Sunday was my husband’s 52nd birthday and we celebrated by attending The Elizabethan Madrigal Feast at The Center for Arts & Sciences. One of the things I love about living where we do is the convenient access we have to quality fine arts events without having to go into Houston. The Center for Arts & Sciences, in Lake Jackson, is comprised of Center Stages (the oldest community theater group on the Texas Gulf Coast), the Brazosport Art League, the Brazosport Museum of Natural Science, the Brazosport Planetarium, and the Brazosport Symphony Orchestra.

The Elizabethan Madrigal is the Brazosport Fine Arts Council’s big fund raiser and is held every other year. It’s such a huge production, it would just be too difficult to do every year. We attended in 2014 and had such a wonderful time, we promised ourselves we would try to make it a tradition. Tickets are in high demand and sell out quickly, so I ponied up the $10 membership fee to the Council so I could buy our tickets when they first went on sale. We had excellent seats, right next to the action! My girl was even pulled into one of the dance sequences by a member of Queen Elizabeth I’s court.

For the price of a ticket, we were seated at beautifully decorated tables and enjoyed a lovely dinner while watching the performance of Queen Elizabeth and her court. The pageantry is spectacular — the detail of the costumes is every bit as impressive as something you’d see in the “big city” up the road. The players are all volunteers who’ve auditioned for their roles. In the midst of the Queen’s entrance, the presentation of the Christ Child, and several songs and dances, a condensed version of a Shakespeare play is performed. This year’s play was “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” (When we attended in 2014, we were treated to “Twelfth Night.”)

Here are some photos I managed to capture with my cell phone. I tried to be discreet because the players tend to discourage the use of “magic boxes,” as they call them.

Overall it was a great afternoon. We are already looking forward to the 2018 Madrigal!

P.S. — I have to laugh! After I posted this, I realized I’d put our photo right above the title, which is a quote from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. However, to someone unfamiliar with the play, it looks quite like I’m saying we are fools. Well, maybe we are. But we’re happy fools, for sure. 🙂