Last night, my husband and I enjoyed a Monday night date night, dinner and a show.

Several years ago, we discovered WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour, which has been producing their live show in our town for more than 25 years. They tape the show in front of an audience on Monday nights. Until this year, production took place at the historic Lyric Theater which is in the middle of downtown. Parking was always a problem; but the theater was beautiful. This year, citing better parking and better acoustics, they moved to the Scottish Rites Hall which is just about two miles from our house.

We hadn’t been to the new venue. Considerably smaller, but with a vaulted wooden ceiling, the vibe is less theatrical, more low-key. Despite the change in locale, the main players were still the same. Dorothy Edwards, the volunteer on-air announcer, with her flowing skirts and tumbling curls, still smoothly and rapidly ran through the list of sponsors and instructed the audience on our role in the production. She reminded us to silence our cell phones and applaud when the “Applause” sign lights up.

Dorothy also practiced with us our biggest part which comes at the end of the show. When the host, who refers to himself as a song farmer, says, “We’ll see you next week…,” the entire live audience shouts in unison, “on the WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour!” That’s my favorite part. To close out the show, we all clap in time as the theme music fills the auditorium. Michael Johnathan, the host, claps with abandon; so I do too. That always makes my husband laugh.

Last night’s featured grassroots musicians included Carla Gover and her daughter, Zoe. Carla sang some cuts from her recent album Kentucky Queen; and for the after-show encore, she performed a flatfoot dance while her daughter played the fiddle. In addition to Carla and Zoe, Charlie Overman, heavily influenced by John Prine, sang several of his lyric-heavy originals. His songs were so filled with imagery, it was like watching a video unfold while he sang. The breakout artist of the night, though, was this week’s WoodSongs kid, 12-year-old Rosie Gardener. Surprising us all, she played the clawhammer banjo while singing a version of Cindy Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

After the performance, we all filed out into the frigid night. While we were wrapped up in the warmth of folk music, a thin layer of snow had covered our car windshields, the grass, and the paved walkway to the parking lot. Though unexpected and not entirely wanted, it looked magical…a lovely icing on the cake of our night.