Whenever I can pull it off, I like to surprise [Kathy->] on our date nights. Last night, I told her that I had plans for us, and started driving east from San Marcos, into rural Texas. We passed through Martindale and finally ended up in Lockhart, the Barbeque Capitol of Texas. (Really!) We pulled past the beautiful red sandstone courthouse, through the spacious town square, and up the street to the doors of the Gaslight Theater, a small theater that I had discovered on the web, but had never actually seen, making this a bit of a stab in the dark for us.

It turned out to be a great experience. For $16 each, the theater provides dinner at Black’s BBQ, the oldest continuously family-owned BBQ joint in Texas, as well as a live performance in their 90 seat, theater-in-the-round performance space. We were warmly greeted by Paul Bright, who started the Gaslight Theater while continuing to work his day job at an Internet Service Provider in North Austin. The performance itself was well-done, easily outstripping most community theater fare both in quality of writing and of acting. And best of all, they have shows on Thursday nights, when Kathy and I generally go out for our dates. “Dial ‘M’ for Murder” and Ionesco’s “Rhinocerous” are both slated to go on before the end of the year, and I think we’ll be planning to make both of them.