Act Three - 12/03/05

Staunton, VA - I don't know why I get the feeling that there will be less to write about now that we're off the road, but I sense that's the case. Perhaps it's because there aren't new places to go to or to see and then write on what I'm seeing. All I can see at the moment is the Blackfriars Playhouse, which is right across the street. I'll be seeing a lot of that in the days to come, no doubt, but no new things to see and experience. Daniel has described the whole year's experience as a five-act play: Act One - Rehearsal; Act Two - Fall Leg; Act Three - A Christmas Carol; Act Four - Winter Leg; Act Five - Blackfriars Residence. So, consider this the beginning of Act Three.

I did promise a bit of a review about the fall tour, so I think I'll begin with that. I just finished uploading the last of the fall leg pictures to the Yahoo! website, with some videos left to go, and in winding that up it seemed the best idea to sort of put the wrap on the fall tour. So, in no special order:

• Best Stop on the Tour - New London, New Hampshire. It was mid-October, the leaves were in fine color, the weather was fantastic, the hike up Mt. Sunapee was breathtaking, the New London Inn provided fine accomodations, there wasn't a sign of MallofAmerica for miles, and the three opera houses were charming locations. About the only thing that maybe wasn't so fine was the fact that the Northeast Shakespeare Ensemble did not do a good job publicizing the fact that it was the ASC, and not the NESE, that was performing. It seemed to upset others more than me, but beyond that I think it was perhaps the nicest, most restful, most peaceful and most beautiful stop on the tour.
• Worst Stop on the Tour - Bangor, ME. The people and all were quite nice, but the space was abysmal. We turned the space around to play on the floor rather than the stage, and the stage left exit led immediately to the outdoors on a fairly chilly night. Just a lot of things seemed to go wrong that particular evening. I was late for two entrances in Richard III because I couldn't hear the cues from outside. Tough venue.
• Best Moment on the Tour - Very tough call. Getting a lobster dinner with Jessica seems to be the gut call, however. I thought I wasn't going to get a lobster dinner after missing the Bar Harbor stop. Hitting the summit of Sunappe with Jessica was also right up there. As was returning to the tour in Burlington VT.
• Worst Moment on the Tour - Leaving Orrville OH to go home. No contest.
• Best Audiences - Centenary College, Shreveport LA. When those kids jumped onto the stage during the encore of Planet I thought that was very cool, mostly because I was running to the merchandise booth and wasn't on stage, which looked like it was going to collapse at any moment. It was also fun to watch them get Greg to wave his butt at them. Centenary just loved us, and it was a shame we had to leave early.
• Hardest Audience - Maybe that has to go to Lawrenceville VA, mostly because the audience was the smallest we played for. It was hard to get them going with Planet.
• Best Moment on the Stage - It should be noted that the midnight show at St. Lawrence University has a tradition of being, shall we say, loose, with a lot of improvising going on for the fun of cast and audience. So this goes to the look on Tyler's face during the midnight show at St. Lawrence University when he made his first entrance as Ariel in Planet and the whole cast looked at me and asked, "Is he gay?"
• Worst moment on stage - Probably the performance of Prospero at Centenary. I don't know why it was so wretched, but I remember being really pissed at myself for a day afterward. I know I screwed up a lot of lines and my singing was atrocious that night. Coming in a close second was during a performance of R3 when I could not totally manage to control the urge to sneeze. One small one escaped during IViv, and I could see Tyler as Cateby begin to look towards me slowly. I did not dare meet his eyes.
• Best Drive - From Danville to Fredericksburg VA along Highway 350 (I believe). It was just a slow, even, pleasant drive, spectacular day, and not very long.
• Worst Drive - Maybe Birmingham to Shrevesport. The air conditioning was broken in the van and it was maybe 97 degrees outside. That's the drive where I took the picture of myself without my shirt. Some guy from England saw that picture and claimed he lost his job because his boss caught him looking at that picture and sacked him for viewing obscenity.
• Best Motel/Hotel - The New London Inn. A close second was the first motel we stayed in in Elon, NC. I believe it was a Country Suite or something like that. Kudos and thanks also have to go to Bruce and Karen in Canton NY.
• Worst Motel/Hotel - The Stratford Inn, Dansville VA. Just weird. Close second was W. Hartford CT, but we weren't there too long.

Tell you what - I'll stop there, and if you have any best/worst categories you'd like me to list, I will do that for you. Now here comes the list of Things I've Learned Along The Way:

• The hardest thing to give up on tour is your personal freedom. The schedule is tight, you're constantly on the move, and when you get someplace, your mobility is limited simply because you do not have unlimited access to a car. For example, in Fredericksburgh, all I got to see was a huge mall/shopping area, the motel, and Lee Hall. I never got to downtown Fredericksburgh where all the history is. Days off sometimes mean just hanging at the motel, partly because you're tired, partly because you can't get anywhere.
• I thought I'd have the worst bladder in the troupe. I don't.
• How they ever did things like this tour before cell phones and wireless internet I will never know.
• XM Radio rules. Period. Best investment I made.
• Garmin GPS units also rule. Not perfect, but it got us out of a couple of jams.
• You don't need quite as much entertainment as you thought. I have DVDs I haven't played, and I seldom crack out my iPod simply because the XM radio is sufficient. There really isn't much time to sit and entertain yourself. I saw one movie on the whole tour. Sleeping, performing, writing and keeping all the pictures and movies I take ordered and updated takes up pretty much all the time.
• Clothes are boring and overrated.
• Eating well can be a challenge. My heart goes out to the troupe vegetarians. Subway is good, but even that becomes old after a while. And they don't give you cards or a stamp card anymore. What's up with that?
• Most coffee in hotels/motels is swill. We travel with a coffeemaker I bought in Shreveport and Jessica keeps it stoked in emergencies. I've always tried to avoid Starbucks when possible, but on the road you can be sure you will get a good cup of coffee there.
• Touring is wearing on you physically and psychologically in ways you don't expect. You're not tired, but you're fatigued. Your voice is not totally shot, but it becomes weak. Your sense of time and space becomes cramped. The day of the week is inconsequential. Your whole sense of "body clock" can become totally whack. Exercise is spotty. It is almost impossible to settle into any sort of routine beyond the time when load-in begins and ends. And as far as you're concerned, there are only 11 people in the whole wide world besides you.

And if I come up with any others within the next month or so I'll be sure to put them in here. It's good to be in one place for a while, and losing $13 in poker last night to Tyler, Andrew and Chris seems to have relieved my tension and anxiety level a bit. I'll give you some thoughts on Christmas Carol as we move along with that as well. And in the meantime, you all should go over to another Atomic Fission blogger's site. Sarah Bowles has a blog going on right here, so give her a read as well and get another perspective other than this poor player's twisted view. -TWL