Charlottesville by Night

We're getting ready to load up and drive to Morganton, NC but I've got a few minutes to file a quick entry about last night's performance in Charlottesville.  First a note of thanks to our hosts who have treated us royally.  The meal last night was outstanding and it's been a real pleasure to work with everyone at the Paramount.  The folks here couldn't have been more accommodating nor have we played a more attractive venue.   The theater sits in the middle of Charlottesville's Open-Air Mall which is truly a beautiful location.

The front of the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville

The Paramount marquee

At dinner we all got a laugh at an ad for the show which ran in the Hook, a local paper that covers the arts (and lots more).

The Hook ad for our show

Everybody threw in their two-cents worth about the ad but I think my favorite comment was Hardy's.  He just observed that they obviously pasted somebody else's head on a shot of his body.  Does the phrase "robust fantasy life" mean anything to anyone?

We got a nice surprise in the lobby when we walked out to get a few pictures before the show - our boss, Barter's Producing Artistic director Rick Rose was in the house.  I'll have to admit it was nice to hear his distinctive laugh in the audience.  I've missed it.

Rick and Ben share a laugh over the Hook ad

We load the bus in a few minutes for our drive to Morganton, North Carolina and a show tonight at the CoMMA (City of Morganton Municipal Auditorium).  More to come!

Hazard, Kentucky to Charlottesville, Virginia

I've gotten a little behind in filing a blog entry lately due to a few technical difficulties plus my blogging time being a little limited because I've had the chance to spend some quality time with my wife!  So I'll try to compress the events of the last three days into a single blog entry.

We made our way from Valdosta to Hazard on Monday and all along the way several of us had little reunions.  We stopped for lunch in  Atlanta where Robin had the chance to spend a little more time with his wife Kelly.  Then as we headed north Ashley and Sean got a chance to see several of their family members during a brief stop in Ringgold, Georgia.

Ashley's dad, Butch Oliver, and our driver Scott Holmes

Ashley and Sean's roadside reunion in Ringgold

Then when we reached Hazard, I was happy to find my wife, Bunny, waiting for us at the hotel.  This tour has been a wonderful experience but it does have the drawback of being away from family and friends, so having the chance to see some familiar faces means a lot.

With my lovely wife Bunny at the motel (thanks for the photo, Mike O!)

Our stage manager Holley housewright also had a reunion in Hazard with her fiance, Josh.

We did a student matinee to a full house at The Forum in Hazard on Tuesday morning.  Later that afternoon I also got a chance to share dinner with my dear friends David and Patty Browning who had driven two-and-a-half hours from Bristol to see the show.  We had a good performance that evening and after giving David and Patty a tour of our bus we bid them goodnight and went back to the hotel for a rest before heading out for Charlottesville, Virginia on Wednesday.

The Forum in Hazard, Kentucky

Getting ready for the evening show in Hazard

I was sorry to see Bunny head off that morning for her drive back to Bristol but shortly after she left we all loaded the bus in hopes that we'd soon be on the road ourselves.  But unfortunately the bus had some engine problems.  A couple of sensors were malfunctioning and by the time they were repaired we ended up being six hours behind schedule.  Fortunately we didn't have a show on Wednesday but unfortunately we still had to make the seven hour trip from Hazard to Charlottesville.

Actually, the burden on us wasn't nearly as great as it was on our incomparable driver Scott Holmes.  Scott is such a great guy and he remained calm and imperturbable throughout the ordeal even though his glasses got broken during the repairs.  Yet even with a long repair session, broken glasses and a long drive in rain (and a little snow!) Scott always maintained his good humor through Kentucky and West Virginia right to our hotel in Charlottesville.

We got to the hotel around 11:30 so we immediately checked in and headed to our rooms for a night's rest.  Thursday morning we were up and making the fifteen minute ride downtown to the beautifully-restored Paramount Theater.

Getting ready for fight call at the Paramount In Charlottesville.

Pre-show sound check at the Paramount

One of the Paramount's chandeliers

A wall mural in the Paramount.  The theater was built in 1931 and restored in 2004.

Our reunion sessions continued in Charlottesville.  Sherry Pilcher, a Barter alum who lives near Charlottesville, stopped in for a visit and our Company Manager Rebecca Reinhardt also had a reunion with her beau, Damon while we're here.

The student matinee this morning was electric.  It seems that student audiences always provide us a thrill, maybe because students rarely hold back the way they feel and the feedback that an actor gets from an audience can be such an energizing factor. These kids were certainly with us today.

