OK, prior to my last post, I left off the week of 11/20. We started the week traveling from Arkansas to California...needless to say, those were a couple of rough 14-hour bus days. It's a very interesting predicament, waking up and not knowing what state you're in. We stayed in Albuquerque when we hit the halfway point, which was just a tease--a gorgeous shopping district literally across the street (complete with Trader Joe's!), and one of the nicest hotels we've stayed in to date (our rooms were practically apartments! and they came with toothpaste; you didn't even have to ask for it!). And we were there for something like 10 hours...ah, well...on to California!!
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| San Bernardino, CA...check out those mountains! |
I really enjoyed San Bernardino...we were surrounded by gorgeous mountains, the theatre was beautiful and old with so much history, and it was just so nice to be in one place for two days...but the best parts were my long-awaited pilgrimage to In-N-Out, for one, and seeing friends of mine from show choir and theatre back in high school who came out to see the show Wednesday night!
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| The California Theatre of the Performing Arts in San Bernardino! |
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| The theatre, from the front... |
The other best part was my fairy godmother, as she came to be known. Tuesday before the show one of the local dressers overheard me asking if there was coffee or hot water set up anywhere, and she went to get me a cup of coffee from the lobby and said the next day there would be a carafe of each backstage. Wednesday, I got to my dressing room--which no one else shared--and there was a carafe of hot water, a carafe of coffee, cups, spoons, napkins, tea bags, and sugar sitting in front of my mirror. I felt like a star. =)
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| Coffee, tea, and my very own dressing room... =) |
Unfortunately, it all went downhill from there. Well, technically, we went uphill--towards Colorado--but the next day was pretty rough...another long travel day that ended in a Thanksgiving buffet set up for us in a restaurant in Utah. We ended up getting in later than expected and driving right to the restaurant--which none of us were aware of beforehand. I hadn't showered and wasn't wearing a bra or real shoes…but, in we went. It was a fairly janky Thanksgiving dinner and I missed my family like crazy but we were all grateful to have each other, and food, at least!
Later that night…after some group hot tub time, which was actually really nice…and some laundry that just wouldn't dry, which wasn't so nice…I started feeling not super great. Eventually that led to a night hugging the porcelain goddess and puking my guts up every half hour or so…until finally I had to go to the ER.
=( There was no way I could get on a bus at 8 the next morning for another long travel day with the state I was in. Found out eventually it was food poisoning, and I survived…thanks to fluids, anti-nausea meds, and my amazing roommate Laurie who was with me through the whole thing…and also our awesome bus driver who took me to the hospital at 5:30 in the morning! Thank you Brent!! But…oof. Worst Thanksgiving ever. At least I know it can only get better from there!
=( There was no way I could get on a bus at 8 the next morning for another long travel day with the state I was in. Found out eventually it was food poisoning, and I survived…thanks to fluids, anti-nausea meds, and my amazing roommate Laurie who was with me through the whole thing…and also our awesome bus driver who took me to the hospital at 5:30 in the morning! Thank you Brent!! But…oof. Worst Thanksgiving ever. At least I know it can only get better from there!
I slept on the floor of the bus (ahhhh, home sweet home…) literally the entire 7 hours or so to Avon, CO. I was bummed because it was snowing and beautiful when we got there and I clearly could not enjoy myself, but I managed to keep food down for the first time in many hours! And I got enough rest that I was able to do the show the next day. Oh, AND I managed to get about half my Christmas shopping done via online Black Friday sales.
Avon was incredible…I only wish I had more energy to go explore! The theatre was literally on a ski resort…the mountains were unbelievable…and we were underground--under an ice skating rink, actually! Unfortunately that meant for a complicated load-in, so we had to cut fly and a handful of other set pieces, but the show still went pretty well--especially considering the noticeable difficulty in breathing given the altitude (over 7000 feet)--there were oxygen tanks backstage just in case! We also had really hilarious munchkin kids there--they certainly helped me get through a difficult show!
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| Ice skating rink in Avon, CO...theatre was underneath! |
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| Lovely stream in the ski village in Avon! |
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| Check out those mountains...gorgeous. =) |
Fort Collins, CO was next--thankfully only a couple hours away, because we left right after the show Saturday night. Some unprecedented delays (what else is new? haha) and we didn't get in till 1 or 2 in the morning…and the next day we were called at 10:30 for a two-show day. It's OK though, because my best friend from elementary and middle school came to see the matinee!! I've seen her maybe once since she moved away in 8th grade and it was so amazing to see her and catch up. We of course reminisced about our childhoods together... (I remember one specific trip to Cape May that involved dancing around in our underwear to the Annie Original Cast Recording…) and apparently I would always tell her I wanted to be on Broadway some day, and she always said I would have to get her tickets, and here I was on a national tour…and getting her tickets. =) Dreams do come true, people!
