Recipe for a Wonderful Evening

1. Call up a good, true friend that you haven’t seen lately because the mundate elements in life keep stealing all your time.

2. With only one day’s notice, ask that she join you for an evening out.

3. As you step into the car pulled up at your driveway, you can already feel that the mad rush to get dinner and homework completed early was worth it.

4. Darkness starts to set-in fully as you drive from your outskirt homes to the city, all the while catching-up with where you and your friend’s lives left off.

5. You gawk at all the new stores that have sprung up along Wellington Street, then manage to sail into the one last free parking spot available.

6. That familiar buzz of excitement mixed with memory hits as you enter into the Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC).

7. As you delightedly order two glasses of red wine from the young man behind the bar, he proudly reveals that his father is playing the lead in the play you’re about to see.

8. You chink glasses with your girlfriend and take-in some people-watching before entering the comforting womb of the theatre to watch the opening night of Facts, by Arthur Milner.

9. After the play, you slip back out into the night air and into the pub on the corner. There isn’t a seat left in the place. But some young people push closer on their long bench and make room for you with a smile.

10. Over another red and some black-and-tan onion rings, you and your friend hit a quiet patch. But as quickly as it arrived, it passes and you begin to chat easily about books, raising children, your careers — and more books. You look at her face and think, “I am so glad to have this person in my life.” But you don’t speak it out loud.

11. As you begin your drive home, the car fills with your dreams. What you dream for yourselves, what you dream for your children. They bounce around the car, then return and wrap you with a sense of what the future could hold.

12. You thank her for joining you as you step out of the car. You can feel her waiting in her car at the edge of the driveway and as your hand touches the door knob, she quietly glides away into the night.

(Left to right) Sam Kalilieh, Kris Joseph and John Koensgen star in “Facts” by Arthur Milner; directed by Patrick MacDonald. Costumes designed by Sarah Waghorn. Set and lighting design by Martin Conboy; with associate set designer, Yvan Cazabon. Photo by Steve Boyton of Paul Toogood Photography.

For tickets: http://www.gctc.ca/plays/facts

Disclosure note: I was given two tickets to the GCTC’s play Facts. As part of its marketing efforts the GCTC provides members of the media as well as bloggers with tickets. I accepted these tickets with no strings attached — i.e. I am under no obligation to blog about the show, the venue, the actors — you get the idea. The dollar value of 2 ticket is $84.00.