We go back to the Paramount tonight for a public performance.  Tomorrow we'll pack up and head south once more for a show in Morganton, North Carolina.

Valdosta, Georgia

Sunday in Valdosta was a beautiful day with clear skies, temperatures near 80 and truly friendly people everywhere we turned.  Since we had flown down from our last venue in Iowa we didn't have our bus (or our great bus driver Scott Holmes) to travel to the venue but a small caravan of folks from the Turner Center for the Arts took us around town.  Valdosta is a very arts-friendly town and in talking with folks from the Turner Center we found out that several businesses in town had provided food and sponsorship support for our trip.

Mathis City Auditorium in Valdosta, Georgia

We performed at the Mathis City Auditorium and had a great crowd.  The Turner Center sponsors touring shows at the venue each year but our production of "Of Mice and Men' was the first non-musical that had come there in several years.  That fact combined with the current state of the national economy made folks a little apprehensive about what kind of turnout they would get but although  I never got an exact count there were several hundred in attendance which pleased everyone.  (Let's hear it for straight plays!!  Yeah!)

Getting ready for the show in Valdosta

After the show our hosts treated us to supper at the Smoke'n Pig which as you might guess is a local barbecue restaurant.  The food was great and our new Valdosta friends couldn't have been more gracious.  After a quick driving tour through some of the city's restored older homes, we were back at the hotel to get a night's rest before our long drive back north.

Scott has made it back after his two-day drive from the north so we'll load up this morning and head out.  Our next stop is close to home - Hazard, Kentucky - and a couple of shows on Tuesday.

Georgia On Our Minds

As was obvious from my last post, we flew from Dubuque to Valdosta yesterday.  Dubuque was a cool city to visit.  The downtown area where we stayed and where the theater is located is full of beautiful old architecture.  After dinner and before the show Friday night several of us rode an elevator up the side of a hill that overlooks the city.  The elevator was constructed in the late 1800's by a Dubuque businessman/politician who wanted a quicker way to get to his home on top of the hill from his office downtown.  It became a favorite for others on the hill and now continues as a local tourism stop.

Entrance to the Fenalon Place Elevator

An elevator car coming up the hill

Dubuque at night from the hill

The show in Dubuque went well, although it was kind of a strange one for a couple of reasons.  Connected to the theater building (which dates back to the 1800's, too) is a civic center which includes a hockey arena.  There was a hockey game that night so it was a little odd to be sitting backstage and hear the PA announcer ("Heeeeeeeere Theeeeey Coooooooooome!") blaring just on the other side of the stage left door while Lennie and George are trying to camp for the night amidst California night sounds on stage.  I don't think the audience could hear the game but we could.  Weird.

Dubuque Five Flags Center (you can just make out the edge of  the hockey arena to the right.)

Beautiful theater in Dubuque

The other strange thing about the show was the presence of a pretty good sized bat that was swooping around through the show.  Hardy says it actually circled his head once.  Everybody kept it together and the show progressed as normal without incident, although Sean said that if it landed on him he would scream like a girl while he was trying to swat it away.  Actually I think that would have been worth the price of admission itself but (alas?) it never happened.

Crossing the Mississippi one last time on tour

Driving through northern Illinois farmland

We got up Saturday morning and as I mentioned in my last blog entry we took the bus to Chicago where we boarded a flight to Atlanta.  We had a two-and-a-half hour layover in Atlanta before taking a short flight down to Valdosta.

Sean's char-dog lunch at O'Hare

We had wifi on the plane!

The plane ride was fine but we all think the bus is the way to go.

The Atlanta skyline reflects the setting sun.

Sunset over Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta

We had a fun little party in Valdosta Saturday night.  It was Sean's birthday so we got  him a cake and sang in the dining room (which was actually closed but the folks at the Holiday Inn were very accommodating).  And we also got to meet Robin's wife, Kelly, who had driven down from Atlanta to be able to spend some time with Robin while he was relatively close to home.

Sean, Ashley, Kelly and Robin and what's left of the cake

We have a three o'clock matinee here in Valdosta this afternoon then tomorrow we'll take the long bus ride up to Hazard, Kentucky for a couple of shows.  It's really hard to imagine that just last Monday we were in Longview, Washington and in only two weeks we'll be closing out the tour.  That clock keeps ticking....

