11/14-11/20
This past week was pretty uneventful in terms of show drama. A little rough for me at first…I finally started to feel the exhaustion of the schedule in my voice and body…but, technically the show's been running a lot smoother. We started the week in Fort Smith, AR, which went fine and then moved on to Bartlesville, OK on Tuesday for another solid show. Highlight of the week for me: my wonderful boyfriend Dan drove three hours from Kansas to see the show in Oklahoma and spend some time with me. =) It was so nice to see him for more than a few hours...the first time since the summer we got to spend a couple days together!
We ended the week in Shreveport, LA and Conway, AR. I was kinda wishing we had more time in Shreveport--there seemed to be a lot of history in the town, including a church from the 1850s and the theatre itself, built in 1925 as a vaudeville house. Also, the hotel had a Starbucks in the lobby, a pretty lovely view of the bayou and Red River from the gym, and the best beds and towels I've experienced on this entire tour…so that didn't hurt. =)
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| View from the gym! Intersection of the Cross Bayou and the Red River |
Loved the people in Shreveport, too--everywhere I went they were bubbly and nice, and our audience was one of the best yet--I got more entrance applause, which was so fun! They clapped and cheered a ton, sometimes in places it's never happened before…and they went nuts when the witch melted later in the show!
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| The Strand Theatre in Shreveport...another beautiful one! |
Conway was the next day, and a looooong day it was. A few of us had an audition for Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre--a summer Shakespeare festival that just happened to be auditioning the day of our show, on the campus where we were performing. A bizarre, and we thought fortuitous, coincidence...the latter remains to be seen! I was thrilled to be able to be there, and we all felt our auditions went fine, but we literally got off the bus after a 4 or 5-hour ride without stopping at the hotel, changed at the theatre, and hurried right over to the audition. It was completely exhausting...but we did it!
Later that night...in spite of our first technical delays of the week and a women's dressing room the size of the hallway in my New York apartment, we managed to pull off a decent show...complete with my roommate's long-awaited entrance applause! She lives in Arkansas not far from Conway, so her fan club was in attendance. =) We also had ushers in costume (the one I saw was dressed as the lion), and really cute munchkins once again! I got to talk to them more than usual too because the only bathroom was in our tiny dressing room, and they were so funny--"How many wigs do you wear?," "How many characters do you play?," "How do you change from Auntie Em to Glinda so fast?"...definitely not a shy group!
Now, we're in California! We survived what I've fondly referred to as "hell on wheels"--two veeeeeery long bus days Sunday and Monday--and we have two shows in San Bernardino, one tonight and one tomorrow.
As always, check out www.wizardofozontour.com for upcoming show dates and locations…lots of love to you all!
xoxo
Kelly
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