“How interesting.” I thought, a bus ride to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to the Sight & Sound Theatre with Lunch at the famous Bird and Hand Smorgasbord 🙂 I decided that it was time to get out of Dodge 🙂 and booked the experience.

So first there was the Bird in the Hand open smorgasbord and here were my choices.

And what’s smorgasbord lunchLol without a lemon sugar cookie (actually Lol-I didn’t like any of the other desserts!)

So yeah it was time to drive to this theatre.

I was really impressed coming from New York City, this sight and sound theatre was humongous!

What I learned was that Sight & Sound’s unique theater experience began with a 2,000 seat auditorium, a 300 foot stage that surrounds the audience on three sides, a cast of 50 characters, state of the art technology and yes!! live animals.

The theatre puts on shows, usually one a year, that has a meaningful message and comes from a story from the Bible.

Today’s theatre experience was the story of Queen Esther, a partLol that I actually played when I went to Hebrew School in Brooklyn, ions ago. But I must admit that watching this unbelievably heartfelt production through the “eyes” of Queen Esther was very moving.

The story is set in the opulent yet perilous Persian Empire and tells the story of the King’s very evil-first in command, Haman who gets the king to unknowingly decree that all Jews must be killed. Now, unknowingly, the king who married Esther doesn’t know that she is a Jew and when she gets wind of the the latest “Haman” decree Esther must decide whether she wants to put her life on the line to save her people. Can she can she find the courage to trust in God’s plan and believe that she was made for such a time as this? That is in the most simple format, Esther’s dilemma.

Now no photos were allowed to be taken and also what I found very, very interesting is that not one of the actors who were off the chart great-including the character of Queen Esther were listed in the Program. So the only photos that I could take are the inside of the theatre as best as possible.

So here they are.

The first one below is only half the front stage!

Now here are the sides of the front stage.

So as you can see there was an amazing sense of visual majesty while experiencing the production and actually there were points in the production that I actually thought that it was night time in Fez. Morocco.

The performance in and of itself was extremely well crafted and performed to detail. The singing was pure Broadway level and the acting the same. Watching the donkeys, the horses and the birds cross the stage was really fun.

But I think that most importantly, the actress that portrayed Queen Esther and her openly shared struggle with the audience whether she should tell the King the truth about herself and take the risk to save her people was the best part of the production.

To watch her struggle, and to question, her courage and whether this act of courage was her purpose as God given was extremely moving and for me personally worth the price of admission. 🙂

So if you want a unique theatre experience check out https://www.sight-sound.com/

Plus you’ll have a great day out of the city!