Which asks no duties and no conscience?
The moon goes up by leaps, her cheerful path
In some far summer stratum of the sky,
While stars with their cold shine bedot her way.
The fields gleam mildly back upon the sky,
And far and near upon the leafless shrubs
The snow dust still emits a silver light.
Under the hedge, where drift banks are their screen,
The titmice now pursue their downy dreams."
-Thoreau
Time: Early afternoon.
Destination: Waterbury, Connecticut.
Transportation: Matilda the Merry Chamber Van.
Route: The Tappan Zee Bridge.
We crossed the bridge into New York, and caught a brilliant view of the NYC skyline as we did so. That sea of buildings thrusting up towards the cold blue sky, surrounded by rivers and pallisades, made for a welcome sight. So welcome in fact that Meg, the driver, was intent on turning tha van around and making a run for the City . . . . but thankfully we talked her out of it, and she delayed her New York frenzy for another week.
A few hours later we were coasting in to Waterbury, CT. Its a charming city, situated amongst rolling hills, with lots of beautiful old churches and a lovely downtown plaza. After some misdirection, we found our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express Downtown and settled in for an extended four-day stay. Since we are used to staying in each hotel for one night at a time, or two at the most, four in one place was quite a luxury.
The first thing we noticed upon our arrival at the Holiday Inn, was the dun-colored fifteen-passenger van that could have been Matilda's twin. It was sitting in the parking lot, and emblazoned across both sides was a giant decal reading:
Shakesperience!
Theatre For Young Audiences
Waterbury, CT
What luck! thought I. We had somehow encountered another touring band of actors. We could meet up with them and swap stories from the road, find out what tour was like with another company, and hear of all the crazy adventures they'd had, places they'd been. What an opportunity. In my room upstairs, I then devised a means of communicating with this van. I was worried, because the company was from Waterbury, CT (where we were) which means the van could just be parked there permanently. If I left a note, there was no telling if anyone would see it for days, or even weeks. But I decided why not, take a chance right?
So, in the spirit of the Bard, I penned the following lines and attached them to the van's windshield:
When two itinerant companies meet,
In the course of traveling the country round,
Could there be a more true, or nobler feat?
Stories, new friendships are sure to abound.
If thou wouldst commune, do give us a call,
We'll share a brew or two, good times for all!
-Ichabod & The Barnstormers
And with that I left the rest up to fate, and prepared to head out to Meg's parent's house for dinner. This was an occasion we had all been looking forward to for a few weeks. Her parents live just thirty minutes outside of Waterbury, in an absolutely gorgeous home, tucked away in the woods by a lake. Could it be any more idyllic? I think not.
We all piled in to the van around five-thirty that evening, and made our way out. Meg had requested Thanksgiving dinner for the menu, since we had missed out on the traditional fare the week before. And with visions of turkey legs and stuffing dancing through our hungry actor=minds, we arrived at the aforementioned house, and were treated to an evening of culinary delights and gracious hospitality.
Meg's parents started us off with drinks and a tour of the house, all of which was decorated with a bird motif. One could literally turn in any direction at any time anywhere in the house and find a bird=object somewhere. After we had settled in, we all sat down for a traditional thanksgiving dinner, that surpassed our wildest (and hungriest) dreams. After we had taken in all that we could (and a little more) we retired to the basement to play some ping-pong (remarkably similar to another family evening in Texas . . .) and prepared ourselves for dessert.
One of the evenings highlights by far, was playing with the family dog, Molly. She is a beautiful, friendly golden retriever, who couldn't get enough of us. Or maybe we just couldn't get enough of her. I know they use dogs as therapy for people going through rehab . . . perhaps we could convince Chamber to get us a tour-therapy dog? I'm sure it would make us a much happier company. Or maybe we'll just have to sneak back to Connecticut for some dog-napping . . . Either way, it did us all a lot of good spending time with man's best friend.
