Kim and I went to see Movin' Out at the Civic Center last night.

One word: awesome.

I first heard of the musical two years ago on my flight back from Cozumel, and had been interested ever since.  When I heard last year that it was coming to Des Moines I asked my sister to get us tickets on pre-order day (she and her husband are Civic Center members, so they can order extra tickets before they go on public sale).

We lucked out with 3rd row seats, which gave us an excellent view of the show.  What surprised me was that the show's only dialogue (with one minor exception) are the Billy Joel songs, and that the rest of the plot relies mostly on the modern dance of the cast.  And the synopsis in the playbill helped, too.  It's basically the story of 5 friends, 3 guys and 2 girls, who are friends, and between one couple coming together and another breaking up, the boys go to Vietnam, one dies in part due to the actions of another, and the remaining four try to reconnect with their lives and each other.

It's really amazing how they managed to take so many of Billy Joel's classic songs and work them in such a way to weave a story that was never intended when they were written.  And it works very well.

Plus the guy who played Eddie in our performance looked just like Anthony Michael Hall, so I kept laughing about that.

If the chance to see the show comes your way, see it.