http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/index/ en jon@jon-satrom.com Copyright 2006 2006-11-19T05:08:00-05:00 http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/some_pictures_finally/ http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/some_pictures_finally/#When:05:08:00Z Me chilling with a stone statue of Bob Newhart at the Navy Pier in Chicago The ferris wheel at the Navy Pier (which we rode and had a great view of Chicago) The Chicago skyline from the top of the ferris wheel! Marc and I starting a jug band at a flea market in Kentucky… A picture of the menu at our hotel restaurant in Chicago where they serve (yes, you read that correctly...) BUTT STEAK!!!!!  “Yes hi, I’d like the butt steak please!” Hanging out in the giant rollerskate at the roller rink in Kentucky! Wild Thing!!  Do you love the bright red roller skates?  I felt like I was back in junior high school at the Rt. 100 Rollerskating Rink Melissa at our first karaoke night of debauchery!  Jay in pigtails during a sound check at one of the theatres! Abby playing with her kamikaze balloons that Marc and I purchased for her at the dollar store for random gift giving day on the bus! Me with Nellie on the day of Nellie’s last performance (aka the day I dumped an entire bag of glitter onto her head during the show!) The Tom Sawyer Diner!!!! (Which used to be located about a minute away from my house in PA, and is now on 2nd St. in Harrisburg) I was freaking out when I saw it! Some of the gang out to dinner in Minneapolis at a really nice little place called Trattoria Roma BOWLING IN GEORGIA!!! Really beautiful theatre in Colombus, Georgia Me as a ghost at the pumpkin patch that we went to in Charleston, SC to go through the corn maze!! Walking through the corn maze with the huge flag that Melissa had to carry so that if we got lost the woman at the front could come and find us! (We did not get lost though!!!) The end of the corn maze!! We set a new record (19 minutes)… Me working the Charlie Brown shirt once again for Halloween night!  The whole cast and crew went as the Peanuts gang! The whole gang dressed up and ready to go out on the town! Charlie Brown and sister Sally Brown!! We decorated our company manager’s hotel room door on the day of her birthday! Our bus all decorated for Halloween courtesy of Me, Marc, and a DOLLAR STORE! Jay and T-rex wrestling in the toy store FLORIDA!!!!!!!! Laura rockin’ the skeeball in the Dave and Buster’s in Jacksonville, FL Me, the proud papa of a tweety bird in a cage (won with my ticket earnings from Dave and Buster’s) He had a nice spot hanging in my bus seat until he was kidnapped by a cast member and held for ransom!!  Don’t worry though, he’s back with me now… : ) The Shogun Japanese Steakhouse in Macon, Georgia Tweety’s cage hanging EMPTY after he was stolen!!!!! The VIP treatment at the NC Blumenthal Center in Charlotte, NC A shot from the stage at the Blumenthal Center Aunt Sue and Grandma after the show in Charlotte!! Me singing karaoke in Schenectady, NY! Melissa and Tiffany rocking the microphone Us outside of our theatre in Charlottesville, VA Marc and I displaying our disapproval over the fact that Dorothy the Dinosaur Dance Party had billing and we didn’t!!! All of us with our 2 for 1 beers at happy hour at a brewery called Hops in Gainesville, FL Marta’s birthday dinner in Charleston Waiting to go into the Haunted Old City Jail Tour in Charleston, SC! 2006-11-19T05:08:00-05:00 http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/almost_thanksgiving/ http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/almost_thanksgiving/#When:20:52:00Z Well, we are just about to have our week off for Thanksgiving and we are currently in Schenectady, NY.  We have been here since Thursday night, and have had a good time because this is actually Marc’s home town so he has been showing us the sights and driving us around in his mom’s van!  We ate a really nice dinner at the Macaroni Grill on Thursday, and yesterday we went to the mall during the day, took a driving tour of Schenectady led by Marc, and then that night we headed out for an evening of karaoke!  We all had a lot of fun.  Tonight, we are heading over to Marc’s parents house for dinner, which we are very excited about.  His mom is making a nice Spanish dinner with rice and beans, empanadas, and platanos!  We are going to pull the tour bus right up to his house. We’ve had a nice warm few weeks down in Florida and Georgia.  Its been great to be down South as it is starting to get colder up at home.  We had four days in Macon, Georgia and there wasn’t much to do in the town itself, but our audiences were fantastic!  They were huge crowds and very responsive.  The theatre and staff were great too, so it was a pretty fun few days.  