let them entertain me

I cruise for a lot of reasons.  But entertainment is at the top of the list.

Live entertainment.

It is one of the things I miss living in Melaque.  We have a few good bands and singers, and even more that are not-so-good, in my little v

illage.  But that is about it.

For me, the nightly shows on the Voyager were culture balm.
 

I had best explain that.  We are not talking Carnegie Hall here.  And, as you know from my food post, that $60 a day would get rather stretched if Yitzhak Perlman played for us each evening.

There is also the elephant in the stateroom.  My fellow passengers are usually not the people whose name you would see on the Lincoln Center opera subscription list.  They are just plain, good folk. 

The average age is somewhere between sixty and death.  My people.  And, from my observations, they do not want to be surprised in their entertainment.  They want the standards performed as they have always heard them played. 

They would be pleased with a banner over the theater entrance proclaiming: “We know what we like, and we like what we know.”

Both of those factors help to explain the acts that end up on ships.  I know I would hate to choose the material.  It is a true crap shoot.  Sometimes, literally.
 

 The ship is filled with live music sprinkled throughout the various bars.  Some rather good.  Like this guitar-violin duet.  Others were almost painful to hear.

But the following posts are about the acts in the 1500 seat theater – loftily named La Scala – and the ice rink.

The theater acts come in two varieties.  The headliner shows.  And the production shows with the ship’s young singers and dancers.

[magician]If you are about my age, you probably remember the school assemblies in grade school and high school where we were introduced to adult entertainment.  A combination of the last gasp of vaudeville and Ed Sullivan lite.

Well, it turns out those acts are still alive and well.  On cruise ships.

And we will start with them.  Tomorrow.