Dear Evan Hansen

AT LAST: Wednesday evening we made our way downtown to the Paramount Theater to see a show we've been anticipating for many months. "Dear Evan Hansen" won the Tony award for best Broadway musical in . The Washington Post called the show “One of the most remarkable shows in musical theater history." 

The show features a super minimalistic set, and only eight actors (plus a live orchestra that's hidden from view). The lovely, historic Paramount theater sparkled like a jewel, as usual. Unfortunately, also, as usual, the sound wasn't great. It's an ongoing problem. Most concerts I've seen there, including, most recently Greta Van Fleet, the sound is super muddled. Last night, the volume was so quiet that the theater's HVAC system could be heard as loudly as the performers, and we could even hear freeway noise, as well. That was a first for a show at the Paramount.

I don't know who's running their sound board there, but they need some help.

If you want a taste of what it sounds like (when you can actually hear it!), check out this clip

You can expect reviews from CJ and Annabelle soon.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH: February 1 marks the first day of Black History Month. Obviously, it's not just for people of color. It's a great chance for us to learn a lot more about our nation and our fellow citizens and stories about people who history has too often forgotten.

Today, we watched a BrainPOP video about the Tuskegee Airmen. We'd all heard of them - the African-American military pilots who fought in World War II as the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces. The black military pilots trained at Moton Field, the Tuskegee Army Air Field, and attended Tuskegee University, located near Tuskegee, Alabama. 

The BrainPOP video was a great introduction to the airmen, and we used it as a springboard to go learn more. 

For instance, from the BrainPOP video, we learned that one of the Tuskegee Airmen, Robert W. Diez, was featured on a Treasury Department "buy bonds" poster. 

The poster was the work of Betsy Graves Reyneau, a white artist who painted portraits of many prominent African Americans, including George Washington Carver, Joe Louis, and Thurgood Marshall.  (Interesting side note, Reyneau was a suffragette. In 1917, she was one of the first woman to be arrested and imprisoned for protesting Woodrow Wilson's stance on women's voting rights.)

But back to airman Diez. ... We did a little research and learned that Diez was born (1919) and raised in Portland, Oregon. He attended Franklin High School there, and set records in the 100-yard dash, the 220-yard race and relays, and also won accolades on the University of Oregon track team. Diez enrolled in the Civilian Pilot Training Program after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Civilian Pilot Training Act into law on June 27, 1939. 

We also watched some video featuring a Tuskegee reunion in 2004 held on Memorial Day weekend on the National Mall in Washington, with Lt. Col. Lee A. Archer Jr., chairman and CEO of Archer Associates; Thomas Lowery, a drum and bugle corps Army enlistee transformed into a engineer, electrician, and pilot; and Col. Charles E. McGee, a command pilot with more than 6,100 total hours and flew fighter aircraft in Italy during WWII.