A Weekend at the Franklin Theatre: Wizard of Oz and Back to the Future Part II

Downtown Franklin, aka the cutest little movie set of a town, is roughly 15 minutes from my home, so I try to get out there and soak up the Pleasantville of it all as often as I possibly can. [Trivia fact: Jamie and I went to the grand re-opening of the Franklin Theatre (a super-cute historic one-theater cinema, which puts on a lot of events and second-run movies) on one of our first dates, so one would think we would go there more often, but rarely do. We went there to see The Dark Knight and Psycho, but both of those were years ago.] Last week I decided I needed to be a better patron, so I planned to attend 2 fun events that they were putting on.

The first was a Wizard of Oz See and Sing, which I went to with my mom and my friend-tendant Kate. [Tangent: Kate, as I've mentioned before, is responsible for getting me out of bed 5 days a week and picking my clothes out when I would rather go naked and reminds me to brush my hair...which is important. Everyone, disability or none, needs a Kate.]  I am always on board to showcase my terrible breathless singing voice in a public air space, and I come by it honestly because my mother has the same affliction- so this seemed perfect. [Tangent: If we go to Goodwill together, I generally ditch her early in the housewares aisle because she thinks they have "the best music" and will jam out down the aisles. If stores were dance clubs, she would frequent Goodwill partially because they have the best DJ.]

 I didn't really know what to expect...and kind of thought it would be just like a "follow the bouncing ball" kinda thing, but NO- this was legit! There were vocal warm ups from the Nashville Opera and audience participation [Tangent: Like yelling "Run Toto! Run!" when Toto ran (obviously) and wearing crowns and blowing up and releasing a balloon at the end when Dorothy gets to go home.] and props! PROPS!?!?!? You guys know I was in heaven, so I sincerely cannot wait to go to the next one. [Tangent: Although giving a bunch of children open access to noisemakers was a bit frightening and resulted in an incessant hum of squawks prior to the showing...I got used to it.]

Oh, and naturally there was dressing up and a costume contest so downtown Franklin was scattered with lions and Dorothy's (of every age and race) and even people dressed like houses with witch legs hanging out. I know it's atrocious that I had nothing on theme in my Rubbermaid under bed costume storage [Tangent: I know...I know...I am a functional 32-year-old adult human. The mind reels.], so red shoes it was!

totally casual.

As if I hadn't had enough retro cinema, the next day I went with a group of friends to see Back to The Future Part II. [Full disclosure: I realize I am aledgedly a pop culture connoisseur, but I went into the movie pretty sure I had never seen it before. Being that I was 7 when it was released in theaters, I was sure it was something I watched bits and pieces of on cable as a child.  Frankly time travel can be a heady concept for a first grader. Although bits of it rang a bell, I mostly remember the fist one and the fact that Part II had a Pizza Hut tie-in and you could get a free pair of retro-futuristic sunglasses free with purchase. I recall that I had some, and they made me look more like Hollywood Montrose from the movie Mannequin and less like a person of the future. As always, Youtube confirmed this hazy recollection. ] My friend, Ryan,  is perhaps the biggest Marty McFly fanatic I know [Tangent: Second place goes to my blogger pal, Lladybird Lauren.] so I mostly went to bear witness  to his fanaticism and see him dressed in his head-to-to replica look (complete with hover board that his bank assumed was a fraudulent purchase.)

 It was super fun because the Franklin Theatre employees dressed the part and they even had a drink called the Flux Capacitator, which Jamie had 2 of and they were just delightful! Watching the movie beginning to end as an adult (pretty much for the first time) made me realize I would have never been able to follow this as a child. I could barely keep the timelines straight as is, but I loved it nonetheless. [Tangent: Even though I wish we had flying cars and more 80's theme cafes in the actual 2015!]  It was also fun to see my friend nerd out on such tremendous levels. We sat up front at a table and allowed Ryan to reenact the plot for us before showtime. Here is a visual of how that went...not well.

I wish I could have gotten a photo of all these little kids (one of which in an incredible homemade Doc Brown costume) who flocked around him and wanted to survey his costume. It was hysterical. Be careful ladies, he's single!