The Emerald City in Akron

With NYC in sight, we decided to pack one dressy outfit on this trip. I have “packing light” down to an art form so this kind of cramped my style; we needed a nice pair of shoes for each of us, a nicer sweater, make-up, hair product, etc. Well, after a quick search for happenings in Cleveland, this all proved worthwhile. I found The Carousel, a dinner theater in Akron, showing a matinee of The Wizard of Oz. We donned our fancy attire and I have to say it was exceptionally nice to see everyone looking so scrubbed. Grandma cleans up particularly well!

We had no idea what to expect, but I’d read that you can judge a city's commitment to the Arts by whether or not they have an Opera and Cleveland does! All I can say is that when we walked in the doors, each kid let out a sigh of disbelief. The room was set to impress -- especially for those under 4 feet tall -- gorgeous red carpets, mood lighting, white linen tablecloths with loads of knives and goblets.

When I whipped out my travel scissors to cut Doodle’s spaghetti, the family behind us was intrigued. We started chatting and they said, “You came all the way to Cleveland for this?” I said, “No, we came to see Ohio.” However, now I can honestly say my intuition brought us here for the perfectly decadent oversized Midwest desserts – how does Fried Cheesecake sound?

An hour or so later the show began. We didn’t budge for nearly 2 hours as we were appropriately blown away with Dorothy and Toto. It was an interactive play so Munchkins were running through the crowd, the Wicked Witch was overhead, the middle aisle was transformed into the Haunted Forest, etc. To top it all off, we were handed 3D glasses so that The Emerald City would appear truly green.

Little Man obsessed over the set design and construction wanting to know p r e c i s e l y how things were made to operate as they did. This all played into his continually convincing himself that none of it was real. "It's not a real tornado, just music. The witch isn't really melting into the floor. Is the dog's real name Toto in real life? Dorothy isn't really crying. Those monkeys aren't real monkeys, right?" On and on and on.

We were all appropriately thrilled and impressed. In fact, the next morning Peanut announced to a stranger in the hotel elevator, “We went to The Wizard of Oz last night and got dressed so fancy and my mom put a braid in my hair that looked like a crown. It was the best show I’ve ever seen!”

Note: She’s only ever seen The Nutcracker…once.