I work in live theatre, so my perspective is a little skewed. The last one I went to see (instead of working) was The Drowsy Chaperone, a musical within a play.

The concept is that an old (slightly odd, but very welcoming) man is inviting the audience into his house, to listen to an old vinyl broadway recording in his living room. Sort of like a Mr. Rogers Neighborhood episode. As he (and the audience) listens to the record, his imagination blooms and his house transforms into the set for the musical. So the characters in the musical are dancing and singing around his house, while he sits in his armchair (or putters around his room, making tea, serving finger sandwiches, etc) and breaks the fourth wall to add commentary.

It’s a comedy wrapped around a tragedy. The musical is very bright and cheery, but the old man clearly has some eccentricities that begin to show through the cracks as the show progresses. It’s an interesting commentary on the “circus” part of bread and circus, as it explores things like escapism, agoraphobia, and OCD as the man’s happy facade slowly crumbles while the musical progresses (and gets interrupted a few times, which is extremely triggering for him). It becomes clear that he’s only able to maintain his happy public persona for a little while.

As for the last show I actually saw, it was a traditional Indian dance show. I work a lot of those, because traditional Indian dance has a sort of test for their dancers. It’s not a perfect comparison, but many people compare it to a black belt test in karate. Since every dancer has to go through it, there are a lot of them.

Come from Away in Toronto. Very uplifting.

Coincidentally, I was taken as a plus-1 to a Broadway musical, “Ragtime”, this month. I normally don’t go out much for theater, but it was free so I went.

It wasn’t bad. The style of music isn’t my jam, but it had some fun parts.

Also interesting is the play’s message seems to be “the only way you’ll get something approaching justice is violence” and I’m not sure if that’s the author’s intent.

“Oh, Mary!” on Broadway in NYC a couple weekends ago.

Besides impro which we go see every now and then it was a rendition of the musical Pippin in Dutch.

A local rendition of “Tratsch im Treppenhaus” in our local dialect in 2009.

I couldn’t really concentrate on the wider play though, everybody kept looking at me when I entered the stage and said my lines.

Marty’s one man show.

If you count high-school performances, I saw a cousin-in-law’s performance of West Side story.

If you don’t count that, it was a theater rendition of Evil Dead.

The people in the front 3 rows were provided ponchos and advised to wear washable clothes. I was in the back row and still got a bit of gore on me.

A college rendition of Ken Ludwig’s The Game’s Afoot. The first half was a little slow but the second half picked up considerably. Before that was A Lucky Stiff; it was quite silly but a fun watch.

Book of Mormon last year at the Fox Theatre in Saint Louis. I usually go once or twice a year for a musical if something good is in town and relatively affordable.

If watching a recorded theatre performance from the comfort of my own sofa counts, then The National Theatre’s presentation of The Importance of Being Earnest, which is wonderful.

In terms of seeing a live performance while in the actual theatre then it would be Rocky Horror back in 2019.

Edit: Just remembered that we saw Wicked in London in December 2025, before we saw the movie. That was fun.

The last live theater performance I saw was “Puss in boots” from Tieck, the last performance I played in. I watched it from the stage.

Moulin Rouge in London. Absolute banger, also the movie is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen

Eddie/Suzy Izzard conducting a solo performance of the entire play of Hamlet.

Inside No. 9 at the Hammersmith Apollo. So glad I got to see it before they finished.