Greetings from 30,000 Feet

We drove from Dubuque to Chicago this morning for our flight to Georgia.  (I'll have a Dubuque report a little later.)  We're currently flying to our stop in Atlanta where we have a two hour layover before heading to Valdosta.  So this will be a short report.  I just liked the idea of filing a blog entry from the plane.

Mike took this shot with his laptop on the plane and e-mailed it to me.  Isn't this cool?

It's Sean's birthday but so far I haven't been able to convince everyone to sing happy birthday to him on the plane.  I'll keep trying.

Into the Land of the Giant

Long bus ride Thursday from Gillette, Wyoming to Blue Earth, Minnesota.  Not long after leaving Gillette we entered the northern edge of the Black Hills region of South Dakota.

Near Rapid City, South Dakota

As we traveled east the land began to get flatter.  Riding on the bus is an interesting experience.  Like several others, I had planned to use the travel time as a way to get some extra work done, writing or studying.  But frankly after watching the scenery day after day I've been hesitant to do anything other than look out the window in fear that I'll miss something spectacular.

Along I-90 in South Dakota

When we are able to pull ourselves away from the sites whizzing by outside the bus each of us in varying degrees will either read in our bunks or in one of the lounges, watch a little television (movies and sports seem to be the favorites with Family Guy episodes occasionally thrown in for a laugh), discuss various problems in the world and how we would solve them if we just had the chance, and talk about philosophies of acting and/or life.

Sunset over the Northern Plains

Although we all miss family and friends back home we've also talked about how we're going to miss this life when the tour is over.  Acting is a unique occupation.  For a limited time a group of unrelated people come together to create an intense, intimate and exciting little world that they share on the stage.  But when the play is over that tightly knit little group disperses and often the people involved never see each other again.  That duality of togetherness and separation is true for any play but I think it's especially true at Barter and doubly so on tour.

Not only do we work together on stage but we live together whether back home in the Inn (for many at Barter) or traveling across the country in a bus.  In three weeks the tour will be over and, although I can't wait to be home, I am going to miss these friends and the experiences we've shared.

Last night was a good example.  After we checked into the hotel I settled in for the night when Mike O called and said "Come on, dude, we're going to go see him."  "Him" is the Jolly Green Giant.  To make a long story short, Blue Earth, MN was once home to the frozen vegetable company that eventually became Green Giant. In the 1970's a 55-foot fiberglass statue of the giant was erected in Blue Earth to commemorate the completion of I-90, the longest four-lane highway in America.  Blue Earth marks the midpoint of the highway.  Over 30 years later the big guy still stands within walking distance of the hotel in which we were staying. How could I not go?

I got dressed and met Mike, Robin and Vince in the parking lot to make the 600 yard hike in the cold Minnesota night to see him.

For more photos of our expedition, visit Mike O's blog at http://ofmiceandmen2009.blogspot.com/

These are the experiences that come once in a lifetime.  I know I'll miss them.

Gillette, Wyoming

Our eastward rush continued today with an eight-hour trek across Montana and Wyoming.  This tour has been so wonderful in so many ways, but the opportunity to take in the beauty of America in these concentrated doses is unquestionably one of the most memorable aspects of the trip.  The chorus of "look-at-that's" continued again today.  Montana and Wyoming are both sparsely populated and it isn't unusual to go for miles without seeing a home or business.  But you can't go five miles without seeing spectacular scenery.

The Yellowstone River with the Rockies in the background

A rocky ridge along I-90 in Montana

Prairie, rolling hills, and mountains in Montana

We reached Gillette in the late afternoon and headed to the theater almost immediately after checking into the hotel.  Our show tonight was in the Cam-Plex Heritage Center, a facility that is jointly operated by the town of Gillette and Campbell County, Wyoming.

Auditorium in the Cam-Plex Heritage Center in Gillette, Wyoming

Lobby of the Cam-Plex Center

After a wonderful dinner provided by the venue we performed for an appreciative crowd and then immediately got back on the bus for our trip back to the hotel.  Had a chance to see the final inning and a half of the World Series and the Yankee fans rejoiced as we pulled into the parking lot.

These days where we travel for long periods and then do the show are long but it seems that before you know it the day is gone.  Tomorrow is a travel day off but what a travel day it will be.  We'll cover over 600 miles tomorrow from Gillette to Blue Earth, Minnesota.  No show but still a lot of ground to cover.  Then we return to Iowa on Friday.