Easy as 1,2,3

I teared up over an imaginary beagle, I laughed my ass off as a friend shared his early dating adventures on stage and I did my best to keep up as a trombonist played both the melody and bass line concurrently. It was a really fun evening.

Beginning at the Empire Theater for the Acts of Faith Theatre Festival Preview, I snagged an aisle seat in a rapidly-filling theater.

The festival is a collaborative effort between the faith and theater communities and even a heathen like me usually finds productions worth checking out at the preview.

Not all the plays done during the festival are overtly religious (Romeo and Juliet) while some clearly have that bent (Godspell). The brief scenes we saw tonight gave a peek into what can be expected from this year's offerings.

Swift Creek Mill Theater is doing Once on This Island, which the emcee noted she had once performed in as part of an all-white Canadian cast. "Hey, we work with what we have up there."

Richmond Triangle Players are doing This Beautiful City, a play about an evangelical group that explores the separation of church and state, a subject on which I feel strongly.

Firehouse Theater is doing Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead about the Peanuts gang a few years on. The scene we saw involved CB discovering that Snoopy has become rabid and eaten Woodstock, an indication that he has to have his old beagle put down.

I got way more emotional than I should have when CB said that he just knew when Snoopy "didn't come bounding out of his red doghouse" that things were bad. Don't remind me.

Some moments were unintentionally comedic, like when the lead actor of The Choices of a Traveler walked on stage, and a gleeful voice in the audience squealed "Daddy!" to the delight of the crowd.

All in all, the festival looks to be presenting some provocative theater this spring and all the productions will offer an audience discussion after one of the performances. I, for one, like to talk back after seeing a play.

Conveniently, my second stop was just around the corner form the Empire and as I rounded the corner, I ran into friends leaving Comfort for the same show ("Look at you, switching those hips," I was told. No, I'm just walking fast because it's fricking freezing out here).

Gallery 5 was hosting the Comedy Coalition's Richmond Famous event. This is an evening where a local personality shares some true stories from their life and then the improv group goes for the soft underbelly of the story and improvises with scenes and characters stolen from the guest's stories.

Tonight's victim/guest was Kevin Clay, the tireless guy behind the GayRVA website and events and also a friend of mine. Kevin had bravely brought his college dating journal to share with the audience and it was a touchingly hilarious.

He told of trying to impress a date with a meticulously-assembled Easter basket, only to discover that the guy was Jewish. Oops.

He planned to reveal his heart's desire to another crush on top of the Empire State Building and when that didn't work out, he made a flow chart in his journal explaining why not.

You can imagine what ripe material this was for the lightening quick improvisational skills of RCC; two of them denied their love to each other using not only flow charts, but Venn diagrams, bar graphs and all kinds of geeky visual aids while the audience roared.

It was especially fun because I was in the front row, as were Kevin's boyfriend and best friend, both of whom laughed the loudest at Kevin's tales of being a 12-year old girl in a college guy's body.

By the time the comedy was over, I was starving and music-starved, so I went to Sprout to satisfy both needs. I love how they continue to keep the kitchen open for show-goers.

There was no way I was passing up the Blue Point oyster and mushroom quiche over mixed local greens with a balsamic reduction, a new item on the menu.

Even the bartender looked at it and said, "I haven't had that but it looks really, really good." It was and the peppery greens and dense, sweet balsamic were a nice contrast to the rich creaminess of the quiche.

I ran into a couple of musician friends (Sprout's shows are always full of them), providing the resources to answer any musical questions I might have during the evening, not to mention satisfying my conversational needs.

Tonight's show was billed as dueling soloists and performing first was Bryan Hooten (No BS Brass band, Ombak, Fight the Big Bull) on trombone and and then Chris Farmer on drums (with keyboards and loop), with a vague promise of something collaborative after that.

Bryan worked hard tonight, getting red-faced and sweaty and playing so fast and hard that you could hear the spit collecting in his instrument. Periodically he spit it out because he didn't have time to swallow it.

He improvised to a couple of pieces, did a most creative version of Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood" and tore it up with a take on Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon."

Mid-song, I looked over at my multi-instrumentalist friend (who plays sax) to find him laughing. "I can't believe he's playing he melody and the bass line at the same time," he said by way of explaining his chuckling. It was quite a unique sound, that's for sure.

Between sets I got a piece of chocolate truffle cake and chatted with my friends. They were both getting antsy waiting to hear Chris do his magic on the drums.

And he was impressive, wrapping energetic drumming around those robot keys of his. My drummer friend told me that Chris is a big Brian Eno fan and I could almost hear that.

He also said he's a pocket rhythm drummer as if I understood that, but there wasn't time to have it explained during the performance, so that'll be another of my dumb non-musician questions next time we talk.

The crowd was full of serious head-bobbing Farmer lovers, including one annoying and tall guy who positioned himself in the very front, blocking everyone's view and taking endless pictures ("He's my main man!").

At one point, he even stepped up on the stage and then did a "stage dive," jumping five inches to the floor and bumping into people. Another oldster kept yelling for the Kinks. Spare me, both of you.

After the final collaboration with Bryan augmented by a friend of Chris' named Clint on keys and knob-turning, I went to pay my bill (the bartender: "I'm going to try that oyster quiche you had!" You should do that, my friend). Another excellent show and meal at Sprout.

I ran into one of the guys from Fight the Big Bull at the bar and we fell into a discussion of Keith Richards' autobiography (which he's reading and I've read excerpts from) and the British emphasis on the blues.

He was particularly disgusted that a much younger fellow sax player who had just left had confused Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. "But he's only 24, so what does he know?" Unlike me, he probably knows what pocket rhythm drumming is.

In my defense, though, I've never once confused Zeppelin and Floyd. Or, like the guy in tonight's crowd who compared a piece to Emerson, Lake and Palmer and then corrected himself to say Radiohead, confused those two.

So I've got that going for me. Which begs the question, is there anyone out there who will think that's enough?

Of course there is.