Austin, Texas

Dipping our feet in the frigid waters of Barton Springs Pool on Nov 28th
 

  I know that most of my close friends know this, but for those of you just along for the ride here's a personal secret for you...I HATE flying.  To be honest, it's more than that.  I actually LOATH everything to do with airports...security, the tedium of waiting for flights, having zero control over the entire process.  But more than anything, I hate being strapped into a tin can 30,000ft above sea level, the entire time feeling like my life is in the hands of a stranger.  But, I love to travel, and often I have to travel for work, so flying is a necessary evil.  Truth: My trick...I try to never do it sober.  A double Jack & Coke and a couple of Gravol and I am good to go.  If I can be asleep before we even get off the runway, so much the better.  Of course this recipe doesn't work on show days for obvious reasons...but this was not the case last Sunday when we took our very first flight of the tour from Detroit to Austin, Texas, with a short layover in Charlotte North Carolina. We eventually landed safely at our destination, which I consider a win.

A few of us had friends and family flying down for the week, as this was the perfect week for a visit: only 2 shows over 5 days in Austin, and 2 whole days off inside that week, including American Thanksgiving.  We all took full advantage of the free time to explore everything Austin had to offer despite the unseasonably cold (for Texas) weather.

Over the course of 5 days we explored the bars & restaurants of 6th Street, ate some genuine Texan cuisine at Stubb's BBQ, wandered "The Drag" alongside the University of Texas at Austin (Go Longhorns!), Explored the local western culture of SoCo (South Congress) including Allen's Boots, and eventually made our way to Zilker Park, home of the beautiful Barton Springs Pool, a 3 acre spring fed swimming hole located right in the middle of a tributary of the Colorado River.  Free to the public on Holidays ($2 for non-residents otherwise) the pool is a vast public swimming hole with a natural (read: fish & plant life inhabited) bottom that's water stays at a brisk 68 degrees year round.  Since it was Thanksgiving (Nov 28th) and about 12 degrees outside, we only dipped our feet in the water, but there were a few brave souls enjoying a leisurely swim.  Proof that Texans are nuts! 

 



Here's an Arial shot of the pool to help you understand the scope and size.  Everything IS bigger in Texas.



We also had a company meal for American Thanksgiving at Threadgills organized by Technical Director and Company Manager. Good times were had by all.  With both the Longhorns and The Cowboys winning their Thanksgiving day Football games, it was quite the day to be rooting for Texas!

 

Of course, we are on tour with a show, not on vacation, so we also had a couple of performances at the beautiful Long Center for the Performing Arts.  The crowds here in Austin loved the show, and were very generous with their applause. 

 

I know for a fact that Austin has already replaced St. Louis as a few peoples favourite stop on the tour thus far, myself included.  This has definitely been a week to remember.

 

I am actually writing this post from my hotel room in Crocket Texas, where we are scheduled to perform in just a couple of hours.  A tiny little civic center with no wing space, available flylines for our lighting gear, and only 21' wide, tonight's show is guaranteed to be interesting to say the least.

 

But more on that next time! 



 



Meet Me In Saint Louis - One Very Busy Week!