Finally, leftovers in tow, we went merrily back home and slept very soundly. Meg stayed the night at her parent's house and was able to sleep in her own bed, a much needed luxury. Sunday we mostly lazed about the hotel or browsed through the Barnes and Noble a few blocks down, recovering for the week to come. We had heard rumors that the show might be canceled Monday, because the first big snow storm of the year was coming through Sunday night. We all crossed our fingers and wished like elementary school kids for a snow day.
To our dismay the next morning, there was no snow on the ground. It was just cold and icy. We were lamenting this over breakfast, when Erin came in to say that the show was canceled! Evidently the ice had been treacherous enough that the school districts delayed opening and subsequently couldn't make the show. Our only task then was to load in the set so that we could play the venue the following day. Half an hour of work for a full day's pay? No problem.
The Palace Theater, where we were playing in Waterbury, was a breathtaking space. Originally built in the 20's it had been newly renovated just four years earlier, restored to its former majesty. A beautiful marble entry way with floor to ceiling gilded mirrors, velvet everything, and a sweeping domed roof with filigree and ornamentation fit for a king. It certainly lived up to its lofty title.
I found out from the theater manager that the Palace had been derelict for over forty years. Evidently the man who owned it was default on his taxes and couldn't afford to keep the place up, so he just let it go. It got really run down, was squatted for a number of years, and by the late 90's, one could stand on the stage, turn a full circle and see daylight in all directions peaking in through holes in the walls and ceiling. Finally the state came in and dumped 34 million to restore and renovate the old theater, which is now also used as a facility for the performing arts high school. From the way it looks today, one would have no idea of the turbulent history it hides.
So we all took it easy again, enjoying the free time by doing a whole lot of nothing. The day went by lazily, and the next morning we played to a capacity crowd in the Palace. It was certainly a pleasure performing in that magnificent house, and afterwards we saddled up and journeyed back south towards New York, Long Island to be more specific, for our next day's show.
Mapquest Misadventure
Ahh, New York. As I was driving us down through the Bronx, I suddenly realized why it is that all my previous visits to this city had been by bus, train, or plane: because driving around in the unfettered madness that is NYC is a quick trip to the crazy house.
It all started with our Mapquest directions. Now granted, Mapquest is a great service, and it gets you where you need to be a solid 70 percent of the time. Its just that 30 percent margin of error that's the problem. Mapquest has a tendency to be very non-specific. For instance, when one is traveling to Long Island, and the directions tell you to take the George Washington bridge. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Manhattan, the George Washington bridge is on the west side of the island. Long Island, is on the east. Now, I am no New Yorker, neither is Kate who was navigating. But I have spent enough time in the city to know that the G.W. bridge would take us to New Jersey. As I started raising these concerns, Kate rechecked the Mapquest directions, which said basically:
Take G.W. Bridge exit.
turn left
Continue on to Long Island.
Ummm . . . excuse me? Could you give us a clue?!
With these directions we descended into the maelstrom of highways, and sure enough, ended up in New Jersey. By the time we realized our mistake there was no going back. Long story . . . long, we ended up going down the coast of New Jersey, across Staten Island, got lost for about an hour in Brooklyn, and eventually ended up in the unrelieved suburbanization that is Long Island. We got to the hotel around 8:30 pm, and everybody crashed. On top of this, it turned out we had a 6:30 am call the next morning, because the venue was a 45 minute drive from the hotel. Brilliant.
The one bright spot about the next morning's performance however, was that my sister Diana was coming in from Manhattan to see it! That took some coordination as well, since she had to take about 85 different train connections and a taxi to finally get out to where we were. But she got to see the show and had lunch with us afterwards. It began snowing lightly as we ate lunch, and after we dropped Diana off at the train station and bid her farewell, we headed back on the road to Reading, PA.
Not much to say about Reading. The only interesting bit of trivia for me as a southerner was that its pronounced 'Red-ing' not 'Reed-ing'. So in the future, when playing Monopoly, I can be a snob when saying Reading Railroad, and correct people. What fun!