We even had a wonderful wardrobe guy who (without my asking) folded the clothing that I wore to the theatre during the show and had it in a nice, neat pile at my dressing room station when i came down after the show.  It was so nice!  After Georgia, we were back down in Florida again for awhile, and I love the sight of palm trees!! (I think i may have already mentioned that).  We had our largest audience to date while we were in West Palm Beach, Fl (over 1700 people!!) It was really cool...It was a huge theatre and all three balconies were full. We then headed for Charlotte, North Carolina and Aunt Sue and Grandma came up to see the show!  It was really nice of them to make the trip and great to see both of them.  We will be stopping through Winston-Salem sometime in April and are hopefully going to have everyone over to Aunt Sue’s for dinner that night!  Grandma will also be seeing the show again when we come through Fayateville, Arkansas and I told her to bring all of her friends!!  Then we had a really long drive up to Harrisburg, which was made even longer because we got stuck in about an hour and a half of traffic.  We finally made it though, and we didn’t have to perform the next day so it wasn’t too much of a problem.  On our way to Schenectady, the wierdest thing happened!!!  We stopped for lunch in ALLENTOWN, my hometown.  We got off the Hamilton Blvd. exit off 78, which is my exit!  We were about 2 minutes away from my house for our lunch stop and I hadn’t even said anything.  It was purely coincidental, that is just where we happened to be at lunchtime.  We drove right past Dorney Park in the tour bus and ate at the Boston Market over by TGI Friday’s (for those of you who know where i mean!) It was really strange to be right there and have to get back on the bus and keep going to Schenectady!  So we were in both my hometown and Marc’s in one day!  2006-11-18T20:52:00-05:00 http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/halloween_week_off_in_charleston_south_carolina/ http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/halloween_week_off_in_charleston_south_carolina/#When:03:37:00Z Well, this past week was a lot of fun because we had some shows get cancelled in Birmingham, Alabama so they rerouted us straight to Charleston which is where our next performance was to be.  So it worked out that we were going to have about five straight days off in Charleston fully paid.  We also ended up being really lucky because we were staying at a Hampton Inn (which is Hilton affiliated and therefore has REALLY comfortable beds).  There was also a 24-hour Waffle House next to the hotel, where we made friends with two of the waitresses (one of whom came to see the show on Saturday with her kids!) Since we had so many days off, we had a good time looking up activities to entertain ourselves in Charleston.  We also rented a van so we could get around more easily without having to take cabs everywhere.  Everyone just chipped in for the van so it ended up being much cheaper than cabs for the whole week would have been.  We went through a corn maze our first day in town and we got through the whole maze in 19 minutes and 52 seconds, which the woman who was working there told us was a new record!  Apparently 22 minutes had been the fastest time before us.  We even wasted some extra time in the “pirates treasure” area which turned out to be a whole lot of NOTHING!  That night, we headed downtown with the whole crew to have a great meal at a seafood place called A.W. Shuck’s.  I got the crabcake and stuffed shrimp dinner and it was delicious.  Afterwards, we all went to see a campy show called “The Vampire Lesbians of Sodom” which is a play by Charles Busch.  It was pretty bad, but almost to the point that it was so bad that it was funny and enjoyable.  It was performed by a local improv troupe and some of them were really excellent, but most of them were kinda terrible.  It was in a fun little theatre that reminded me of the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre in NYC and you could buy beer and wine and bring it into the theatre (where there were cupholders to put it in).  The next night was Halloween and the whole Discover Theater crew dressed up as the Peanuts Gang!  I was Charlie Brown (because I had saved my Charlie Brown shirt from when I played the role in “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” in high school).  Several of our crew worked very hard on their costumes and had to put them together from scratch so they weren’t pleased that my costume was essentially done before I even started!!) Although, I did need yellow socks and could not find any in the wal-mart so I bought yellow fabric dye and dyed a pair of my white ones.  When everyone was ready, we headed out on the town and went to the Mellow Mushroom, which was having a “Halloween in Hollywood” party.  