Last Saturday night, Scott and I went to see Cats at the Overture Center downtown. I had seen Cats many years ago. Scott was a first timer.
The Overture Center for the Arts in downtown Madison is a really cool place. It's one block off the Capital square and right at the cusp of the very hip and trendy State Street district. It was packed down there last Saturday with people celebrating St. Patrick's Day. Something Scott and I love about Madison is that, even when there are events involving a lot of people, things here just seem so accessible. Getting to big, crowded events just isn't that difficult. I guess that's the difference between "big" and "crowded" in a smaller town like this compared to "home". For perspective, I believe Madison's population is less than a quarter the size of Columbus.
Anyhow, back to last Saturday. State Street is an area where a lot of University of Wisconsin-Madison college kids hang out so, needless to say, bars and restaurants were swarming with kids drinking green beer and Irish whiskey. Scott and I were looking for a spot to have a drink before the show. We decided it best to look for something a little more upscale with the thought it would be less crowded with kids. We found it. An ultra cool place called "The Icon", right across the street from the Overture Center. I borrowed the picture below from their website.
Scott and I had actually had a drink at The Icon before we saw the Blue Man Group at the Overture Center back in January. Both times we've been there we sat at the bar. Excellent service. Excellent drinks. This time, Scott had an Old Fashioned and I ordered a martini that had ginger vodka, some kind of ginger liqueur and orange juice. Damn, it was good.
In honor of St. Patrick's Day, Scott ordered us shots of Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey.
Martini on the right? Loved it. Had 2 of them. Shot of Tullamore Dew in the front? Bleck. I never want to drink another one of those ever again. Unless, of course, it brings me the luck of the Irish. For some good luck, I'd have another.
After cocktails we walked across the street to the Overture Center. I don't know all the history of the Overture, but the State Street entrance appears to still resemble the original structure of the building.
(picture from citydictionary.com)
At some point they apparently expanded/renovated/updated because this is what the other side of the exterior of the Overture looks like.
(photo from flickr.com)
The inside of the Overture is impressive. It has a huge, vertically open lobby area. The next two photos were taken looking up from 2 different angles from the ground floor of the lobby.
The purple color you see in the picture above is LED lights that change colors. Groovy.
I love the inside of the theater. I took these pictures from our seats. (We had better seats for Blue Man Group, but our seats for Cats weren't horrible.)
The next picture I borrowed. Obviously. I couldn't take a picture like that if I tried. Even though I want to.
(picture from host.madison.com)
You get one quick opportunity after intermission to snap a shot of the Cats stage with cats actually on it. I took advantage of the opportunity.
The show was good. Amazing costumes. Engaging music. Incredible singing. We enjoyed it.
So, back in January I wrote a post about buying tickets to 3 shows to get us through the winter: one show in January (Blue Man Group at Overture), one in February (Viva Vegas at the Fireside) and one in March (Cats at the Overture). It's somewhat hard to believe 3 months have passed since we bought those tickets and we have now seen all 3 shows. That also means we got through another Wisconsin winter, which has to be one of the most mild winters on the books. I have no complaints about that.
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