Another performing adventure has ended at my beloved Paramount Theatre, and once again I stopped before I packed up and left to take a picture of this awesome door

It’s literally where a hole was cut high into the side of the gilded, lavishly baroque auditorium (specifically an alcove above the audience-left mezzanine) to link it to the austere new addition with all of its modern dressing rooms and bathrooms and showers and elevators and laundry facilities and its comfortably appointed green room with refrigerators and a wide third-floor window offering a southern view of downtown Cedar Rapids. I love how you can stand where I took this picture right next to a sleek stainless steel elevator surrounded by the clean walls and neutral carpet tiles of the modern addition and peer through this door and see the brilliant reds and golds of the rococo carpeting that hint at the breathtaking, venerable grandeur waiting just around the corner.

I grew up in awe of—and in love with—the Paramount Theatre, and I’m so thrilled and honored and humbled not only to get to perform on its century-old stage and enjoy the distinct privilege of looking out into the vast sea of lustrous golds and merlot velvets of its auditorium on a happily regular basis, but also to see first-hand the backstage additions and upgrades and enrichments to the expanded facility that will take it—as I see through the metaphor of this door—beautifully into its next century.

One last selfie with THAT VIEW before I abdicate the stage and ditch rehearsal and get home before my exploding headache becomes a major medical concern

I actually found an angle of the Paramount Theatre that I haven’t selfied!

Follies is finally moving into its gorgeous performance home and I’ve already celebrated by doing my little happy dance for being here.

Sponge! Bob!

My Big Broadway Birthday Binge Bash Blowout concludes with a FRONT! ROW! CENTER! (of the balcony!) SEAT! for SpongeBob Squarepants, starring my relentlessly adorable next husband, Ethan Slater:

My final musical also featured a classy, respectful pre-show-selfie photobomb from my arch-nemesis name twin who really truly has the same name as me, and after years and years of chatting on Facebook we finally just met. And I really truly like him:

And here's the view of the gorgeously rococo Palace Theater awash in watery SpongeBob lighting right behind me as I sit in my FRONT! ROW! CENTER! (of the balcony!) SEAT!:

#HowToTurn50 #AndMaybeSeeAMusical #OrFour

Another performing adventure has ended at my beloved Paramount Theatre

And this time I stopped before I packed up and left to take a picture of this awesome door:

It’s literally where a hole was cut high into the side of the gilded, lavishly baroque auditorium (specifically an alcove above the audience-left mezzanine) to link it to the austere new addition with all of its modern dressing rooms and bathrooms and showers and elevators and laundry facilities and its comfortably appointed green room with refrigerators and a wide third-floor window offering a southern view of downtown Cedar Rapids. I love how you can stand where I took this picture right next to a sleek stainless steel elevator surrounded by the clean walls and neutral carpet tiles of the modern addition and peer through this door and see the brilliant reds and golds of the rococo carpeting that hint at the breathtaking, venerable grandeur waiting just around the corner.

I grew up in awe of—and in love with—the Paramount Theatre, and I’m so thrilled and honored and humbled not only to get to perform on its century-old stage and enjoy the distinct privilege of looking out into the vast sea of lustrous golds and merlot velvets of its auditorium on a happily regular basis, but also to see first-hand the backstage additions and upgrades and enrichments to the expanded facility that will take it—as I see through the metaphor of this door—beautifully into its next century.