Tea with Jammin' Bread

Oh, I wish I had a photo of the winner of the costume contest at this afternoon's "Sound of Music" sing-a-long at the 5th Avenue Theater.

The place was packed. And the tickets I was given were for the previous night. Of course I didn't check them ahead of time, assuming they were the Saturday afternoon seats I requested. But, the folks at the box office were nice enough to offer me a seat in the "viewing room" (a glassed-walled enclosed room behind the last row on the main floor). The sound was great, but the sight lines...not so good.

This was my first experience with the "Sound of Music" sing-a-long, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Sure, there were the requisite nuns and girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes. Plenty of Marias, Liezels and little tiny Gretels. But the most original people in the nearly hour-long costume contest were a guy dressed head to toe in bright yellow with the letters R-A-Y across his chest ("Ray, a drop of golden sun"), and Tea with Jam and Bread. But in their case, it was "Tea with Jammin' Bread".

Let me describe them to you. "T", was a woman dressed in black, wearing an enormous capital letter "T". "With" was a guy dressed like the devil with a big "with" written in cursive. And finally, "Jammin' Bread" was a skinny girl dressed as an enormous slice of bread, carrying an inflatable electric guitar. And let me tell you, she ROCKED it! They owned that theme costume and completely deserved to win.

When the movie started, I darted out of that viewing room and found myself an empty seat on the floor, about 30 rows back. It was a great seat. And, I proceeded to look in my Sing-a-long goodie bag. The contents are displayed below:


The question mark was to be held up when we sang "How do you Solve a Problem Like Maria?" Same with the picture of Maria.
Tiny eidelweiss flowers go without saying. Plus there's an invitation to the Captain's ball, a piece of fabric to wear when the Von Trapp children wear their play clothes made out of curtains, and a little champagne cork to pop, when the Captain and Maria kiss. Lame, but fun.

And the singing was great. The lyrics were on the bottom of the screen and everyone in the capacity crowd sang with every song. Here's a little taste:

It was a lot of fun.  And I left just before the Captain learned the Nazis had commissioned him to fight for their cause.

None of that ugly war stuff.  Just happiness, music and love.

Afterwards I took myself out to dinner and hummed to myself.