Magnolia Preparatory Academy

FIRST AT FIFTH: Saturday night, we were fortunate enough to have free tickets to see "The Secret Garden" at a historic theater in downtown.

Somehow, we'd never been to the 5th Avenue Theatre before. It has been listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places since 1978.

Per the theater's Wikipedia article it was opened in 1926, and currently the building and land are owned by the University of Washington and was once part of the original campus. How interesting!

Interestingly, the motif inside is Chinese inspired. And even more interestingly, the Norwegian artist Gustav Liljestrom executed the theater's design based on his visit to China, and on Chinesische Architecktur, published in 1925, an illustrated account of Ernst Boerschmann's travels in China.

While we enjoyed the theater, the show itself met mixed reviews. CJ's blistering review follows. 

On April 15, we went to the 5th Avenue Theatre to see a production of "The Secret Garden", a famous novel by author Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett.
(To paraphrase the program), since 1910, when sections of the book were serialized in "The American Magazine", Burnett's book has captivated adults and children alike. Over the last 107 years, countless adaptations of The Secret Garden have been made, from film to stage play to television to even Japanese anime!

The play's official page on the 5th Avenue Theatre website describes it as "A story of great love and great loss, great sadness and great joy."
...In order when watching the play, I felt great love for the idea of the play, great loss of hopes for a compelling performance, great sadness that I was spending my Saturday night by watching a forgettable play, and great joy when I got to leave the theater.

Here's a recap of the play's actual story:
Around the turn on the century, Mary Lennox is a a lonely, spoiled girl living in India. After a cholera outbreak at a dinner party kills her family and everybody else who lives with her, she is sent off to England, in order to live with her uncle-in-law, who is a complete stranger to her.

Mary Lennox hears of a "secret garden" near her new house, and is immediately fascinated with it. Mary meets a boy named Dickon, who is familiar with the dirt around the house. Dickon teaches Mary about the concept of "Wick", something that never comes up again. If I remember correctly, Dickon had also heard of the Secret Garden.

At some point in the play, Mary's uncle-in-law, as well as his brother (if I remember correctly, the whole thing was pretty forgettable), suddenly come to the realization that Mary has her late aunt Lily's "Hazel eyes". Like a lot of things in the play, this point never comes up again as well.

After a while, a robin brings the key to the secret garden to Mary. Eventually, after searching long enough, Mary finds the garden. She brings a handicapped boy from the house, Colin, into the secret garden, where he magically heals.
Overall, The Secret Garden was forgettable. While the play had 25 songs, I found myself unable to hum any of them after the show ended.
In general, the 5th Avenue Theatre's production of The Secret Garden was rather disappointing, and I would not recommend it.

KING ME: The kids and I played several chess games this weekend One ended like this -unusual and wholly unfulfilling.  But every chess match is a learning experience, so to that end, it was a good experience.

FLOWER POWER: Recently we received our fee seeds from the Cheerios folks. 
We were lucky enough to get in on the program before their seed meter hit one billion donated seeds!