When my sister and I were little, my mom was raising us on her own and didn't have a whole lot of money to take us out to do things. On special days in the summertime, we would go get a bucket of KFC chicken at a ridiculous hour like 11am, dump the whole thing into a gallon sized zip-lock bag, and throw it in the fridge. We would spend the rest of the afternoon packing our green plastic picnic basket and guessing at what we got to go do. Once the blankets made it out to the car, it was a done deal. We were going to go to see a musical.
We would fill our little arms up with everything that we could carry and scope out the best spot in the lawn. We would get settled and break out that cold chicken and a bag of grapes. By the time we finished eating and making up stories about the people around us, the show would get ready to start. I would get lost in the performance. At four years old, I have no doubt that I had absolutely no idea about what was going on but I was enthralled. It was magic. The lights, the scenery... just magic. We repeated this experience for years.
I went on to work my first theater job at that same outdoor theater after high school. Being the person that helped to create the scenery brought me as close to being a part of that magic as I could get. Watching pieces that I worked on from the audience was such a rush. I miss it. I haven't been to the theater in years. If we lived closer to an outdoor theater, I can guarantee that we would be loading up a bag of cold chicken and a picnic basket of our own and head down for the perfect seat on the lawn.
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