Pleasant Summer Evening: A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood

I had such a fun Saturday evening at Tanglewood, you guys. You know those times when you feel like you’re almost in someone else’s life,  because it’s not something you would normally do but it makes you realize what a fabulously social/cultured creature you could be if you only had the money (and let’s face it, no social anxiety)?

That’s what Saturday was for me. Magical!

For those unaware, Tanglewood is a music venue and educational center in Lenox, Massachusetts. I had never been there, so I was excited when my sister Sue received some tickets to see a live broadcast of “A Prairie Home Companion” from her mother-in-law.

Some of the motivating factors to taking Sue up on her offer:

• A night out with my sister! We don’t live too far apart and always mean to spend more time together than we do.
• Lenox, MA is in the beautiful Berkshires, which is right next door to the Hudson Valley. We hiked in the Berkshires on my birthday, and I’d love to keep exploring Western MA more.
• A Prairie Home Companion! Garrison Keillor! He’s a storyteller, humorist and radio personality who speaks both comically and poignantly about Midwestern life, and our culture in general. Also, did you see the movie starring my queen, Meryl Streep? It’s so much fun!
• The tickets were for lawn seating, which meant we would bring a picnic dinner. Who doesn’t love a picnic?
• Going to an event at Tanglewood is something I probably wouldn’t have done if not for this opportunity. I love seizing things like this and making out-of-the ordinary memories.

Here’s some of the picnic that Sue, my brother-in-law Frank, and I brought with us:

Before we actually got to the lawn, we had no idea how big it was or how many people would be in the audience. Let me tell you: this lawn went on and on. There were couples my parents’ age, families with young kids (so many cute babies!), younger couples, and mixed-generation groups. Some people were dancing, some people had wine, some people were constantly chasing after toddlers, and some people were waaay out on the edge, playing Frisbee and just enjoying the nice weather (the mugginess disappeared as we drove over the NY-MA border!).

Here, my patient darlings, are the photos of our picnic dinner, all vegetarian and all entirely delightful:

And lastly, to continue with the red and green food theme (unintentional, I swear!), the sweet course:

As far as lawn seating goes, we learned pretty quickly that it didn’t matter if people had higher chairs or were sitting on blankets. None of us on the lawn were there to watch the performance: only the audience members who had ‘Shed tickets’ could see the stage. The vast majority just relaxed on the lawn and listened to funny stories, reliving those days before we all had screens in front of our faces and families gathered around the radio to listen to clever performers entertain them for an hour or two.

Sue and I crept up to the edge of the building to peek inside (sort of, it wasn’t exactly kosher). This is all I managed to get of the performers on stage:

And the seating inside:

Just to give you an idea of the number of people (we estimated it at 1,000), here’s a panorama of a fraction of the lawn crowd:

A few more random shots:

The artists on stage played covers of old favorite songs like “And So It Goes”, “Crazy Love”, and “Such Great Heights”– and what’s super cool is that you can listen to these and other highlights from the show right on the Prairie Home Companion website!

If you like theater, live music, cultural events, or just enjoying a picnic dinner with some entertainment going on in the background, I bet you would have had a wonderful time at Tanglewood, just like we did.

See you all back here tomorrow for another edition of Friday Gratitude!

 

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Have you ever been to Tanglewood, or the Berkshires? What’s the last concert you attended? Do you have any exciting plans for the holiday weekend? Lastly, please  feel free to join this blog hop!