The next morning it was cold. SO cold. So. Cold. It was the first real wintry morning we had had. And it became clear to many of us that our clothing was not sufficient. This was compounded by the fact that we had to park the van half a mile from the venue and walk to it, not to mention loading in the show from the alley because there was no loading dock. So after freezing our little tushies off on the walk over, we spent another thirty minutes outside unloading the truck and losing feeling in our extremities. The theater was actually quite beautiful, but nobody noticed because it was so cold we couldn't feel feelings!
Anyway . . . the audience was quite small because half the schools canceled on account of the weather. (see! it wasn't just us! It WAS that cold) But they were very energized and seemed to enjoy the performance. That being said, we did have one hilarious flub on stage that morning. It came at the very end of the show, during The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Kate is supposed to introduce the Parson as he and his wife walk on stage. She normally says:
"Why, Parson Walker's Wife . . . "
(they enter)
I guess the cold had really gotten to Kate that morning, because for some reason she just couldn't get that sentence out. What she did get out, sounded something like this:
"Why, Puh . . Parker . . . Park . . . Parker . . . P-P-Parker Walker's Wife"
(they entered hesitantly)
She covered it well by reiterating the PARSON on her next line, so the audience knew what was going on. We of course couldn't get enough of it, and after the show choruses of "Parker, Parker, Parker!" followed Kate wherever she went.
Load out went considerably better than load in, due mostly in part to the fact that it was a solid ten degrees warmer by then. All things considered though, we have certainly conquered the process of this touring production. In fact, you could call our operation a well-oiled machine. I remember the first time we had to load the set in on our own, it took us the better part of three hours. Even during the first few weeks of tour, once we had gotten the hang of things, it still took us a solid hour and a half to get everything ready, leaving us just enough time to get into costume and warm up. These days, we're often done loading in and setting up in about forty-five minutes. We zip around the stage, uncoiling cable, bolting things together and setting out the trappings of props and costumes, and before you know it, we're all sitting in the dressing room, drinking coffee, reading the paper and goofing around. Its really incredible to see how efficient the whole process has become.
We must be doing something right, because the company only sent someone out to check on our show last week. During the normal course of a Chamber Theatre tour, they do periodic 'spot checks' of the performances, for quality control. We had been expecting this for months, hearing the reports of other companies who had been checked, and were wondering when our turn was coming up. Since it was December and we only had three more weeks of tour left, we figured we must be doing something right. And much to our delight when our Production Manager surprised us by showing up to our performance in Waterbury, she was pleased with how things went and had very few notes. Oh yeah baby: well-oiled machine!
We finished the week out with a private performance in Dallastown, PA, at a local middle school. We usually dread these days, because it means no crew and strange spaces, etc. But this stop proved to be a real jewel. There was an army of wide-eyed middle schoolers waiting to help us, and the kids were so into it. They loved the show, and we ate lunch with them afterwards in the cafeteria. Now we all had reservations about this course of action, remembering our own middle school cafeterias. I think I ate chili-cheese fritos and little debbie cakes for those three years, and that's not something I'm particularly proud of. But much to our surprise, they had a first-rate dining facility. There were fruits, veggies, salads, turkey wraps, stuffed pizza, vitamin water, granola bars, yogurt, all kinds of crazy vitamin-healthy-green-super foods. I could not believe it. Maybe some progress really is being made to make kids eat healthier. We were certainly pleased.
At the lunch table, the kids oohed and aahed and asked us a bunch of questions. How do you act like that? How do you remember the lines? How tall are you (me)? How old are you? etc.
It was fun, but a little overwhelming. One of the kids confessed he had seen a Broadway show in New York. He went on to say, and I quote: "I mean, Broadway was cool and all, but you guys were WAY better!"
:)
From the mouths of babes! So needless to say, we (and our egos) loved those children. That night we headed in to Philadelphia, where we would remain for the next four days. And the City of Brotherly Love had its arms wide open . . .
-ICHABOD
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