SOUTH PACIFIC

If you were going to stage South Pacific, what would be the utopian set for the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein play ?

On the retired aircraft carrier MIDWAY in San Diego, of course you silly goose !

They did, I have been waiting for this baby for a year and I got it 29 August ! 25 actors 10 piece background started on time !

The rest of course is naval history, I have seen the movie and the play 3 or four times, lovely music with live background and local San Diego production, all good. Short run, just a couple of weeks we managed to book thru Laguna Hills retirement tour media, they did the bus and show. What a night with San Diego bay in the background and this fine local production. 100 A+ atmosphere along carries it.

Great day in San Diego, the local art museum had the Dead Sea Scrolls, they are still dead, expensive, miniscule, well narated, well secured in native script, what bearing they have on religion and world peace is subject to debate, ........I saw. Went to a nice IMAX video on coral reefs, had dinner and went to Maritime museum with five ships and great history: a Russian submarine, recreated sail ship used in Master and Commander, a 100 year old northwest ferry and two others, wonderful history pictures and local touch.
Then South Pacific, typical day for me.

Concluded this "California Dream'in" with a trip to the Fredrick Wiseman Museum in Beverly Hills. It is off the beaten path by appointment, started on time and great exposure to the arts and the rich patron, thereof. Museums are to be seen not written about! One of their staff visted a local musuem with a catching slide show and lecture and it got me, glad it did. Abrstract ideas and thems to include Wiseman's second wife, who survies,
she was portrayed in statue nude to include pubic hairs and Little Richard with piano keys for teeth and black wire for hair, got to love it. Great docent Barbara highlited this freebe, it was A+100 all the way.