You had to be dressed as a Hollywood character or figure to get in the door, and we qualified as The Peanuts Gang!  It was a good time and it was fun to see all of the other costumes in the place!!! We spent many days in downtown Charleston which is a really great little town.  There is an outdoor market where vendors come every day to sell their stuff that lasts for several blocks.  The types of shops and restaurants reminded me a lot of a beach town.  It was a really charming little place.  We had some GREAT meals and I did a little bit of shopping too.  We also took a haunted ghost tour of The Old City Jail, which is hundreds of years old.  It was built on top of an old cemetary and none of the bodies were dug up so legend has it that the jail is haunted.  It was a really interesting tour!! Our time in Charleston ended with us going back to work.  The rest of the cast had an understudy rehearsal on Friday night, but since I don’t understudy any other character I got to sit out in the audience and watch and videotape the rehearsal to send to our producer.  It was SO bizarre to watch the show and see everyone else playing a different role (and someone else playing my role!) BUT, it was a lot of fun to see and they did a really fantastic job!  Everyone thought it was going to be more of a disaster than it was!  The next day we did two performances at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center.  At the night show, our production manager and lighting designer were there because they live close by.  It was great to see them again, and during the week the crew had worked in the production manager’s studio (which is in Charleston) to fix some things with the props and set.  We were also very pleased to hear that our waitress friend (who we called “J") came to the night show with her children and told our company manager afterwards that she LOVED the show! We are now in Florida, and it is WARM!!!  I also love seeing the palm trees.  Even though they are everywhere and commonplace down here it still makes me feel like i’m on vacation just seeing them since I don’t see them often!  We pulled into Jacksonville today and we have two shows here tomorrow.  Tonight though, we went to Dave And Buster’s (which for those of you who don’t know is like a Chuck E. Cheese for adults!!) It is games and such with food and alcohol involved!!  It was a lot of fun, and as a result of my ticket winnings I am now the proud owner of a stuffed tweety bird in a cage and two chinese finger traps!! All in all a productive evening I think!!!  Going to sleep soon sincce we have two shows tomorrow.  Lots of pictures to come soon!!! 2006-11-07T03:37:00-05:00 http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/back_to_work/ http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/back_to_work/#When:21:01:00Z 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… 2006-10-26T21:01:00-05:00 http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/the_adventures_continue/ http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/the_adventures_continue/#When:21:46:01Z After our performances in Grand Rapids, we got four days off!  Two of them were spent in Chicago, which was great and there was lots of time to relax and find things to do in the city.  Marc and I went to see “RAISIN,” which is the musical version of “Raisin in the Sun” on our first night in town.  It starred Ernestine Jackson, who was in the original Broadway cast of the show, so we had very high hopes!  Unfortunately, our hopes were dashed immediately after the opening number… It lacked some serious energy and the whole thing was kind of a let down.  But, it was an experience!!! The next day, we went to see a movie, “The Science of Sleep” (which was bizarre, but very good!) After that, we headed for the Navy Pier and we got to ride the huge ferris wheel and have an amazing view of the Chicago skyline.  We had big plans to head out to the bar that night, but our plans were thwarted by a huge thunderstorm with rain so heavy that we did not dare head out in it.  Still, we had a fun few days in Chicago! After Chicago, we headed for Danville, Kentucky where we were very pleased to see a rollerskating rink right next to our hotel!  After looking into it, we found out that on Tuesday nights (the night we were there) it was only 2 dollars to get in.  Laura, Marc, and I headed right over and spent the evening rollerksating to hits like the countrified version of the Macarena!  It was definitely a fantastic experience.  It didn’t take long for the place to clear out, and the three of us were the only three out skating on the floor.  It took me a few times around to get my bearings and feel comfortable on the skates.  I don’t think I have been rollerskating since junior high school!  