I have a little extra vacation time, and I was getting quite sick of work, so I took a play day last Friday to spend time with Mer. Mer let me be in charge, so I decided to catch a matinee of Pixar’s new film, Brave. Brave caught my attention for several reasons: I tend to love Celtic-inspired stories and music, I love Scottish accents, the music for the film is wonderful, and, although the film is animated, Pixar did a spectacular job of recreating the beauty of Scotland. Needless to say, I loved the film. It did appear that Mer and I were the only childless people in the theater, but we got some of the adult-related humor that went over the kids’ shorter heads.

Later in the evening, we went to Actors’ Summit theater to see the last show of the 2011-12 season, a musical revue called Route 66, where the music was popular hits about or inspired by the highway. The play happened to be an opening night, and it coincided with the theater’s first-ever gala dinner and auction. So, before the play started, we got to see an auctioneer coax bids from the audience for six items. He did a fantastic job; he was funny and engaging, and the auction did not drag at all.

The play was fluffy, but fun. I don’t expect a lot of depth from musical revues. The director wisely played up some of the humor in songs about driving, having the actors “drive” around on stage in trucks made up of soap boxes (although they had working headlights) and by having a large man in a dress drive around on an electric scooter for “Little Old Lady From Pasadena.” Mer and I still prefer story-driven plays and musicals to musical revues, but Route 66 did an entertaining job.

Actors’ Summit always has desserts after the opening night performances (which is a major reason we try to go on opening nights). This night, they had everyone walk across the street to the top level of the parking deck, where they had dessert and dancing under a pretty evening sky. Mer and I were very pleased about this. We got to have cupcakes and we got to dance to some fun music, which spanned the 40s to the 70s, but was mostly from the 60s and 70s. We had a great time, and it capped off a lovely day.