01

My mom's in town for the weekend. It's good to see her, haven't seen her in a while. Elizabeth & I and my mom went to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Angelina's (if you like Italian…), and then we went to see a play. Death & Harry Houdini at Live Bait Theater, put on by the House Theater Company. Unfortunately, my recommendation won't do the show much good because it's closing tomorrow, but it's a great show. A friend of mine wrote the script and directed, he and one of his roommates acted in the show, and another friend, their third roommate, stage-managed and directed a movie within the play. It was an excellent show, got great reviews, and has been selling out every night. One of the guys told me that the creative director of Lookingglass Theater Company (big-time theater co of Chicago) saw the show a few weeks ago and raved about it. She told my friends that she wanted to help them remount the show next year, possibly in the Steppenwolf Studio theater. That would be amazing. And these guys only just moved here about two years ago from college. It's a great break.

And as a cool aside, Nathan wrote a joke into the script that referred to me. Harry Houdini told another character that his real name was "Eric. Eric Weiss." (Harry Houdini was his stage name). And the other character responded, "Your first and middle name are both Eric?" And he said, "Yes." (It wasn't really, it was just the way he repeated it.) It was pretty funny. (All in the timing.) And I was also thanked in the program, among numerous others, because I gave a small donation to help them mount the show. Nice.

By the way, here's something my mother told me today that I've been telling people wrong for years. I think I knew it but just changed the facts because I'm lazy. I was actually named after two GREAT-grandfathers who were named David, not two grandfathers.