It made for some great photo opportunities! We are in Joliet, Illinois at the moment and we are in between shows at the Rialto Square Theatre, which is a really beautiful space!  There was even an organist that played pre-show music in the theatre.  The first show of the day was a bit hectic for me because my microphone crapped out half way through the show and we had to do a switch (which is quite a chore when it is clipped into your hair and hidden under all of your clothing!) It was a bit stressful, and I almost missed my King Louie entrance as a result, but Abby and Bill worked there magic and helped me get it taken care of and I made it in the nick of time!  Heres hoping that the second show isn’t quite as eventful in that way! Tonight, we are heading for the Karoke Bar across the street from our hotel!! 2006-10-06T21:46:01-05:00 http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/some_pictures_to_go_along_with_the_adventures/ http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/some_pictures_to_go_along_with_the_adventures/#When:04:10:00Z Me on a John Deere tractor in Kentucky! A glamour shot from the dressing room of one of the theaters! Me, Marc, and Bill at Sidetrack “Musical Mondays” in Chicago Me, Laura, and Nellie clowning around in Chicago Me outside of the Judy Garland Birthplace Museum in Grand Rapids. MN.  A year ago somebody broke in and stole the original pair of ruby slippers that they had in the museum!!!!  WHO DONE IT???? Our largest theatre to date in Grand Forks, North Dakota!!  Gorgeous facility. On the campus of the University of North Dakota.  Who knew such a school even existed?  It was actually a very nice campus, but COLD...even in September.  I wouldn’t want to be there in January! Me, Marc, and Nellie posing outside of the Judy Garland Birthplace Museum! Me and cousin Anna, who drove all the way to Muncie, IN from her college (Indiana University) to see me in the show! The marquee for “Spamalot” in Pittsburgh, which many of us went to see while we were there! The “Indoor Waterpark” at our hotel in North Dakota. Our show billed right under Oliva Newton-John at the Luhrs Center for the Performing Arts in Shippensburg, PA! 2006-10-01T04:10:00-05:00 http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/judy_garlands_birthplace/ http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/judy_garlands_birthplace/#When:05:29:00Z 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!  2006-09-30T05:29:00-05:00 http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/playing_catch_up/ http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/playing_catch_up/#When:12:30:00Z It feels like it has been a lifetime since I have written a blog entry, so I thought I would take this opportunity to try and catch everyone up on everything that has happened.  After leaving Kentucky, we headed for Muncie, Indiana, home of Ball State University.  My cousin, Anna, made it out to see the show from Indiana University (where she goes to college) which was a lot of fun!  It was also particularly sweet of her to come because she had to drive a few hours one way to get there.  It was great to see her and we got a chance to catch up a little bit after the show because she came out to dinner with me and a few members of the cast.  Our audiences were small at that theatre and not very responsive, but I am glad that Anna got a chance to see it.  However, we did run into a few dads with their children in the restaurant we ate at after the show who had seen the show, and they were very complimentary and bought us some drinks in appreciation.  After Muncie, it was on to Elyria, Ohio.  This is where Melissa rejoined us and resumed her role of Mrs. Wigglesworth.  I am trying to remember if anything interesting happened there, and I can’t come up with anything...ohhh, i think this was our first hotel that we stayed in that had a pool which was exciting for us all!!  Oh, this is also where Laura’s parents saw the show and took the whole cast to Ruby Tuesday’s afterwards.  They really enjoyed the show and it was really nice of them to buy us dinner.  We headed to Pittsburgh next and the second we arrived in the city Nellie looked up what theatre was playing there and we discovered that the national tour of “Spamalot” was also in town at the same time.  We arrived at the hotel at about 6:45 and the show was at 7:30, so we immediately sprang into action and knocked on each other’s doors and rounded up a group to go see the show.  It was very entertaining and I was glad for the chance to see it since I haven’t seen the Broadway production yet.  Our theatre in Pittsburgh, the Byham Theatre, was a really great space, although both Marc and Melissa were not feeling very well and Nellie was just getting over something so the cast was not in particularly high spirits.  