So, to
bring you up to date: The reception was very nice. President Dan Bradley and President Blair Montgomery of Fairmont State Community College gave us a nice welcome, along with members of the faculty and arts community. Dan was kind enough to have the playoff games on his wide-screen TV (we are in serious Steelers country) so we managed to catch the football games while socializing. The food was terrific - roast beef, some fancy chicken, meat pies and assorted vegetables - and there was an open bar. I am afraid I have to report that I consumed three alcoholic beverages - a martini and two gin and tonics - and not having had that much to drink in quite a long time probably contributed to my brief illness.We have had three matinees of Much Ado this week, and so on Monday morning we got right to it. They were all supposed to start at 10:00 AM but schools came late so none of them really started on time. On Monday we started the show about 20 minutes late with one of the schools still not there. They came in so far into the play that I find it hard to believe they got anything out of it. But there they were nonetheless. All the matinees had Q&As after them, and the questions ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. One young kid asked so intelligent a question on Tuesday that it took us all by surprise, comparing the idea of realism with Shakespeare's use of language. And Alyssa was asked by one smarmy kid if she was single. That's the paradox of doing school shows: you have to do them because the kids are the hope of building theatre audiences for the future, but at the same time the large percentage of them won't be affected in any way at all and just find small ways to be obnoxious. So it goes.
So anyway, after Monday's performance, I had lunch and then, during the day, began to feel weaker and weaker. By about 5:00 I knew I was coming down with something, so I started to take everything I could find. There's a lot of stuff out there, I've found: Airborne, Emergen-Cee, Dayquil, Nyquil, all sorts of pills and vitamins. I had Jessica take me to Rite-Aid after the workshop and bought a bottle of 1000mg Vitamin Cs as well as some daytime cold pill. I got back to the dorm room and climbed into my tiny little bed and tried to go to sleep. Now, living in the dorms has been, shall we say, unpleasant. The dorm I am in is a 1960s style corridor dorm showing its age. The bathroom is halfway down the hall. It's almost like I've been transported to my undergraduate dorm days, except I'm not quite 19 anymore, and it's a LONG walk to the bathroom when you have to pee out all the liquids you've been taking every 20 minutes. Plus the dorm is not exactly quiet, nor is the heat easy to control. The air is so hot and dry that I had to shut the heat completely off in order to breathe, and with the thin blankets they gave us, I have to dress fairly warm in order to sleep. I did manage to get some sleep over the nightly 2AM din, and got up to do the Tuesday matinee feeling pretty shitty.
I did get through the matinee performance OK, sweating quite a bit, but that probably got some more sickness out. I swapped out workshop times with Jessica and immediately had some lunch and went back to my room. Now I suppose a dorm room isn't too bad if you've got a bunch of your stuff in there and made it your home, but with nothing in the room but my suitcase and me it's kind of barren and sterile. So between trying to sleep, pee, and eat I found that my computer was a good source of entertainment. I watched a number of Northern Exposure episodes, listened to public radio and some of my music as well. I called home and also talked with Eric a bit, which passed the time. This time I knocked myself out with some Nyquil and got a good night's sleep, so that when I got up to do Wednesday's matinee I felt a bit better. I took some Dayquil before the show, and that helped as well. After eating lunch Wednesday I felt well enough to sit in the student center and pass the time before my evening workshop rather than return to my room. I did not have to get up early this morning for a matinee, so today I feel better yet, although I haven't tried to sing. Yesterday, when I started talking, all the phlegm started coming up from my lungs, so I had a few coughing fits. But so far today so good - I haven't taken anything but my vitamins, and I have nothing to do until tonight's show. Now we do each of our shows over then next three nights, and then a day off and a drive to Chicago on Monday.
I suppose being sick the past few days has colored my impressions of Fairmont a bit, but notwithstanding my illness, the place is both a nice place to stay and sort of depressing at the same time. The Falcon Center, where I am right now as I write this, is a very nice complex housing all the common activities. The dining hall, workout center, basketball courts, student center, bookstore, minimart and gameroom are all here. It is clearly the place to hang when you have nothing to do in particular, and it's a cool place to be. The dorm's internet connection is rather lousy; I suspect the bandwidth is very low and there are some firewall controls on it, but in the Falcon Center the wireless connection is nice and speedy, though there is a curious lack of power outlets. I've not had the energy to much exploring of the campus other than the center. The college itself is not in close proximity to any sort of shopping or downtown area, so going to any off-campus hangouts requires a bus trip or something, and again, I haven't the energy for that. I've also not worked out at all to conserve energy, but hopefully I can pick that up again starting tomorrow. I want to get into the sauna this afternoon before the show to clear out all the nasal passages and such. I'll probably get to the library sometime, but other than that being confined to the campus is sort of, well, confining. I have no idea what I'm going to do on Sunday's day off. I can't imagine there's a lot to do on campus on Sunday, nor much happening downtown. I thought of renting a car and driving up to Pittsburgh for the day, but of course that costs $$$ and I'm a little low on funds at the moment. I suppose I should look at it as an opportunity to fine-tune my video page and do some tagging and fill in descriptions of my photo site. Why not?
This
is the first time Blackfriars has visited Fairmont State, and I hope we are making a good enough impression to get a contract from them for next year. The people have been very nice. Rhonda, our main contact, has been to Staunton a number of times, and I can tell she's very excited to have us here. Workshop attendance has been a bit small but enthusiastic. I met a few theatre students and they are excited to have us here as well, which is a good sign. On balance I would say this is a good stop, and had I not gotten sick I'm sure I'd like it here a lot. The theatre itself is a nice place to play, almost perfect in many ways for what we do. it's a small, acoustically good space which seats about 400, although it doesn't look like that at all. We've been able to use their laundry facilities for company laundry, and since I'm one of the laundry captains this week that's been a blessing. In fact, this place has done everything right so far with the exception of the dorm rooms, which I think nobody really likes. Now that I feel better, all I have to do is figure out how to spend my day with the least amount of time in the room, and I'm OK. I haven't got a lot of pictures yet of this place, but I'll start snapping again today and get some more pictures for you to see with the next post. I am looking forward to the evening performances for sure, as I think we're going to get some enthusiastic audiences. So I'll sign off now, get some lunch, a svitz and maybe a walk, and then off to Planet D'Ylliria. -TWL
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