Time for another Tour Update! This week we rolled into Saint Louis after a trio of long travel days with stops in Pittsburgh and Indianapolis. Indianapolis deserves mention as I got the opportunity to have an incredible meal at St. Elmo's Steakhouse. The city's oldest restaurant, founded in 1902, they know how to prep a steak!
We arrived in Saint Louis on Wednesday and the group immediately scattered to begin exploring the city. We were staying at the Westin directly across from Busch Stadium, a perfect central location for all of our planned expeditions. After dinner of smoked ribs, turkey and brisket at Joe Bucks, I crashed pretty hard. Thursday was a free day and I had big plans. After exploring the city around the hotel in the morning, a group of us took in the Saint Louis Zoo in the afternoon. I was really impressed with the facilities, especially consider that there is no admission charge for the public. It is entirely funded through government grants and private donations. While we didn't quite have time to explore the entire 19 acres of exhibits, I did get to see a large percentage of the animals that they have on display. While not as impressive as the Toronto Zoo, it is obvious that the staff and community take great pride in their facilities.
Thursday night was the highlight of our week. I had organized and arranged tickets for 15 of us to see an NHL game at the Scottrade Center. The St. Louis Blues were hosting the league leading Colorado Avalanche. The Blues group sales department cut me a great deal on the seats. We were in section 103, up and to the left of the visitors net, 14 rows off the ice. By far, these were the best seats I have ever had at a hockey game, and they were only $75 per person. The simple fact that average people could afford to see the local NHL team play, and not have to mortgage their house to sit in the lower bowl was a shock to a Leafs fan like myself. The hockey game was absolutely explosive. The Blues ran up the score 7-3, and every time an Avalanche player attempted to start a fight, hoping to shift the momentum, the Blues enforcers beat them to a pulp. It was amazing to cheer for a team that actually had the potential to win for a change!
As an added bonus, one of my cast members had an in with the Blues Assistant Coach, Brad Shaw, and was able to get us backstage guest passes, which allowed us the opportunity to meet the Blues, get autograph's, shake hands, and then get a full tour of the locker room and training facility. Pretty amazing stuff! The entire staff of the Blues were great with us, indulging our wide eyed excitement at this behind the scenes look into their organization.
Friday was also packed full of entertainment as I booked in on tours of both Busch Stadium, home of the 2011 World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals, and Anheuser Busch Brewery. Both tours were both informative and a lot of fun. One gave me the opportunity to stand behind home plate on Major League Baseball stadium, the other gave me free beer. Win, win. Also the supply and demand facts that I learned on the Budweiser tour made my head spin. For example the American Mid-West drinks 2.5 million cases of Budweiser product every 12-18 hours. Also for an individual to drain the contents of one of their massive beechwood aging tanks you would have to drink one beer an hour for over 127 years. FYI Budweiser has over 300 of these tanks on site at this brewery. That is a lot of beer. My favorite fun fact from Busch Stadium was the cost of entry to their exclusive Cardinal Club. These are special reserved seats directly behind home plate that also grant access to an exclusive club house restaurant before and after every regular season home game plus priority parking. Cost: $12,000 per season, minimum purchase 2 seats
($24,000), minimum contract 10 YEARS (total cost: $240,000) Sweet Jesus! If I ever change careers I am going to work for a professional sports team! I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that we also played 5 wonderful shows at the beautiful Peabody Opera House, a 3000 seat auditorium staffed by great people. I took the time to get to know a few of their staff over the course of the week (including the Head of Marketing, Production Manager, and General Manager) and everyone was really phenomenal to work with.
Other fun anecdotes: While we were in town we also shared our hotel with the Carolina Hurricanes and the Bosnian National Soccer Team. The NHL stars were very low key, not so much for the soccer players. Mobs of soccer fans swarmed the hotel hoping for autographs and photographs, necessitating added police and private security. At one point late one night I ended up on an elevator with about 6 of the soccer players, after having been told all day that we were not to be allowed anywhere near them by their private security force. I'm not a soccer fan, so I couldn't care less, but after their head of security waved me onto the elevator I kind of wondered what the big deal was. I also discovered a bar with more than 80 varieties of beer on tap, apparently the most anywhere in America. Be sure to check it out if you are ever in town. The Flying Saucer.
It was hard loading onto the bus this morning to leave St. Louis, but more adventures await. Next stop: Wisconsin, land of cheese...?!? Check back soon for more updates.

We Survived Hell Week!

