It is a good looking room and despite having over 80 bourbons on the menu, including their own proprietary single barrel 9 year old, as well as the aforementioned wall, one would be forgiven for noticing neither the bourbon nor the bar aspects of the title as distractions abound, both on the menus and off, so much so that it takes the eye a bit to notice that they actually have a few big screen televisions up there between the elegantly chandeliered flat black ceiling and the decorative stained glass windows preserved from the Brennan Building, a former holding of the The Al J. Schneider Company.  The mezcal based El Diablo was my first distraction and while the bartender unfussily prepared it, I studied what seems to be a well thought out drink menu with a few local brews making it onto to the beer list, a well balanced selection of reds and whites, a few twists on cocktails both modern and classic, and what has to be one of downtown’s more democratic price ranges.*

Then the food started coming out in tasting portions and though it is pub fare- just small plates, soups, salads, sides and sandwiches, it is a new take on bar food, not a wing or chicken finger to be found and it is easy to look at the the outdoor tables beyond the three over head garage style doors as the after taste of the smoked salmon sandwich sample lingers on the tongue and imagine this place as a serious springtime al fresco dining destination.  If all of those bites, the oyster mushroom Po’ Boy, the two-ham, the brisket, the corned beef translate to full size sandwich as the samples would lead you to hope, safe in the knowledge that the Whiskey Chili and sides of jalapeno-cheddar grits, apple-fennel slaw pork bellied baked beans are going to be hits, the private dining room which is accessed via stepping through a British phone booth as has more stained glass from the Brennan Building on the ceiling, will be quite the commodity.  Regardless, I imagine consistent crowds content with nothing more than the aforementioned bacon wrapped goodness, paired with a good measure of bourbon.

*To continue on with my ludicrous comparison, across the street the small draft beer is $6.50.  Down One has over 70 adult beverages listed on their drink menu, including the Bourbon Smash and Paloma, for less than that. You may see the whole thing here: http://www.downonebourbonbar.com/images/DownOneDrinkMenu.pdf and the food here: http://www.downonebourbonbar.com/images/DownOneFoodMenu.pdf

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Actor’s Theater of Louisville and their second The Balcony event where social networking would not only be encouraged, it would be catered to.  The confirmation of my tickets came with an attachment that listed their accounts on both Facebook and Twitter as well as the designated hashtags for that evening’s production of #Girlfriend and told me to Unwind and Plug In.  To further the boundaries of interaction, a post show gathering at the bar with the cast and crew was promised and there would be a Soundtrack To Your Life insert in the program that asked us to name our mix tape and list the 5 songs that should be on it.

I paid the what seems to be steep $8.00 to park in their garage, grabbed our tickets from will call utterly flummoxed by the reality that people go to the theater in sweatpants, forgetting to stick my head into Edward Lee’s newest venture Milkwood to check out the soft opening instead we ascended the staircase, passed the long line at the bar in the mezzanine, past the poster that warns “This play contains strong language and strobe lighting,” pausing briefly to bow vaguely southwestwardly in appreciation for everything that Brown Foreman does for this city, and into The Balcony where a bar with no line waited for us.  Four dollars a (plastic) glass seemed entirely reasonable for the red wine, though there was no sign of the “light snacks” that were promised on the notice.  My date later allowed that she did see a plastic plate with what looked to be a spent piece of lettuce on it sitting on one of the cocktail tables that lay between The Balcony bar and our seats.

Every seat in the balcony was taken and it’s worth mentioning that I am 6’6” and was quite comfortable the entire time  From my perch I was able to observe only three seats in the lower area that were open.

The main stage:  A chest of drawers over there, a couch (or Subaru, depending upon the context) in the middle, and a dorky kid’s bedroom area over here.  Spartan to say the least, but behind that is another stage modeled after what every 18 year old guy in 1993 wished their basement looked like.  And the lighting rigs that never added too too much to the overall production were in the way of me getting to really visually enjoy that room.  I can’t imagine anyone seated in The Balcony disagreeing with me, and it seems like such an obvious problem to have avoided.  Those unfilled lower level seats were probably better.

We were seated by 7:45 as the notice encouraged us to be so that a docent could appear in our section and inform we the social networkers of, and these are ATL’s words, not mine “what’s cool and what’s lame.”

