MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S SUSHI

When a birthday dinner turns to Shakespeare and Midsummer Night’s sushi.

Imagine if you will a birthday dinner, but not just a regular birthday dinner for a regular birthday.

Instead, it’s a milestone birthday dinner, a biggie, so you plan and time and schedule and connect.

Because it is an older birthday, one idea is order dinner out and bring it back. It’s a mature move, like compression socks. The other is get out and party it up.

With millennial children involved, getting out and party up is always the best choice, especially when they have a place where the staff knows them.

Their place is Mio Sushi in Beaverton.

We found an outside table for six, settled in, and noticed something going on in front of us. It looked like a cult meeting, like Merry Pranksters running around and jumping over stuff wearing green yoga pants and butterfly wings.

Instead of wondering why you were having a baby boomer flash back, it turned out to be Shakespeare done by Experience Theater Project.

Shakespeare in the Round.

No amount of planning, timing, scheduling, or connecting could have prepared the party for a ringside seat of Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Like a corporate box inside the Moda Center, or front row center at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, we had the best seats in the house.

By accident. For free.

Mio Sushi turned into Midsummer Night’s Sushi. And what goes best with sushi?

What goes best with sushi is a Sake Bomb.

And Shakespeare.

Shakespeare never said, “To sake bomb, or not to sake bomb,” but he would have at The Round.

Theater brings out the best sake bomb.

At BoomerPdx the most important message to take away is get up and go. Move. Experience new things.

We didn’t expect Shakespeare in the Round any more than we expected to find a good table on a busy night at Mio Sushi. We got both because we took a chance and showed up when anything else would have been easier.

It doesn’t always work out, but this time it couldn’t have worked out better.

Sharp readers know how important live theater is, and they know the obstacles.

Theater people build their audience the same way every artist does: exposure. The reach out and find new fans.

Shakespeare is the key. His work’s lasting draw is language, but it’s also movement. The actors from Experience Theater Project flew around the space while MAX trains pulled in and out of the station, running and jumping like the athletes they are.

If the point of life is discovery, last night we discovered Shakespearean sushi, Midsummer Night’s sushi, and it’s happening again tonight.

It feels smart to buy tickets for a play and ‘attend the theatah.’ It feels elite and upper class. It’s even better when it sneaks up on you.

Mix sushi, sake bombs, and the thrill of coincidence and you’ve got a recipe for wonder.