Moulin Rouge

While my BFF Michelle and I were at the R.E.M. concert at the Stifel Theater in St. Louis in early April, she enjoyed the beauty of the building. I asked her if she’d ever been to the Fox Theater in St. Louis. She answered she hadn’t. I explained the Fox was even more ornate and over-the-top than Stifel Theater, and I offered to go with her to a couple of different upcoming shows. One was the musical Moulin Rouge, the other a Beatles tribute band, playing two weeks later, both on Sun-Dee nights.

We chose Moulin Rouge in early May, and dinner beforehand. Michelle surprised me by asking if she could borrow one of MY dresses, a shiny Akira dress, one I’d worn for Limo Night while at Dee-Va Las Vegas. It’s a fun dress to wear, and that night I received six compliments from women who said they really liked the dress. 

I chose a sequin dress I wore for New Year’s Eve in 2022, my only New Year’s Eve out dressed. I also wore it to see Tootsie (a musical, not the movie) with my friend Karla, also at the Fox Theater. I like sparkly dresses, and finding places to wear them.

Before the show we cruised around were looking for a suitable place to eat. We tried a couple places, but one was too busy and the other wasn’t the right fit. We ended up at the Chase Club, where we’d been a couple of times before, the most memorable a five years earlier, before and after a very nice dinner at the Tenderloin Room at the Chase. 

The Chase Club has a patio outside, next to the hotel pool. It was warm enough to sit outside, but too cool for the pool (though both Michelle and I would love to come spend some bikini time at the pool). But that didn’t stop us from wandering over and taking some pictures using the pool as a backdrop.

Michelle is a former model, and she still likes to pose for pictures. Usually I take the pictures, we jointly edit them, and I text the pictures to her. Her pictures end up on Facebook, my pictures end up here–but sometimes I decide “screw it” and let her post my picture on her Facebook page (we only have one friend in common, Ms. Dee-ism, and she knows all about me).

After pictures and dinner, we headed to the theater. The Fox was built in 1929 as an opulent movie theater in the beginning days of the talkies. Renovated and rejuvenated in the 1970’s, it has been the venue for Broadway plays, concerts, and other events since it reopened. Moulin Rouge was Dee’s third time at the Fox, following Hairspray and Tootsie. Michelle loved the Fox (knew she would), and time for more pictures. Somehow Kan-Dee never complains that I include too many pictures of Michelle.

We both enjoyed the show. The plot wasn’t too ambitious, mostly an opportunity to stitch together a lot of popular songs from the 1970’s to the 1990’s, along with talented dancers in sexy costumes, as befitting a setting of a burlesque theater in Gay Paree. We both got compliments on our dresses and looks–I heard a “love your dress” during my solo trip to the loo. After the show, a friendly security guard offered to take our picture in front of the Moulin Rouge sign, and of course we said yes. I told Michelle she could publish the picture on Facebook, because I thought we both looked great– and I’m vain.

A fun night, and a great capper to a weekend that included a Cardinal’s baseball game, a rooftop Cinco Dee Mayo party, dinner at Le Ono, and sparkly dresses at the Fabulous Fox, where we were the Fabulous Foxes.