So close.

This past week has been quite the adventure. We had an exciting last Encore performance Thursday, including an injury during the load out. One of my cast fell between the truck and the poorly-conceived loading dock. 2.5 hours and 5 stitches later, we hit the road, and on Friday we modified some of the blocking.

We're nearing the end of our tour, and the end of our last weekend. It's been snowing since last night, so we aren't really going anywhere. The injured one called today to tell me his leg is healing well, and he's feeling a lot better.

Here are some more pictures from the past few weeks.

Chamber Tour 2009: Dec 6 to Dec 20

Home Stretch

So, we're down to the last week of tour. Here's the schedule from now until the end of contract:

Tomorrow: Encore at SUNY Purchase
Thursday: Encore in New Bedford, MA
Friday: Eureka in Union City, NJ
Saturday & Sunday: Days Off in Boston
Monday: Eureka in Boston
Tuesday: Eureka in New Britain, CT
Wednesday: Eureka in Boston
Thursday: Fly to VA; have drinks at The Raven

In the meantime, I saw my old roommate Amanda on Sunday in DC, my friend Tammy in Jersey last night, and I'm going to see an old ESC friend Mimi tonight.

Here are the subtotals:
Encore: 21 down; 2 to go!
Eureka: 28 down; 4 to go!
Combined: 49 down; 6 to go!

November Photos!

Here's some pictures from the past few weeks:

Chamber Tour 2009: Nov 2 to Dec 5

On The Road (Still)

Well, as I might have been able to predict, the tour got a bit busy and I didn't keep up the blogging as much as I'd hoped and planned.

To sum up, we performed the short story play for 4 weeks in October and then switched to the math play for the last week of October and up through Thanksgiving. The final three and a half weeks of tour are the short story play and the math play in rotating rep. Not only is each day a different city, but also a different play!

This evening finds us in Boston, MA. Again. At the Holiday Inn Express. Again. Since the Monday before Thanksgiving, the tour has been about 50% venues and hotels we've already been to, and the familiar faces and surroundings have been comforting amid the chaos of learning the new truck pack and finding storage for the set and props we're not using.

Yesterday we had a snow day in Springfield, MA which was so nice. We had the morning off as we waited until check-out to drive up to Concord, NH. The normally 2-hour drive took us about 3 hours plus stops, in the aftermath of the storm.

I've grown oddly accustomed to small injuries. I've dropped things (flats, platforms, pelican cases) on my fingers about once every two weeks. This morning it was one of the SR extensions which are pretty heavy. For once, my injured finger is swelling and turning color, and I'm oddly thankful for the visible signs of the pain I'm feeling.

I've also had a good time (though it has also been exhausting) getting in touch and visiting old friends along the way. Since tour began, I have seen 3 hometown friends, 7 college friends, 8 former co-workers, a former roommate, and 3 cousins. And that's not counting the 3 friends, 1 cousin, and 2 pairs of aunts & uncles I saw over TG.

One of my cohorts on tour wants to write a work of nonfiction based on our experiences over the past several months. I think it would make a good story...

I'll try to get more pictures up this weekend--sometimes the hotel interwebs are not very fast, but for now I need to sleep.

More Photos

Chamber Tour 2009: Oct 26 to Nov 1

Fotos This Week

Chamber Tour 2009: Oct 18 to Oct 25

Foto Blog - First 2.5 Weeks

Chamber Tour 2009: Sept 30 to Oct 17

Let the Games Begin!

Ok, so we left for tour on Wednesday morning after a grueling 2 straight weeks of tech. The techs went rather smoothly, but the long hours and days just kept adding up!

Wednesday, we left Boston, heading to Scranton, PA. This was a familiar route to me: I-90 (or, the Mass Pike) to I-84. We stopped at the I-84 Diner in Fishkill, NY which I first went to at the end of my first summer at TriArts in 2005. Hotel check-in went smoothly, and everything was moving right along.

Thursday morning we left the hotel at 7:10am. I had not received confirmation of our arrival time at the hall, which turned out to be 8 rather than 7:30, so we were nice and early. Of course we couldn't unload the truck or get started since it was a IATSE hall. The truck unload took 24 minutes, which I'm told is a very good time. The set up took longer than I'd hoped. We opened the house with the main curtain still out so that we could focus the DS booms. Yikes! (I heard that this sometimes has to happen, though, so I don't feel as bad about it as I did at the time. And I'm glad my instinct to do so was right.) I ran the light board during the show for several reasons, among which were that there was no com and my ME wasn't done with load in. We started 14 minutes late. Intermission ran 5 minutes long. The crew (not any of my people) ripped the house cyc with one of our set pieces during the show. The truck was loaded by 2:45pm. I'm told everything will get faster, so on a scale of one to the first time we've tried doing this by ourselves, I'd say we deserve a round of cookies!

After the show we drove from Scranton, PA to Mechanicsburg, PA. I drove the truck for the first time, and Jesus was my co-pilot. Literally. I was feeling stressed, so I bought myself some Tension Tamer Tea (by Celestial Seasonings) and a salad, and took a bath. A little later, one of my cast and my house manager said they were going to buy beer, so I put some cash in, and the bath, the tea, and the beer turned out to be a winning combination!

Today I navigated in the truck. It was a drive day, meaning we did not do a performance. We had 333 miles to cover, and it was supposed to take 5.5 hours. We left at 9:30am and finally arrived at 5:30pm. 5.5 hours my ass! Among the highlights of the day were my driver turning too tight and putting a dent into the gas station with the 26' truck, and getting flagged at the NC weight station to find that the truck is 1640 lbs. overweight. We had to shell out $65 for the necessary permits, and the company was slapped with a $535 fine. My supervisor is going to brainstorm over the weekend as to what our options are for alternative packing since it will be next to impossible for us to purchase the necessary permits (which are only good for 3 or 10 days and which must be purchased at truck stops prior to entering the state).

I am very glad I was in the truck for the weigh station incident today. Being the responsible party and having the company debit card eliminated a lot of confusion. I also very much enjoyed today's drive: I-81 south from Mechanicsburg thru MD and WV to I-66 just south of Winchester, VA. Then route 17 to I-95 and south to Rocky Mount, NC.

I have to run now. I've got a date with my cast for Ruby Tuesday's Salad Bar in 10 minutes!

xoxo
D

Introducing: Vanna White

The past two weeks have been super busy. We had meetings with our sound and projection designers, talking through all the moments that use both media. We have run the show for the producer twice, made changes, and in the middle of all that, put the 2nd show up on its feet.

The upcoming two and a half weeks should be quite the challenge. We load out of the rehearsal space this Wednesday, load into the tech space Thursday, and begin tech for the math show Friday. On Saturday at 12:30pm, we have to run the math show for the producer again (even though it may not be completely teched yet). Next Monday and Wednesday are math dress rehearsals (notes Tuesday), and then after a day of photo call, we will tech the short story show, and do 2 dress rehearsals before hitting the road!

Here are some pictures of the 15-passenger van (which I believe has acquired the name Vanna White) and my amazing parallel parking job:

Hello Foto

Here are some photos from the last week or so of my adventure:

Here's my desk. The bins next to it are places for each stage manager to stash stuff they want to claim for their tour. I've already claimed a cooler, 2 road atlases, a copy of "Next Exit" and some money pouches.


















The "Big" rehearsal room has two sets up. This is the Encore set. I was standing on the Classics set when I took this photo. This was Day 1 before we figured out that the bean bag chair was too bulky DC.


















Here's the view to the north from the "Small" rehearsal room. Not too shabby!

















Here's what we call the "Small" rehearsal room. Not to be confused with the "Tiny" rehearsal room. Everyone is, of course, confused by this, so I've taken to calling the smallest room the "Tiny Tiny" room.

















The building we rehearse in is an old Masonic Temple. This is a skylight in the room we use as the kitchen.

















Here's nice big allusion to The Pajama Game:

















And this is part of the creep sculpture of masked beings near the T stop!

Tropical Brainstorm

So yesterday we had a Tropical Storm warning from the remnants of Hurricane Bill, but he ended up circumventing us and heading toward Nova Scotia. I personally would have loved the rain and the cooling off it might have done. On the other hand, I realize I left my new umbrella in Chicago.

Also, yesterday was the first day of rehearsal. I spend 90 minutes before lunch giving math lessons to my cast and director. As theatre-folks, they have successfully avoided math for quite some time, and while I haven't had a formal math class in 11 years, I do get excited about it on a fairly regular basis.

Here are some of the mathematical concepts in the script which we covered yesterday:

• Order of Operations
• Prime Factorization
• Lowest Common Multiple
• Greatest Common Factor
• Pascal's Triangle
• Probability
• The Fibonacci Sequence
• The Golden Rectangle

Connecting the DOTs

Today I met my cast. After a brief intro from the AD (which included the history of the company), some business and info from the PM, the three returners departed for fittings and the two new folks and I headed over for DOT physicals. I am now certified by the Department of Transportation to drive a commercial 26' truck and 15-passenger van.

Tomorrow I meet my director. We'll do some tablework in the morning and get on our feet a little in the afternoon.

The coming week will be tricky since there are two companies and only one rehearsal set (there is another rehearsal room with the set taped out, though).

Let the games begin!

First Day

So it took 2 days of driving, 4 days of rest, and 1 day of air travel to get here, but I made it and survived my first day.

It should be an interesting little adventure. 1 director, 2 shows, 5 actors, 3.5 weeks of rehearsal (pre-tech), 4th floor walk-up, 0 air conditioning, 0 internets.

And, if you needed any more proof that the world is small and shrinking, I met one of the other SMs today who is from Chicago and knows my friend/former ASM Anna.

Also (and I cannot tell you how excited I am about this), I found out my electrician's name is Jesus. Not hey-SOOS. GEE-suhs. I hope he has a sense of humor because I intend to crack many jokes about how Jesus said, "Let there be light." And if he's navigating while I'm driving the truck, "Jesus is my co-pilot."

This Is Chicago

It hit me on my way home tonight that I am going to be gone for months. I spent the afternoon and evening with some amazing people who I will miss very much.

Spring Cleaning

I've found a friend of a friend who is collecting items to sell at the big neighborhood yard sale next month, and she's going to come by tomorrow to pick up all of my stuff! Yay! This saves me a trip to the resale shop and having to load the car myself! Lots of exclamation points!

In other news, I decided that the to do list of packing and cleaning everything was too overwhelming, so I split it up and made myself a schedule. I have already fallen behind and gotten ahead of schedule in the 4 hours I scheduled so far today, but it seems to be working well to keep me on task and not too overwhelmed.

I'm a little bit terrified of the "Get Everything Out Of The Bedroom" item on tomorrow's schedule. I told my friend Jamie this morning that these last two days are the hardest part. We'll see if my prediction holds true.

Brainy

I have approximately 57 hours until I depart during which time I have a whole lot to do involving packing and cleaning and saying goodbye. None of these are my favorite past times, but nevertheless, they must be done. As my friend Suzanne says, "Isn't being a grown up fun?"

I've been getting various tidbits of advice from people over the past few weeks when they find out I'm going on tour. The one I'm focusing on tonight is my brother's colleague and friend who warned me that there will be a lot of drinking on tour and that I should plan ahead by bringing things to nourish my mind. I don't kid myself that I can avoid all the drinking; I've never been a loner. But I do plan to bring some books, decks of cards, logic problems, and sudoku puzzles. I was thinking that I should set a goal for myself on this tour. I want to complete a collection. Perhaps it's time to read the plays I've never tackled in The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Or read more than simply The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in The Chronic (what?) cles of Narnia. I've also been meaning to read the Bible and the Book of Mormon for quite some time.

Well, I've got 56.5 hours in which to decide what to bring...

Wanderlust

These maps of the tour stops kindle my wanderlust.

October:












November:












December:

Basic Training

This is a blog about my upcoming tour. I will be leaving my home in Chicago shortly to rehearse two children's shows in Boston and then tour them around the south and the eastern seaboard.

I'm presently wrapped up in tidying and cleaning my place so that my roommates won't have to deal with my stuff all over the place while I'm gone for 4 months. I'm trying to sell some idle (for the past 3 years, at least) furniture before I go, and make some space in my storage unit. Wish me luck, and check back for updates, anecdotes, and photos.

Bon voyage!