Well, it has been absolutely forever since I have written on here, so I thought it was about time! We just returned from our week off and I am getting back into the swing of things on tour. I am first going to try and think if there was anything that happened before the break that was worth noting since I was lazy about writing for a few weeks!
While we were in Union, New Jersey we met our new cast member, Tiffany Turner, who replaced Nellie. She had a rehearsal with us in Union with Tim and Steven (director and choreographer) and then she performed both shows with us the next day. She did a fantastic job and none of us could believe how quickly and easily she slid into the show! There is a LOT going on in this show and she absorbed a huge amount in a very short time. She went back to New York after those shows and Nellie finished out the week with us in Cinncinnatti (which is where she performed her last show.)
For Nellie’s last show, our company manager, Marta, had planned a special surprise!! There is a point in the show where i shove a bucket into Nellie’s hands as the Prince. Well, as a farewell present from the cast and crew, we decided to fill the bucket with glitter and when the time came, I dumped the entire bucket of glitter on Nellie’s head. She was so shocked that she screamed!!! It was hysterical. We all had to work really hard to keep it together onstage. The audience loved it too, and gave the glitter a nice long ovation.
After Cinncinnatti, we had a lovely stop off in Harrisburg where I discovered the Tom Sawyer Diner, which used to be located in Allentown (my home town) about a minute away from my house. They trucked the entire building to Harrisburg where it now lives! I was shocked to see it there!! We had a really nice dinner and met some of Marta’s friends from the theatre that she worked at in Harrisburg.
Then, it was time for our week vacation. I split the week between Pennsylvania and New York City. It was nice to be home in PA for a few days, and then I went to NYC where I saw “Mary Poppins” and Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner in Concert. I also went to Melissa’s birthday party that she had in the city at a new bar called The Ritz. It was a quadruple birthday for Melissa and three other friend’s of hers. It is amazing how small the world of theatre really is because I saw a lot of people that I knew at the party that were all connected somehow to Melissa or one of the other birthdays of the evening. It was a lot of fun! My friend Jen was in town for the night and she joined me for the party and she, Marc, and a few of Marc’s friends ended the evening at the Don’t Tell Mama’s! While on our vacation week, I did a telephone interview for a paper in Colombus, Georgia (which is where I am writing this entry from. The story turned out well, except they spelled my name wrong!!)
The week was nice and relaxing, but I was pretty ready to get back to work!! We started back in Charlottesville, Virginia which had a really nice little downtown section that we got to explore in between our shows. Now, we are in Georgia and it is WARM!!!! It is really nice to be down in the South now that it is starting to get colder up near home. There was a little bit of drama with our hotel, and after several hours of driving back and forth between hotels, we finally ended up getting to stay in the original hotel that we were supposed to be at for free because they had overbooked and it was their mistake. It was a few wasted hours, but a nice surprise that we were staying for free that night!! We were glad to discover that there was a bowling alley very close to our hotel so a few of us went bowling last night. It was a lot of fun, although I discovered I am REALLY not a good bowler. i got a little better on the second game, but my score was too pathetic to even report here. It was a lot of fun though!
We have one more show here in Georgia this evening at 7 PM, and then we will be on our way to Raleigh, North Carolina which is our next stop. OHHH, and one more very exciting thing!! Marc and I decorated our bus for Halloween!!! We draped spider webs and hung blow up pumpkins and ghosts as well as putting a few decals on the windows! It looks amazing… We did it as a surprise for everyone and went on the bus during load out. Everyone loved it!! This is what happens when Marc and I discover a dollar store…