The audiences were large though and extremely responsive and excited which always makes it much more enjoyable to do the show!  Melissa, Jay, and I ate at a great restaurant that night called Six Penn, where I had the pumpkin bisque (mmm) and a very tasty burger.  We headed for a quick drink afterwards at a bar called “Oliver or Twist” (very clever) at the suggestion of our waitress at the restaurant.  We ran into Abby and Bill there who had just finished loading out our show.  After Pittsburgh, it was on to Shippensburg, PA!!  This theatre and staff were truly amazing!  We were treated like kings.  The cast ended up having a lot of time to kill in the theatre, but that was OK because the green room had a huge big screen TV, and a stocked refridgerator and whole lunch spread out on the table for us.  Laura’s parents had brought us the board game Mall Madness from their home (at our request) and we set it up in the green room and played.  Just when we thought things couldn’t get any better...(Golden Girls on the TV, huge feast on the table AND Mall Madness) one of the girls on the local crew pops her head in and asks us if we have any laundry that we’d like done!!  What???  We love Shippensburg!  They also provided us with an amazing dinner and an array of cheesecakes for dessert.  It was truly incredible.  Williamsport was next, and although the town was small and pretty dumpy, the theatre was really beautiful!  My parents drove out to see the show here and had a good time.  It was great to see them, and they also took the cast out for dinner afterwards.  The only place in town that we could find to eat was a small family operated pizza place, but it was very tasty.  After that, we headed to Colombus, Ohio where we played the Southern Theatre for two days.  I found out that Ann Hampton Callaway, one of my favorite singers, had been at the theatre for the two days before us and that was really cool.  I just saw her perform in New York City right before I left for the tour, and she was fantastic.  Melissa is also a huge fan of hers so she and I were both particularly excited that she had just performed on the same stage that we were about to perform on.  The theatre also has a book that they have all of the performers that come through sign, and we got to sign on the page directly after Ann’s!!  The other thing of note in Colombus was the hotel (the Doubletree) that had amazingly comfortable beds and free cookies at the front desk that are kept in a warmer so they are always warm and gooey (mmm).  Also, we headed for a bookstore (I forget the name) that had 32 rooms full of books!!!  It was crazy, and Marc and I went a little nuts buying books, but we decided we are going to start a bus book club and pass around the books as we finish them!  We also got recognized in the bookstore by a few people that had seen the show and they were really excited to see us which was funny.  We felt like celebrities! After the performances in Colombus, we got a few days off because we have to make the long trek out to North Dakota which is where we perform next.  We were very excited though because we are stopping along the way and staying over night in Chicago one night and Minneapolis the next.  Our night in Chicago was lots of fun.  Most of the cast headed out for dinner in Chicago and found a place that was very tasty and then headed for a bar called Sidetrack.  It is the equivalent of Splash Musical Mondays in New York City where they play clips from musicals all night long on a big screen and everyone sings along and has a great time.  It was a lot of fun!  Marc’s friend who does wardrobe for the Chicago production of “Spelling Bee” met us there as did some members of the cast and crew of “Spelling Bee.” It was a fun night out. Now I have almost caught up to where we are!!  We are currently in Minneapolis which is our second stop on the way out to North Dakota.  Our producer, Steve, offered to buy us all dinner on his credit card while we were here which was very nice.  Sara, our technical director had been to Minneapolis before and suggested a Russian restaurant called Moscow on the Hill.  The food was delicious!!  I had the Duck Ekaterina which was extremely tasty as well as a fun martini called the Russian Lemonade martini.  After that, we headed out on the town with Melissa’s friend Andrew as our bar tour guide.  These few days off from the show have been really nice and I am glad that we have stopped in large cities and had some free time to explore them.  We are headed back through both Minneapolis and Chicago later this week on our way back from North Dakota which will be great as well.  I think we have two full days off in Chicago coming up!  