This week was all about numbers: 9 shows, 7 venues, 9 days, 5 states, 20 hours on the bus. Welcome to touring. One-off performances, where you load in, do a show, or sometimes two, and then load out the same night, take an undeniable toll on your body, and your mind. This week it got real. It was a whirlwind. This is what I remember touring being like. I am not going to bore you with a list of where we were, or what the theaters were like, in fact I couldn't if I wanted to at this point. The entire week is already a hazy indistinct blur of scattered images of calling the show, riding the tour bus, vague hotel rooms, only to lather, rinse and repeat the entire process again, and again, and again. What I can tell you, is that the show is in good shape, the audiences are loving it, and the cast are in good spirits. Oh, don't get me wrong. We are all exhausted, but we have all more or less learned to adapt to make the most of the creature comforts that we have. For the cast, learning to sleep on the bus during our long drives has become a marketable skill. Personally, I prefer to take advantage of the quiet time created by everyone else's naps to focus on the administrative paperwork that goes with being a touring Stage Manager. If I can be done my reports, logs, and emails by our morning rest stop, the rest of the ride is suddenly mine, to curl up with the latest Chuck Palaniuk novel, shoot douche waffles on my PS Vita, text with all the folks at home or otherwise relax and unwind until we arrive at the next venue.

It really is the little things that bring you comfort during a week like this that make all the difference in the world. Things like Venti Mocha Frappachino's, bus jeans, comfy hoodies, Skype, Netflix, clean laundry, a bottle of JD in your suitcase, all serve a very important purpose. The small pleasures that they bring make you forget how tired you are in the moment and focus on what is going right, right now. Yes, we spend all day on a tour bus, and we wake up in a new hotel room all most every day, but we are never bored, and this company is never unhappy. They have figured out that as long as you can control the little things in life that matter to you, you can get through anything with a smile on your face. Add all that to the fact that each and every one of us is out here doing what we love, and it becomes a pretty incredible experience.

We have been a little spoiled up to this point, with two or three day sit downs at every venue. We have had the opportunity to explore, and to get to see the sights in the cities we've played. That was not the case with hell week. All there was time for every day was literally: Get up, get on the bus, arrive, do a show, drink a pint, fall asleep, depart for the next city. The end. But all of our hard work is now paying off. As I write this post we are on the bus headed to Pittsburgh, where we have the night off, on route to Saint Louis. Our next show is Friday night...4 days from now. 4 days of rest and relaxation between shows. Almost unheard of in this industry. Our only responsibility is to be on the bus on time each day so that we can continue our journey. Heaven.
Until next time!
Check back soon for more updates.

Field Trip! Wrentham Village Premium Outlets!

So, we are right in the middle of what I have been calling "Hell Week", and today we caught a little break.
Hell week consists of  9 shows in 7 venues over a span of 9 days, most of them in different states, which means that we are on the bus every morning to do a show in a new theatre pretty much every night.  On the upside, many of these cities have thus far been reasonably close  together, and to be honest it is already getting hard to keep the cities straight in my head.

Today, because we only have a 2 hour drive between New Bedford MA, and Springfield MA, Keith, our Rock star Company Manager arranged a little excursion to help pad the time between when we had to check out of one hotel and when we could check in to our next.  The tour bus dropped us for a two hour shopping trip at the Wrentham Village Premium Outlets here in Massachusetts.  Up until this point, I have always thought that Walmart trips while on tour were highly entertaining - everyone rushing off to acquire all the goodies that they need to make life on the road a little easier in a strict one hour time limit.  Today was that same sense of urgency and frantic excitement multiplied by a thousand degrees.  All most  everyone immediately scattered to scour the stores for the best deals.  Some of the cast were on personal shopping missions, snapping up great deals on hot fashions for themselves, while others, myself included, focused on early Christmas shopping for all the folks back home.  Banana Republic, Coach, Kenneth Cole, and Gap were big hits!

People were frantically bargain hunting right up to the wire, spending per diem cash hand over fist.  It was awesome. 
The best part of the entire experience was the little fashion show that happened at the back of the tour bus as we were about to hit the road.  Everyone eager to show off their new acquisitions, and see all the great finds everyone else had snapped up.

