October 31, 2010 Happy Halloween!

Hello, it has been awhile since I was here writing to you. We have now performed in 16 cites, 7 States and 1 Canadian Province!! There isn’t a lot of down time on this tour and this blog business is harder than I thought. My sister did warn me….Well, I did learn a good lesson. I don’t know if you remember, I tried to write an installment one night a few weeks ago, had several versions as the computer keyboard is touchy and erased several of my versions until finally it was 3 am, I was frustrated and tired and just wrote a shortened version. Now I am using Word Documents so I can save my work as I go along and not have it vanish into the netherworld of cyberspace. Well enough of; that let us journey along the highways of America on a bus shall we?

OY!! Riding on a bus for 8 hours is the most uncomfortable thing I have ever done. I thought I could sleep anywhere. I have been known to fall asleep sitting in uncomfortable positions in a car. This is not so easy on a bus. If you happen to be thinking of going on tour, make sure you negotiate in your contract that you will have the bus seat plus the seat next to you as well so that you can stretch out. Even with that I have to extend my legs into the aisle at times. Some of the others who have a seat mate end up sleeping on the floor. Muscle cramps and a sore back are everyday occurrences. Then, of course, we have to get off the bus and go perform!! I am painting a rather absurd picture, but most of it is true. In reality, the Company Manager, who is great, arranges for us to arrive at our destination with two hours to spare before we have to be at the theater. Thus, we can hit the exercise room, stretch, take a shower or a nap or go find somewhere to eat, all before our 5pm company meeting.

You see, every venue is different. Stage left might have a large wing or no space at all. We have a very large house and a tailor shop that live in the Stage Right Wing. Some nights, we get to the theater to find out that entrances have to be adjusted as there just isn’t space for people and set!! We will be in a theater this week that has no pit for the orchestra. That will be an adventure. Anyway, back to the schedule. We get to the theater; have the meeting where they tell us changes to the show and where everything is-i.e. costumes, mikes, props, bathrooms. Next is Sound Check. Whenever we get to a new venue, which this week will be everyday, Deniz and Crystal, our fabulous Sound Team, have the orchestra and the actors do a sound check. This is very important as each house has different acoustics. Sometimes there is reverb that needs to be addressed, sometimes it is monitors out of place, always it is what we will sound like in the venue. They do a terrific job!! My husband, Peter, was at our opening in Detroit at the Fabulous Fox Theater, built in the 1920’s and you wouldn’t believe all the greats who have performed there and signed the wall (now including our cast!!). Anyway, Peter said the sound was so great. After sound check we have a half hour to get something to eat or rest or start to get ready for the show.

In rereading what I have just written, I realized I should probably tell you a day in the life:

If we are heading to a new venue our schedule looks like this:

A time for luggage drop off for the bus, a half hour later we depart. Most mornings if we have a long bus ride, the day starts at  7:30 am or 8:00am. We have also had some 6:30am starts!! After a performance the night before!! This is not the life for the faint of heart!!

On the bus trip, we stop for 15 minutes every two hours to stretch, hit a bath room and have an hour to eat a meal. If it is a short ride, under 5 hours, we don’t get a meal stop as we will eat once we reach our destination. Once we arrive at the hotel, there is usually 2 hours before bus call to go to the venue for the stuff I mentioned earlier. If we are lucky enough to be in a place for more than one night, we don’t have to be at the theater until a half hour before curtain. These days are great as one can sleep late, see some of the surrounding countryside or just do one’s own thing!

Laundry is another task that becomes part of the learning curve. When to do it, where, how to fit it into the schedule, how to pack so you have enough clothes without taking multiple suitcases out of the bus for one nighters…..Most of the hotels we are staying in have one washing machine and one dryer. If you take too long getting to the laundry room, the line is quite long and your day is taken up doing laundry. Some of us now have our laundry bags on the bus and immediately hit the laundry room before we even go to our hotel room! During the rehearsal period, when we had meetings about what to pack, large numbers of underwear were mentioned!! Since we have such a large number of one nighters, and we are on and off the bus nearly everyday, it does become difficult to schlep large suitcases on and off the bus, so most of us have figured out how to pack for two or even three weeks at a time, find that laundry room and keep wearing the same clothes. In fact, today is a GOLDEN DAY, meaning we don’t have to travel AND we don’t have a performance tonight. So today the Bus Driver, Dave who is so fabulous and kindhearted is taking the bus and anyone who needs to do laundry to the Laundromat. The hotel’s machine is not working…..Thank goodness I did Laundry a couple of hotels ago!!

Seeing America from the bus is interesting. From my perspective a lot of the uniqueness of areas has been lost due to the standardization of building malls and fast food joints. They are everywhere. The scary thing is if one has been sleeping on the bus and wakes up once the bus stops, looks around, it looks the same as the last stop and one starts to wonder have we just gone in a circle. The same stores, the same fast food, boring!!!!!!!!!!!! For variety one day, our Company Manager had the bus go on smaller highways instead of the Interstate. We passed through smaller towns that did have personality and local shops. In one such shop we had a wonderful experience. They were having the local Lions Club meeting, so there were several older gentlemen sitting discussing various events for Paducah, Texas. As all 28 of us converged on the bathrooms and shop, some of the men started talking to us. One asked our Music Director a great question, “Are y’all traveling or are you going somewhere?” to which our MD responded, “Yes.” Then another gentleman asked another cast member what we were doing, he was told we were part of the Fiddler on the Roof National Tour traveling throughout the US and Canada to which the gentleman from Paducah responded, “That’s nice. Most people who come through here are either lost or on the run!” Tells you how out of the way and small this place really was.

The other wonderful thing about America is how nice everyone is. Wherever we have gone people have gone out of their way to be nice to us. We have had wonderful experiences in terrific restaurants and hotels across Middle America. We begin our Southern Experience now. We leave Texas tomorrow and head for Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida with a quick trip into Arkansas. All of our audiences have been terrific, cheering and clapping and continuing to give us standing ovations. As we were getting on the bus, two sisters ran over to us one night after a show in Amarillo, Texas. They were cute as could be; the younger one was no more than 10 years old. She was jumping up and down in her enthusiasm about the show. She said we were “Awesome!” Both sisters thought we were terrific and really enjoyed the performance and wanted to tell us. It was so special to see how we affect our audiences, especially young children!

We also have local crew members and local dressers to help us with the costumes. There is not a lot of time to talk or socialize with these people, but they have all been so terrific and kind and I would like to publicly thank them here. It is a very hard job they do. The crew, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, travel by bus overnight and get to the venue before us. They instruct the crew and dressers as to what the night ahead will bring. Most times it is just for one performance. Luckily we just had three shows in Lubbock, so we all could get used to the routine at this theater and by the third show, things were really rocking!

Well, is seems I have covered all I wanted to say this time around. I want to go spend some of my valuable “GOLDEN DAY” hours in the exercise room and then out to dinner with some members from our orchestra! Happy Halloween to all and to all a good night.