Nighttime NewBo Coolness

Stage-right flylines. Theatre Cedar Rapids. Elf the Musical. Finale.

Greetings from the bottom of The Terrifyingly Tall Spiral Staircase Of Gruesome But Festively Lit And Probably Involving Glitter Because It *IS* A Theater But It Will Still Be Splatty Death

The staircase—and everyone’s splatty, glittery death—starts on the skull-cracking concrete bowels of the theater and climbs almost two million (which we’ll round to just two for the purposes of this post) stories to the relatively safe safety of the stage-right darkness, where things can probably fall on us from the flylines but at least it’s not US falling on the skull-cracking concrete two million-give-or-take stories below us.

On the plus side, if we DO plummet to our splatty, glittery deaths tonight, we’ll crack our skulls to the peppy jazz stylings of Elf the Musical as it unfolds around us AS I’M RIGHT NOW TYPING THIS POST. So there’s that.

Seriously

How awesome and inventive are the projections on our also-how-awesome-and-inventive Elf the Musical set? You’ll just have to come and behold for yourselves.

You’ll also have to come and behold the boundless energy, effortless talents and fearless ridiculousness of my photobomber: D.J., who brings Buddy the Elf to life with his gorgeous voice and childlike delight. The kids in our preview audience oohed and aahed and giggled and clapped all through the show last night, and I lost track of the times people told me afterward that they left the theater filled with holiday spirit. We’re all really proud of this show, and thrilled to get to share it with everyone who comes to see it. LIKE YOU.

Get your tickets.

Here’s the steep and very narrow stairway I’ll be upping every night for the next six weeks as I do little else to prepare for our show:

Downtown Decorah coolness

Our state capitol is capitoler than your state capitol

Our gold-leafed dome shimmers on the hill:

 The staircase up to the breathtaking rotunda:

Toldja it was breathtaking:

Boobies:

A vestibule off the first floor:

A gorgeous bas-relief tribute to women crowned by an unmistakably Deco sunburst:

Another vestibule has a creepy display of dolls fetishizing the inauguration gowns of our First Ladies:

The stairs to the second floor of the rotunda:

Corn art!

The I above the House chamber windows stands for I LOVE THIS BUILDING: 

But gross. Just fucking gross. Just because an impotent man-boy climbs on his Big Wheel and hurls his feces at the adults to play president doesn’t mean we have to sully our Senate chamber walls with his festering rictus:

Patterns and textures on the second floor:

The steps to the dome, which I unfortunately didn't get to climb:

The freaking STUNNING second-floor library, ladies and gentlemen:

It has lots of books:

And a dumb waiter. For smart people. They’re smart because they read books. And they figured out a way to avoid carrying them up the steps:

And an intricate iron staircase the is the envy of the entire Industrial Revolution:

More intricate wrought iron:

And a beautifully stenciled ceiling medallion:

 A little sorbet to cleanse the palate:

Monuments on the nearby grounds:

Iowa’s memorial to the drooling buffalo that used to wander our land, moistening our soil.

Walking away: 

 Goodbye for now, noble capitol: