This Is It

We're getting ready to start our final performance of the tour.  We're in half-hour before our 3 PM show at Brooklyn College.

Crossing the Hudson on the way to New York

Whitman Hall at Brooklyn College

We got to the city around noon and everyone took off for lunch at various places in the neighborhood then we came back to the usual pre-show ritual of fight call and sound check.  We all feel the reality of this wonderful tour coming to an end but first and foremost we have a show to do and our job is to maintain the level of performance quality that we've tried to provide at every stop.  And we all know that.

Whitman Hall in the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts

But it's going to be tough to say goodbye to the friends we've come to know on the road and to the experience we've shared together.  Most of the cast and crew will be leaving right after the show.  Only a few of us are riding back to Abingdon together.  Some of us will be working together in the 2010 season at Barter but as is true for any show some of us may never work together again.

We're all going to miss each other and this show.  I can say that for me the tour has been an educational experience on so many levels and I'm very grateful for the opportunity that has been given to me to do this show, to represent Barter and to experience the beauty and variety of this country.  It literally has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I will never forget it or the people with whom I've been lucky enough to share it.

Thank you all.

New Bedford, Massachusetts to West Point

The tour comes to a rushing finish this weekend.  We had two terrific shows on Friday at the Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a 10 AM  matinee with over 1000 students and a general public audience nearly that big for the evening show.  New Bedford is home to our dear friend and fellow Barter actor Michael Poisson and he had given me some tips about places to visit but I didn't get a chance to follow up on them.  Several folks stayed downtown for the afternoon but I unfortunately wasn't one of them.  I hadn't slept well the night before so I went back to the hotel for a nap.

We did, however, get to see another friend at the evening show.  Meg Atkinson, a Barter alumni, now lives and works in nearby Boston and she came down to visit.  A couple of other cast members also had family and friends in attendance so New Bedford turned out to be quite the reunion spot.

Getting ready for sound check at the Zeiterion

Fight call before the morning show at the Zeiterion

We were up Saturday morning for our drive across Rhode Island and Connecticut into New York.

Driving along the coast in Connecticut

We had an 8 PM show at the Eisenhower Hall Theatre on the campus of West Point.  We're staying about 45 minutes from the college in Fishkill, New York so we had a short break after checking in the hotel before we got back onto the bus for the ride to the oldest military academy in the country.

The lobby outside the Eisenhower Hall Theatre at West Point

We're in good company

The folks at West Point were extremely kind and accommodating and we were fed dinner in a private room in the restaurant that is part of the theater complex.  Eisenhower Hall is a huge facility, the largest we've played the tour with a seating capacity of over 4400.  So, not surprisingly, it wasn't a full house and according to the folks there it rarely is.  We had about 700 in attendance, a good house for a college town on the Saturday night before Thansgiving and they seemed to really appreciate the show.  It was certainly a thrill for all of us to perform on this historic campus.

View from the stage at the Eisenhower Hall Theatre

This is the largest venue we will play on tour

We had a brief talkback session with some high school students after the show, then loaded the bus for our drive back to Fishkill.  Tomorrow morning we all load up one last time for our drive into NYC and the final performance of the tour in Brooklyn!

What's With the Water in Orono

Okay, I've filed a couple of posts dealing with some mysterious substance floating in the water of the Stillwater River in Orono, Maine.

What is it?

Our friend, playwright Rick Whelan, is a follower of the blog and his brother teaches at the University of Maine in Orono, so Rick and I have been corresponding via e-mail in an effort to get an answer.  Here's a portion of his most recent communication:

"[J]ust above Orono, there are strong sets of rapids on the Stillwater and the Penobscot rivers (the Stillwater is just a branch of the Penobscot) He [Rick's brother] says they just had a big rainstorm, the river level went up and foam forms with the water plunging over the rapids and then floats through the calmer parts downstream.

"The rivers used to be polluted by paper mills, but they are either gone now or cleaned up.  So now you know the rest of the story!"

So there you go and thank you, Rick Whelan!

The once again beautiful Stillwater River in Orono, Maine

By the way, John Hardy seems to think I am inordinately interested in this situation and he therefore questions what he terms my neurotic need to continue to pursue it so I think I'll stop and let this be the last word.  At least for now.

An Inconvenient (and Disappointing) Truth, then on to Massachusetts

In my last post I marveled at the ice floating in the Stillwater River early in the morning in Orono, Maine.  Unfortunately later that morning I was able to get a closer look and what I thought was ice was in fact some sort of pollution.  I hope it's an aberration but there was so much of it for so long I'm afraid it's not.  It was really disappointing and I almost didn't share the truth with the rest of the world.  But maybe there's a lesson in there.

Not ice

We left Orono and headed south toward New Bedford, Massachusetts backtracking some of the way through Maine and then going through the small part of New Hampshire on the coast.

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Downtown Boston

We continued south directly through Boston and arrived at our home for the next two nights in North Dartmouth, MA.  Since Thursday was a travel day off the crew also had the night off so it was our last chance to all get together before the tour ends Sunday.

Marcy Bates, Ben Mackel, Mollie Slattery, Rebecca Reinhardt, Robin Bloodworth, Holley Housewright

We have a terrific crew.  Their job is so much more difficult than ours and I have tremendous respect for the things they have accomplished on the road.  It's their job after every show to tear down the set, load it onto the trailer and drive to the next venue, almost always traveling overnight and sleeping on their bus.  Then they get to the venue, construct the set and get props and wardrobe ready for the show.  Sometimes that process begins as early as 6 AM.  They are the best.

Vince McGill, Mike Ostroski, me, Michael Catalan, Anthony Fisher

We've got two shows today at the Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford.  Tomorrow morning we'll leave for West Point and our penultimate performance of the tour.

Self-portrait with Mike O

Icy Orono

Just a quick post from Orono before we head south this morning on a travel day off.  I finally feel like we're getting a little New England fall.  There's ice in the Stillwater River and a heavy frost on the ground outside my hotel room patio.

8 AM in Orono

The icy Stillwater

Now it's on to New Bedford, Massachusetts!

Ogdensburg to Orono

We had two packed shows in Ogdensburg, New York, an evening show for the general public and a morning show for students.  Ogdensburg sits on the St. Lawrence River directly across from Canada and I understand we had some folks from up north come over for the evening show.

The view from my hotel room of several flocks of Canadian geese flying south over the St. Lawrence.  (Click on the picture for a larger shot to better see the geese,)

The geese

After the morning show I taught a master class on Steinbeck and "Of Mice and Men" before we all loaded up and headed east.  We went across upstate New York and into Vermont near Lake Champlain.

The glow of sunset over Lake Champlain

When we first got our schedule for the tour and I saw that we'd be in upstate New York and New England in November I figured for sure that we'd have snow when we were here.  But as has been true for this entire tour the weather has been fantastic.  We reached Concord, New Hampshire for an overnight stop around 8:30 Tuesday night and a few of us walked up the street in the crisp night air for dinner at the Common Man Restaurant.  The meal was great and so was the company.

After a good night's sleep we continued eastward to Orono, Maine.  Our stop in Orono represents our easternmost point of the tour.  We're doing tonight's show at the Collins Center for the Arts at the University of Maine.

More geese, this time on the Stillwater River outside our hotel in Orono, Maine

Another shot of the Stillwater River

The Collins Center for the Arts on the campus of the University of Maine in Orono

Tomorrow morning we'll head south and west on a travel day-off toward New Bedford, Massachusetts.  Friday we start our last weekend on tour with two shows at the Zeiterion in New Bedford then drive to New York to close it out Saturday and Sunday.

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Canada. What day is it?

After spending the night in Harrisburg we got up early Sunday morning for our drive to New Jersey.

Railroad bridge over the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, PA

The John Harris Mansion, home of the man who founded Harrisburg in the 1800's

Robin taking a walk in the park near our hotel before we left Harrisburg Sunday

We arrived in Newark early in the afternoon and after checking into our hotel across from the airport we drove to the campus of Kean University in Union for our 3 PM matinee in the Wilkins Theatre for the Performing Arts.

A view of Manhattan from my hotel room near Newark Airport

The Wilkins Theater in Union, NJ

Fight call before the show in Union

The show went well and afterwards several folks went into the city to visit friends.  John Hardy grew up in the area so he drove around with an old friend and visited some of his childhood haunts in New Jersey.  A few of us just headed back to the hotel for dinner and TV.  I watched the inexplicable decision to go for it on fourth down inside his own 30 that New England Patriot coach Bill Belichick made that subsequently led to Indianapolis getting its ninth win of the NFL season.  (If you don't know what I'm talking about you're probably not a football fan and you wouldn't care.  If you are a football fan you already know what it was.  I don't care what he thought.  It was not a good plan.)

Newark by night

Got to sleep relatively early since we were leaving at 8:30 this morning for our drive to Ogdensburg, New York.  After a lunch stop in Syracuse we made it to our hotel on the St. Lawrence River just before sunset.  I can look out my window to see Canada just across the river.  (Not quite as good a line as Sarah Palin seeing Russia from her house but I'm not running for anything.)

Sunset over the St. Lawrence River with the US on the left and Canada on the right

As I write this we've just started tonight's performance at the George Hall Auditorium in Ogdensburg that begins our last week of the tour.

The George Hall Auditorium in Ogdensburg, NY

Waiting for fight call

We've seen both Mexico and now Canada on this trip, plus beautiful views of almost every region in the US all along the way.  Over the next week we'll go across New England and back before heading home to Virginia. What a tour!

Heading Into Our Last Swing North

We performed last night in Morganton, North Carolina and after a night of rest, headed out this morning for an overnight stop in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Looking out over the City of Morganton Municipal Auditorium (CoMMA) in Morganton, NC

The CoMMA lobby

A beautiful fresco in the ceiling of the CoMMA lobby

Pretty calm bus ride occupied by the Florida-South Carolina game, the Alabama-Mississippi State game, and Holley Housewright's birthday!

Celebrating Holley's birthday on the bus

Happy birthday, Holley!

We leave in the morning for a three hour ride to Newark, New Jersey and a 3 PM matinee in Union.  A few folks are making plans to take cabs into Manhattan after the show.  We'll be back in the NYC area next Sunday to close out the tour, but it'll be a much shorter stay.  It's almost inconceivable to me that we're heading into our last week of the tour.  In many ways it seems like it was just a few days ago that we started this trip.  Amazing that it's been eight weeks.  Amazing.

Watching the game on our way to Harrisburg