'the birds' is coming

Back in 1963, that was the advance tag line for the then upcoming release of Alfred Hitchcock's movie, The Birds - "The Birds is Coming!", grammatically challenging but effective.

The other night, James and I watched The Birds, which on some demented level I always enjoy, because on Thursday we're going to a stage version of The Birds at the Guthrie Theater, an American premiere. We of course are thinking, How do they do the bird scenes on stage?, the answer being that the stage version is nothing at all like the film version, even though they are supposedly based on the same Daphne duMaurier short story, and there won't be any birds on stage, just lots of suspense. Another thank-you from me to the Guthrie for the complimentary blogger tickets. We are getting a lot of theatrical variety this season.