It Shoulda Been You & ReTooled

Even though I was a bit frazzled about getting ready for our upcoming trip to Montreal Canada on Saturday, October 8th, Frank and I went to a delightful musical comedy the previous Thursday night, October 6th. The show was titled It Shoulda Been You and we thoroughly, thoroughly, enjoyed it. It is the tale of the wedding of a young Jewish bride to a not-so-Jewish groom. The majority of the occasion was planned and managed by the bride's older – and as yet unmarried (gasp!) – sister. 

The stressors of the wedding and well-meaning interferences by both sets of parents were hilarious and gave me a huge break from my typical pre-travel stresses. I had never heard of the Broadway show before but I highly recommend you see it if it comes into your area. There are delightful plot twists that surprised us in the show so do not be too thorough in researching the show first in Wikipedia. The synopsis there contains several spoilers.

It Shoulda Been You was performed at a theatre in downtown Walnut Creek, a town about 26 miles northwest of us. Lesher Center for the Arts is a multistory structure that houses four theatres within. It is quite striking from the outdoors at night. Here is Frank paused before we enter for our show.

It Shoulda Been You was held in the rather intimate, 297-seat Margaret Lesher Theatre. Before we spiraled up on the wide elegant staircase to the theatre on the third floor, we browsed through an art exhibit on the first lobby floor. Attendees to the shows have free entry to the rotating art exhibits featured in The Bedford Gallery. 

The exhibit when we were there was ReTooled: Highlights from the Hechinger Collection. Frank fondly remembers the Hechinger hardware stores from his childhood days growing up in the area and wondered if the names were related.

We learned that the John Hechinger from this exhibit had indeed been the owner of the mid-Atlantic hardware store chain popular in the 1980s-90s. Hechinger's hometown was Washington, D.C. so he and Frank were fellow native Washintonians. It is indeed a small world that we should have stumbled upon this exhibit out here in California. Hechinger's biography states that "Hechinger is often credited as one of the major figures in the transformation of the neighborhood hardware store to the"do it yourself" home improvement business."

Hechinger was also a proponent of "engaging art experiences for people of all backgrounds". Here are some of items from his collection that caught my eye and amused me." This next sculpture is by H.C Westermann and is titled The Slob. It anecdotally represents sloppy workmanship.

This next hammer represents a useless tool. I cannot imagine that pounding that glass nail with that crystalline hammer would be very productive. It is "striking" to look at though.

I have heard of "killing two birds with one stone" but hitting two nails with one hammer...?

If only this were a successful, easy way to apply wallpaper.

Then if we switch to outdoor décor, there was this triangular chair to rest in. The seat is artificial turf.

The last area held a collection of painted saws.

We enjoyed our outing, both the surprising, laughable musical entertainment and the accompanying serendipitous art exhibit.