YAY!  2006-09-27T12:30:00-05:00 http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/kentucky/ http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/kentucky/#When:05:13:01Z We had our official opening in Ashland Kentucky at a really beautiful old theatre called the Paramount Arts Center, where we were very excited to see our show up on the center marquee billed alongside Frankie Valli!  There was also a festival going on in Ashland while we were in town so it was fun to walk around and see everything.  There was even a beauty pageant being held on a stage for all age groups from toddlers on up to teens.  It is amazing how obvious it is to the people in these parts of the country that our cast and crew are not from around there.  Most of the people were quite nice though and we struck up conversations with several of them.  This is the last city that we have Tim and Steven (our director and choreographer) with us.  They bought us all dinner and drinks on their last night in town.  We will miss them!!!  But they will be seeing the show periodically and checking in on us, and they will also be putting in a replacement for Nellie in the middle of October in Cinncinnatti.  We will have a new cast member joining us at that time. The ladies of the red hat society were staying in our same hotel and we took the opportunity to chat with them and take some photos.  Also, a Colonel Sanders (of Kentucky Fried Chicken Fame) look a like was walking around the festival, so of course I had to get my photo taken with him as well.  The shows went well, although the cast has agreed that we prefer school performances over these public performances.  There were many more crying children here in Ashland than there were in South Carolina, although we had several little girls come dressed in Disney princess outfits which we thought was very cute.  Also, a little girl recognized us later when we were walking around the festival and she wanted to give each of us a hug.  It was very cute.  Several of us in the cast bought “I Got Lucky In Kentucky” shirts! A shot of the cast on our tour bus. One of the game tables at the back of the bus (there are two of them). Some random tractors that were parked on the street for the festival in Kentucky! Our show up on the marquee at the Paramount Arts Center! Marc and I before the second show in Kentucky. Chatting with a red hat society lady! Sitting on a plastic pig in Kentucky… Our favorite backstage crew member in Ashland, KY! 2006-09-17T05:13:01-05:00 http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/party_at_mickeys/ http://www.jon-satrom.com/blog/index.php/site/party_at_mickeys/#When:05:10:00Z Last night was a lot of fun!  Mickey, our hostess in Clemson threw us a huge party at her home (which was huge and gorgeous)!  She had great food, and all the wine and beer we could drink.  It was so nice of her to do, and it gave the cast chance to gather everyone together and present the gifts that we had gotten for our directors and creative team.  Then, the producer and director/choreographer had a surprise for us as well.  They got gifts for us!  We got baseball hats and blankets that say intramusic theatricals on them, and we got a huge treasure chest of bus goodies like snacks, vitamin C, cough drops, card games, etc.  It was a really nice thing for them to do!  A great chance to unwind… When we left Mickey’s, we headed out to the local theatre bar, Nick’s, where once again I did not pay for a single drink because Rhys, our production manager kept picking up the tab.  Great night!  The party continued even after that in Marc and Jay (my cast mate’s) hotel room.  We all drank a lot and definitely felt it in the morning, but it was alright because we had a full day of travel ahead with no rehearsal and no performance. Today was our first day on the bus.  It is a great set up and about as comfortable as a bus could be.  We each get our own 2 seats and there are 2 game tables in the back where people can congregate to play cards and such.  It was a bit more cramped today than it will be normally because our director, choreographer, and production manager were on the bus with us to Ashland, and they will be leaving us shortly.  This is the last city that they are going to be around in.  There is also a DVD player and several small TV’s so we watched the movie “Adventures in Babysitting” on the way.  We also played lots of cards, and slept a lot and honestly it wasn’t all that terrible of a trip, despite the fact that it was about a 7 1/2 hour journey.  The time went quickly though and I don’t anticipate having much of a problem getting acclimated to the many hours on the bus.  We arrived in Ashland, Kentucky at about 9:30ish and headed out to the Boston Beanery for some food and a few drinks.  We have an understudy rehearsal tomorrow at 2:00 PM, but that is my first obligation for the day so I’m thrilled about that.  A chance to sleep in!  2006-09-15T05:10:00-05:00