C — Can you see her? Can you just barely make out the small figure in the middle of the stage? This was my view for Kathy Griffin at the Kennedy Center on June 20th. As a contributor-level member, I am privy to pre-sale tickets, which is great because it gives me the opportunity to experiment with seats. I can now definitively say that I would not recommend the second row of the Parterre Box seats in the Concert Hall.
The show was great, though. As expected. Griffin is always funny. I first saw her live in London at the Palace Theatre where “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” was housed for a 2-year run. Fitting, considering her core demographic. And she took in every moment.
At the Kennedy Center, the tone was slightly different. It’s clear she tailors her act to the audience. Our crowd got a lot of political jokes along with the usual selection of Kardashian/Jenner/Hilton/Swift staples. But what I love about Griffin is that she’s always on top of current events — Rachel Dolezal, Caitlin Jenner, New York Manhunt, etc. All items in that day’s paper.
Here’s something I learned about the Kennedy Center that might make you feel pretty safe: those emergency alerts pushed through to your cell phone can actually get through in the Concert Hall where there is absolutely no cell reception. This was the day of some pretty significant storms which included hail, tornadoes and flooding. Three times you could see the collective glow of cell phones and hear, in concert, the muted tones of alerts. At one point, Griffin stopped and said, “Um, is this like an emergency or something? Is someone of authority going to come out and tell me to stop?” Storms aside, when you’re in a Washington, DC landmark and alarms start going off, the mind starts to wander to more serious things. But she kept going, unfazed, and we laughed for almost two hours straight.
2GirlsinDC 