You know how a certain smell or a particular song can bring back a wave of memories for you? I know for myself I can’t hear “The Sign” by Ace of Base without thinking of our family trip driving around Switzerland… 🙂

Anyhoo…Last Friday night was a night full of such memory triggers. Peter and I and our cousin Mark went up to ***Gordon|http://www.gordon.edu*** for the Theater Department’s production of “The Secret Garden”. I saw the ad on the Gordon website and was particularly interested because I had JUST started re-reading the book by ***Frances Hodgson-Burnett|http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006440188X/worldwidewood-20***. What a coincidence!

Sitting in the theater brought back a wave of memories…I had first seen this musical on Martha’s Vineyard with my pal Melanie. I must say that the conditions were a little more comfortable this time…cool… and not in an overly sticky town hall auditorium 🙂 Also, there were two little girls sitting next to me who carried on a (tactfully quite) commentary of the show. Melanie, does that sound familiar?

It was nice to be back at Gordon. We ran into a couple professors, Rox, Smith, Brunner. And also a friend, Courtney Pitts. Memories of walking cross campus at night, attending plays and chit chatting afterwards came streaming back. Too bad there weren’t nice Musicals when we were there…

The show itself was wonderful. The music was lovely, and the vocalists handled the interesting and difficult melodies and harmonies smoothly. I loved the costumes and the minimalist set dressing. It was great to see a full theater and I was glad that there were kids next to me. They really got into the show, and were friends with “Colin” and were so excited when he came onstage! Their enthusiasm was so cute.

If you haven’t heard the music from the Secret Garden I highly reccomend it. It is beautiful and haunting and playful all at the same time. And, of course, if you have never read the book you definately should!