Well friends, now I can officially say I’ve been to North Dakota! We took the long trip out to Grand Forks, North Dakota and played two shows in what was I believe our largest house to date. The theatre was absolutely enormous (and beautiful)!! Unfortunately, the crowds were not so enormous, but thats OK because the entire cast was pretty psyched to be in North Dakota. One funny thing that happened in ND is that I fell flat on my face backstage while trying to get out of the snake costume. My foot caught on the edge of it and I tripped, and then stood up and thought I was free from it and snagged my foot on the suspenders and fell right onto my face. Abby was backstage laughing hysterically and Marta, our company manager, said that she could hear the fall all the way from the back of the house. It was embarrasing, but definitely pretty funny!! I’m sure I will not live it down for a little while.
We were on the campus of the University of North Dakota, and first of all it was COLD!!! I wouldn’t want to experience the weather there in January or February if this is September! The campus was really nice though and very large. We explored the Student Union Center as well as the Bookstore, and I purchased a University of North Dakota baseball hat. The other very interesting thing about visiting all of these states is listening to the accents. The people really do speak with the accent that you think of as stereotypical of places like Minnesota and North Dakota and honestly it is fascinating to just listen to them talk. We got some strange looks from the students at the University as we stood around taking pictures of things on the campus that to them seem like normal and everyday things. It seems to be a common theme in most of the states we visit that people can tell that we are not from the area as soon as they set eyes on us!
Our hotel in North Dakota had an indoor waterpark was very exciting! Unfortunately though, the big waterslide was not turned on and was locked so we could not use that one. We still had a good time though running around and using the mini water slides. We are always excited when our hotels have a pool and hot tub (which actually is a fairly common occurance!)
After North Dakota, we headed for Grand Rapids, Minnesota, which we were all excited to learn was Judy Garland’s birthplace, and there is a Judy Garland Museum in town (which turned out to be right next to our hotel). Well, today was our first 3 show day, but we still found time to fit in the Garland Museum!! We did two shows in the morning and then headed back to the hotel, and then went straight for the museum. It was actually a very fascinating museum, and you can walk through Judy Garland’s actual house as part of the museum. It was a great day.
However, many cast members of the show are currently sick. There is a bug that is going through the cast and I have finally caught it. I was resisting it for quite awhile, but it is finally starting to catch hold of me. Laura had it the worst today though and almost literally did not have a voice at all. In a quick fix, I was asked to sing one of her songs which I did (roughly) during the first show and then after looking it over, did more efficiently the second show. It was an interesting think-on-your-feet kind of experience. Laura was a trooper though and got through the show with literally hardly any voice at all. We have the next four days off though as we head back East and we have a few nights to spend in Chicago which will be great. A little fun and some time for everyone to get well before we have to perform again!
Oh, and the theatre in Grand Rapids gave us each a coffee mug and a bag of wild rice (i don’t know why they gave us wild rice). But, we were excited because it was our first gift from one of our venues!
