Light, Whistles: It’s Show Business

Aspen, Colo., was as beautiful as ever, blue skies, clear air, towering mountains full of aspen, pine and trees I didn’t recognize.

When Jean Erck picked me up at the Aspen airport and took me to her condominium, the most welcoming sound was the fluty water music coming from Maroon Creek behind her building. Her deck extends over the canyon, and it is a fine thing to sit out there and listen to the creek after a day of sightseeing.

Aspen is a marzipan town, filled with small Victorian houses that look as if they were made of frosting. Sadly, the bigger-is-better virus has hit Aspen, and there are huge houses--fake bloated Victorians, cheek by intruding jowl--occupying entire lots.

One evening, we went to the Crystal Palace, a dinner theater owned by Mead Metcalf.

He opened a much smaller dinner-cabaret in June, 1957, and has enlarged the theater to the delight of locals and tourists.

It stays vital because the show changes twice a year--winter and summer--and new numbers are added all the time.

The cast is a talented bunch of young people who serve dinner, then move to center stage to do a series of satirical songs. Recently, two cast members, Chris Keener and Karl Wells, have written three numbers that are delighting audiences.

They tag the songs to names in the news as well as to ballads and romantic songs. One of the big smashes is “Sununu Rides Again,” about the eminently vulnerable White House chief of staff. Another is about the Los Angeles Police Department and its problems.

Mead has collected enough stained-glass windows for use as a backdrop for the shows. The lights through the colored glass and an 8-foot-wide crystal chandelier, purchased on Royal Street in New Orleans, provide the show’s lighting. It’s a fast-moving evening by talented people and capped by Metcalf’s finale and encores.

I was in Aspen for a week and did not see a drop of rain. But the day I left, the heavens opened over Denver, and my flight was delayed leaving Aspen. And that is why I missed the California connection and spent seven fun-filled hours in Stapleton Airport.

An airport employee gave me a chit for $10 toward dinner, and I skulked around reading paperbacks all day. By the time I went to dinner, I had forgotten the chit and, thus did not take advantage of the airline’s gentle hospitality.

But for a big finish, I set off horns, bells and whistles when I went through the security gate. Everyone stared at me and I gave a silly pussycat grin and waved at my fake metal knees. Actually, I was kind of disappointed because I had hoped they would light up.