That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea,
Yet never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me."
-Emily Dickinson
A triumphant return to Philadelphia! It had been over two months since our last encounter here; one that was as delightful as it was surprising. Now we returned to Penn State's cultural capitol, and celebrated our return by going to see Beowulf 3-D (again). Peter had not seen it yet, and it had made such an impression the first time around, the rest of us went for another go. Glorious 3-dimenional action!
The second thing that half of us did was get out of town! Erin, Nate and Meg made use of Philly's geography and headed in to New York City for the next day. No brotherly love from those three, they were on the first train out. I spent the evening with my friend Jessica, and went to see a show she was in that night. The rest of the crew explored the hotel surroundings, and the amazing Indian restaurant next door.
While we were cruising around that afternoon, I received a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. I answered and to my great surprise it was a man named Tony, who runs the Shakesperience! Theatre Company in Waterbury. It turns out he HAD received my little sonnet (see previous entry), only he found it two days after we had left Waterbury. He thanked me for the note, and was sorry to have missed us. After ascertaining that we would not be back in Connecticut, he lamented our missed opportunity, but said that if we made it back his way we should definitely give him a call. At least it wasn't all in vain!
We also decided to explore the King of Prussia Mall, America's largest shopping center. Yes, I know most of you are yelling at your computer screens "No! No you misinformed youth! The Mall of America is the biggest!!!" Well . . . its the biggest single building mall, however King of Prussia dwarfs it with its multiple building complex. So there you go. Its quite an impressive place, and they were even giving out free starbucks coffee, so we were instant fans. That being said the mall is completely overwhelming. But after a few hours and a few breaks to eat and gawk and wonder at the enormity of it all, we had made some purchases, had a meal and gotten the whole experience. Chief among our loot were new jackets for Peter and I, as well as socks and other warm-weather gear. We shall not be caught in the cold unprepared again!!!
Monday we set up shop in the Keswick Theater where we were playing for the next few days. The crew was amazing, really efficient and loads of fun to hang out with. We found out that Wynona Judd had played the theater the night before, and the crew couldn't stop cracking jokes about how mediocre her performance had been, and how much food she had brought with her. The rumor was she had microwaves at every off stage position, including one in her quick-change station. I guess when you're a superstar, you get to have nuked lasagna whenever and wherever you want.
The show went well, and we ended up going out to lunch with the crew. Since we were playing the venue two days in a row and didn't have to load out the set, we turned lunch into a leisurely afternoon, and took it easy for the rest of the day. My friend Jessica had tried to see the performance that morning, but was unfortunately rear-ended on the way to the theater. So it was doubly fortuitous that we were in town for two performances. She saw it the next day, and after another lunch with the super crew, we headed on the road to Harrisburg.
We arrived at the venue the next morning to find it was a theater attached to a Masonic Temple (this would become a theme for the rest of the week). The crew and facilities were very professional, and the highlight was the dressing rooms downstairs. They were huge, and outfitted with old 20's style barbers chairs!! The retro quality was amazing:
And in our enthusiasm over the swanky decorations, we were inspired by the upcoming premiere of Sweeney Todd (opening this weekend! can't wait!) and decided to take some tribute pics in the barber chairs:
Johnny Depp: eat your heart out.
Right . . . so after Harrisburg it was on to Pittsburg. One 'burg' after another . . .but this one was considerably more impressive. Very few of us had every been to Pittsburgh and so didn't know what to expect. We were overwhelmed by the architecture, and the gorgeous buildings everywhere. Carnegie really outdid himself back in the day. In fact, we were playing at the Carnegie Music Hall which was easily one of the most beautiful buildings I've seen in America. It reminded me a lot of the Residenz palace in Munich, with marble pillars, gold everything, and rich ornamentaion.
What we were not impressed with however, were the conditions of our work that morning. First of all, there was a driving downpour and sub-zero temps. Speaking of temps, there was no house crew at the Carnegie Hall (guess they spent too much on the deco) and the temps that Chamber was supposed to have hired for the day all failed to show up. So we were unloading our set in the rain, and also had no direct access to the stage because there were two gigantic grand pianos in the way. It was a rough start to a rough day.
We eventually got things sorted out and loaded in. The hall was packed to the brim, and because the seating was wrap-around, baroque style, there were three thousand kids, many of whom could see all the way backstage. There were also no curtains (its a music hall, not a theater) so our entrances/exits were not masked. Suffice to say, it was a very rough show. On top of this, I had gotten sick, and my throat was really scratchy (another trend that will continue throughout the rest of the tour . . . ) so I barely got the words out, what with the throat closing and the fever and all.
But, we got through it. And Chamber sorted out six crew members by the time the show was over to help with load out. And they bought us lunch for all of our trouble. All in all, not a terrible day, but certainly a trying one. After the show, we all spent our Chamber-lunch-money and stuffed ourselves. Then we took a moment for a photo op (or two) among the crazy statuary and buildings in downtown Pittsburgh.
Finally it was back on the road, this time to Cleveland (???). Yes, I know, it doesn't make sense. We were supposed to be the southern tour, and the Midwest was definitely not our turf. But it was only a two hour drive from Pittsburg, and we drove it. We were all a bit confused though, and as we arrived, sodden, tired and ready for the week to be over, Brent summed up our mood with: "Did we really just drive to Cleveland?"
For all that, it looked pretty much like the last three cities we had stopped in. A lot of hunched gray buildings, an indefinitely shaped body of water, a Comfort Inn. Its hilarious how most of the tour goes by in a blur of hotel keys, van rides, loading docks and dressing rooms.
The next morning we played at another Masonic Temple, but this one was gigantic. The building itself took up an entire city block in both directions. The theater was a giant stadium-type thing that was used for Masonic ceremonies, and was mostly concrete. Because of this, and the relatively small audience (only about 500 in a hall built for thousands) we had an incredible echo that morning, despite Nate's best efforts to equalize. We adjusted as best we could, but still found it hilarious to hear our lines coming out like this:
"Matilda Loisel-el-el-el-el . . . was a great-at-at-at success-s-s-s-s-s-s."
That performance concluded the non-New England portion of our tour. We were headed back to finish up in the north east, and chose the dubious halfway point of Milesburg, PA (yet another burg) where we stayed for the night. Ironically, this was also the chosen halfway point for another traveling theatre troupe, run by Theatre Works out of New York. We caught up with them in the lobby, and eventually met for drinks later that night. We swapped stories and thoroughly enjoyed one another's company.
Saturday morning we started off again towards Springfield Massachusetts, where we would be playing Monday morning. Erin and Nate had cleverly routed our trip through Scranton, PA, where we stopped for lunch. Fans of 'The Office' will already be ululating at the top of their lungs after reading the last sentence, for Scranton is the setting for that most-successful of television shows, which Erin, Nate and Meg have been watching fanatically for the entire duration of the tour. So we stopped and took pictures of everything and saw the sights. Scranton itself is doing a nice job of capitalizing on the attention, with cardboard cut outs of the show's characters and realistic looking signs for the fictional paper company "Dunder-Mifflin" where the show takes place. The 'Welcome to Scranton' sign, which is featured in the show's intro, actually had to be moved to the local mall because so many people were stopping on the side of the road to take pictures it was causing congestion. We took the obligatory pics and ate lunch before moving on.
Upon finally arriving in Springfield, we all holed up for the next two days, to get away from the weather. Winter was in full swing, and doing its best to whiteout New England. This trend continued throughout our last week, to be concluded in the final installment of Ichabod & The Barnstormers . . .
-ICHABOD
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