Ringers off, display dimmed, no recording, I  set my twitter to follow @ATLouisville and it starts like this as the house lights go down but for the one over my head  “Setting:  Alliance, Nebraska.  The summer after high school graduation, 1993.  #Balcony #ActGF”

The embracing of social media types was an ideal set up for me because #Ihatemusicals, and to top it all off, I didn’t like Matthew Sweet back then; there was almost zero chance of me liking him now  So, I was just going to sit there for 90 minutes, whisper snide wisecracks to my date, and distract myself with social networking and frequent trips to the bar since they had left the lights on in this section to accommodate me doing both of those things but there was just one glitch in my plan:  Girlfriend was fantastic.

4 girls pile into the “basement” set, Jyn Yates being instantly recognizable behind her drum kit, can’t see the bass player’s head from here because of the lighting rig, Kelly Richey straps on her Stratocaster, and this 4th person on guitar and keyboards with her back to me, according to the program, is Musical Director Julie Wolf and they launch into a ferocious jam on the intro to the song from which that album and this play takes its name.  And just as the first verse is about to start, they stop.  Great, I think, maybe this will be a musical with no singing.

Enter Will.  It is not the summer after High School as much as it is 5 minutes after High School, or as he calls it, New Years as he dumps his textbooks into the garbage.  He is wearing a T-shirt that is completely covered with from what up here appears to be the periodic table of elements.  He has a Star Wars pillow case and a bedside space shuttle lamp.  He has a jam box and a cassette tape and a first generation cordless landline with retractable antennae which rings as we are introduced to Mike, the play’s only other on stage character.

They are both wearing headset microphones.  There is obviously going to be signing.

What followed was 88 or so minutes of genius and bliss.  Picking up my mobile and checking what they had to say on Twitter simply never occurred to me.  Nor did getting up and getting another glass of wine.

Factor out that lighting rig and everything else was incredibly realized.  The notion quickly takes hold:  Maybe Matthew Sweet’s album Girlfriend was intended to be the soundtrack for early 90s middle American gay teen love.  Everything else makes sense after that, like the prom king type going off to college to become a brain surgeon instead of the Star Wars Space Shuttle guy who is not even planning on escaping his rural hellhole to go to college at all.

A third character begins to emerge; the movie that Will and Mike go to see at the drive in four or five times over the course of that summer. One’d be lead to believe that the movie is called Evangeline, which just also happens to be the name of a Matthew Sweet song.  A super hero, a cop, a extra terrestrial, a lover, and a nun all rolled into one.  I want to see this movie if it exists.  Normally, this is the type of quest that begins with a Google search, else straight to IMDB, but in the spirit of things, I fired off a tweet to which I still await* a reply: “Is Evangeline an actual movie? @ATLouisville.”

They had been using their twitter feed to mostly retweet audience feedback, but also to announce the title of each song as it worked it’s way into the story line, and while Kelley Richey’s left hand was not technically a character in the play, it was something you never wanted to take your eye off as it flew all over the neck of her guitar while the band provided the Matthew Sweet jams and backing vocals to accompany Will and Mike’s working of the lyrics into the script when they weren’t delivering one perfect line of Todd Almond’s dialogue after another, transforming the vibe during the musical moments from taking in a play to checking out a bar band.  Being a dork in love is never easy, never comfortable, but being a gay teenage dork in love in Nebraska in the early 90’s?  And while Sweet’s album brings all of this to life perfectly, it is the dialogue that fleshes out the script

People of a certain age are assured to get a nostalgia kick from the early ninetiesness of it all (especially if they appreciate the fact that they are being encouraged to tweet from their mobile devices about a play set blatantly in a time before mobile devices existed), but the main themes are timeless.  I can’t imagine anyone, regardless of age, gender, or orientation, not being able to identify with Will and his general awkwardness and the anxiety that locks him up while sitting in the front seat of the Subaru night after night at the movies.  You will laugh while cringing at your personal frame of reference for these moments.

After the fact it was apparent that people had been tweeting throughout, but it certainly was never a distraction.  Wrapped up in the comedy, and it was hysterical, was a great deal of sweetness, a touch of bittersweetness, and a depth and empathy that I found surprising.  I was rapt.  Everything gets a standing ovation these days, rendering them meaningless.  Girlfriend earned it.

* The replies came.  First “Our detectives are working on it. Will update you as we uncover more!”  and then the next day: “research led us to a film called ‘naked nuns with big guns’ Not the film! Checked with Todd Almond and film is made up!”