It was a fun distraction from Hell Week, but now we are back on the bus rolling through the rain for our next stop. 
Check back soon for more updates.

Oh, Canada! Godspell hits the East Coast of the Great White North.

The journey continues...when we last left our heroes, they had one final matinee to perform in New Haven Connecticut, before moving on to our first Canadian stops of the tour. 
The matinee was a success, and from what I have been told by the crew, their first load-out was relatively painless.  We were also asked to sign the wall at the historic Shubert Theatre, a tradition that I have seen a few times at various venues on the road.  Kudos to Charles for finger painting us a great piece of signage, that will now become part of the legacy of the Shubert.  At this point our Crew also moved off of our coach bus onto their sweet Rock Star sleeper bus, their new traveling home away from home.

After the show and dinner in New Haven,  the cast and band piled onto the coach for what I think was an amazing night drive up to Portsmouth New Hampshire, our stopping point before crossing back into Canada.  Now, I can't speak for everyone, but I had a wicked time on this bus ride because I snagged one of the rear "lounge" spots for the ride: to clarify, we have removed some seats from the coach, and at the very back we have two sets of seats that have been turned 180 degrees, and installed collapsible tables to form what I loving refer to as "the lounges".  They are perfect spots for someone to work on lines, write show reports, have a group card game, or just stretch out.

 Initially I set up my laptop to write my matinee show reports and then once they were sent, I settled in and relaxed for what was one of my favourite rides thus far of any tour.  I watched about 6 episodes of Parks and Rec, and then when that got old, just set my music collection to shuffle and watched the world flow by.  It was a very Zen happy little bubble.

Upon arrival at our hotel most people promptly made their way to our very first hot tub of the tour! Any hotel with a hot tub and a pool is always a hit after a long day on a tour bus.

The next day we had a full day of travel to Fredericton New Brunswick, where we had the evening off.  Our company manager and I promptly found a great spot to have a wonderful meal in town.  Brewbaker's was magnificent.
Our two  shows in Fredericton at The Playhouse were well received, and I met some great people on the local crew who are friends of friends that work out here fairly regularly.  We swapped a few war stories and shared some laughs.  It was a not so subtle reminder of exactly how small this industry really is.

After our Wednesday evening show, the touring company organized an impromptu pre-Halloween party in one of the banquet rooms of our hotel.  Hilarity ensued, and I don't know that many people got much sleep.

We also had the next day (which coincidently, happened to be Halloween) off in Fredericton, so many of us took the opportunity to see the sights, sample the local micro brews, and experience some of the local culture.

 I explored the banks of the St. John River, following a great hiking trail along the shore of the downtown core, before staring a little pub crawl, and eventually having another fantastic meal, this time at The Blue Door.  Some of the cast caught an evening movie at the mall by our hotel, but I opted for something a little more daring and caught the opening night performance of a local community theatre groups production of Evil Dead: The Musical.  My thoughts on this production are also available here in a previous post.

Friday we had a leisurely 90 minute ride down the highway to our next stop: St. John New Brunswick - NOT to be confused with St. John's Newfoundland - Ivan.  

The Imperial Theatre here in St. John is a beautiful space that celebrated its centennial this year.  A gorgeous venue with another fantastic local crew, both of our shows here went off without a hitch.  Many of us took advantage of our free time in town to take in the local attractions, like the famous -  if wildly misnamed - reversing falls, the local brew pubs (Like the High Tide and The St. John Ale House), and many of us decided to do the Maritimes right and had a big Lobster & seafood dinner at Steamers Lobster Company down by the Wharf.  Dinner was a huge, butter smeared, success.

Tomorrow we bid farewell to Atlantic Canada, as we continue our journey back into the US with a matinee performance in Orono, Maine. 

Tomorrow also marks the beginning of what I have come to think of as our first hell week - 7 different venues in 8 days.  I am sure we will all come out the other side unscathed, but it will be a shock to the system after such a smooth, sedate first few stops.

Check back soon for more updates!