Gifting 101
Some helpful tips for your holiday shopping
Chicago Tribune
The average person spent upward of $800 on holiday gifts last year, according to the National Retail Federation. And if you shell out that much cash, you want the recipients of your gifts to be happy.
We grilled the experts on how you can score big. (Hint: You might want to go with a gift card rather than something super personal). Before you even think about shopping, check out some do’s and don’ts, which will guide you in the right direction. Gift Ideas For Everyone Gift cards. To you, it may sound impersonal. To the receiver, it’s the perfect present. According to an NRF survey, 59 percent of people say they’d love to receive a gift card as a present, and this is the ninth year in a row that gift cards have topped the list of most requested items. Make sure,
challenges of his own to play his part. Usually a bass, it took some dedicated work to ready his voice for the higher notes required of him. He used his “mobile rehearsal hall — my car.”
“I can belt,” Cregger said, “and no one cares.”
Others, like Joseph Murphy, who plays Munkustrap, dealt with an entirely different set of obstacles. While Grizabella and Old Deuteronomy are fairly standard roles in terms of physical fitness, many in the musical force their actors to sing and dance, sometimes simultaneously. Murphy has lost 30 to 35 pounds in the last few months in preparation.
He’s also had to bring his voice back up to snuff. His last appearance was as Riff in “West Side Stor y” at Milburn Stone last year.
“Not really performing and singing for a year, you got to get your pipes back in order, because they start going away,” Murphy said.
Recently, the theater added a matinee show on Dec. 10, during which it’ll ask for donations for a Plumpton Park Zoo fun- draiser, to go toward a new enclosure for its two tigers, Alexis and Miracle. It’s a step in the community involvement direction that Johnson said she wants the theater to take.
After “Cats,” Milburn Stone will go on a brief hiatus until Jan. 12, when “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson” opens at Elkton Station.
“Cats” will run Nov. 25, 26, 27 and Dec. 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 ( Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p. m., Sundays at 3 p. m.). Matinee on Saturday, Dec. 10, at 2 p. m. Tickets can be bought at milburnstone. com or at the door — $ 18.
Rob Tucker, playing Mungojerrie, jumps during a scene in Monday’s run-through of “Cats,” which opens tonight at Milburn Stone Theatre
Gift cards and clothes rank high with gift recipients.
Bombalurina, played by Darby McLaughlin.