Wrong cast, great show!

One of Jeff’s classmates is in the Children’s Musical Theatre production of Side Show — we discovered that a couple of weeks ago when we ran into him outside San Jose Rep. Normally, CMT has its shows at the Montgomery Theatre, but due to the San Jose Grand Prix, they’re using the Rep this time (and ComedySportz is using the Montgomery).

At any rate, Jeff wanted to go see him perform, so I bought us tickets for this afternoon’s show. I didn’t realize that there were two casts who alternated shows (not that I could have told which cast was performing from the website), and, as it happened, his friend was in the other cast.

But other than that, it was an excellent afternoon — it was hard to believe that the actors were students (well, some of the leads were already in college, but the two “twins” were both high school students). They really did a great job handling a very serious play.

Dinner at Restaurant James Randall

One of Jeff’s friends has just returned from a summer in Israel, Belgium, and France, and he invited Jeff over for what I thought was going to be the afternoon, but turned into an overnight. So Diane and I were on our own for dinner after going to services this evening.

We decided to try a new restaurant in Los Gatos, Restaurant James Randall. It’s in a small space where a croissant restaurant used to be; it’s definitely a step up in sophistication and in price.

As it happens, we chose the same main dishes as the reviewer in Metro; Diane had the halibut, which she enjoyed, and I had the duck. I don’t often have duck, so I don’t really have my tastebuds calibrated to give a good comparison, but this was tasty and not greasy — I liked it, though I’d probably go with something else on a return visit. The wines were good (I wish I’d written down what we got), and we got away with a two-figure bill — but we did skip dessert in favor of gelato at Dolce Spazio on the way back to the car.

Some of the diners were clearly regulars; I don’t think we’re likely to reach that point, but I’d definitely be willing to go back.