The next morning (11/ 28) we flew from Denver to Seattle…literally the longest travel day ever. It was an hour and a half to the airport, we didn't all fit on one flight, and then the later flight (my flight) got delayed, so we were sitting in the airport for like 4 hours waiting, then we finally got to Seattle…and it was a 3 hour bus ride from there to Wenatchee, where we had our first show in Washington. Insanity. We got in around 1 in the morning. Maybe closer to 2. And we had left our hotel in Fort Collins at noon. Fortunately, a Holiday Inn Express awaited us when we got there…with amazing beds and pretty much the best cinnamon rolls in the world!!! Mmmmmmmm.
Wenatchee was another arena show--as was Everett, WA later in the week…more Wizard of Oz on ice! Both bizarre but interesting experiences, as was the one in Hidalgo--some of the audience is so close and immediate, and yet the acoustics of those far away make them seem so distant at the same time--but again, we had thousands of people in each audience, which is exciting regardless!
From Wenatchee we drove 10 hours south to Medford, OR, before turning around to come right back to Everett--about 8 hours north of Medford, and a half hour from the Seattle airport we flew into to begin with. Needless to say, the travel that week made pretty much no sense…but, we had some breathtaking trips through mountains and forests, so I can't complain. =)
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| Mount Hood, from the bus...for real. You just see it as you drive. |
I got to see another friend in Medford! A friend I interned with at Shakespeare Santa Cruz in California the summer of 2009 is going to school in Ashland, OR, near Medford, so he came to see the show with a friend of his. A slight blast from the past…it was great! Especially because I was so bummed to not be going to northern California at all, where most of the rest of my friends are from that summer.
Medford was a cute little town…actually most of it was pretty sketchy-looking, but the downtown area where the theatre was was nice! Tons of little antique shops and restaurants, and Laurie and I had some serious peach cobbler.
Leaving Medford, we stopped at a restaurant called Heaven on Earth--it's in pretty much the middle of nowhere and had been started as a truck stop years ago--and now it's famous! Check out their website at
http://www.heavenonearthrestaurant.com/ for the story! More amazing cinnamon rolls (I was such a happy camper that week!)--and these ones were the size of your head! Actually probably bigger than my head. And our bus driver had gotten the owner comps to the show the night before, so we got the ultimate VIP treatment--a room to ourselves, incredible service, complementary drinks/appetizers (cinnamon rolls, really)/desserts to take with us…it was amazing!! Sadly, it did delay us a bit which meant that we had to scrap a potential trip to Seattle later that night..but it was so worth it. =) And we had a pretty solid view of the Space Needle from the bus!
http://www.heavenonearthrestaurant.com/ for the story! More amazing cinnamon rolls (I was such a happy camper that week!)--and these ones were the size of your head! Actually probably bigger than my head. And our bus driver had gotten the owner comps to the show the night before, so we got the ultimate VIP treatment--a room to ourselves, incredible service, complementary drinks/appetizers (cinnamon rolls, really)/desserts to take with us…it was amazing!! Sadly, it did delay us a bit which meant that we had to scrap a potential trip to Seattle later that night..but it was so worth it. =) And we had a pretty solid view of the Space Needle from the bus!
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| Our cast, posing with ginormous cakes! |
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| Monster cinnamon rolls at Heaven on Earth! Mmmmm... |
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| Space Needle...from the bus again! |
Everett, WA was next--and yet another sketchy-looking town…pretty much par for the course with the rest of that week! We had two shows back to back, but luckily they gave us dinner in between--a really nice dinner, actually…we'll call it belated Thanksgiving. And we were finally back to flying in Everett (onstage, not in planes!)--we hadn't been able to fly for several shows, so it was nice to feel like we could do the full show again.
After several loooooong travel days that week, we were pretty excited to move on to Mesa, AZ, and be in one place for a while! We had a 9-show week ahead of us (3 in Mesa, and 6 in nearby Phoenix), but it was nothing compared to the 10-hour travel days. We flew from Seattle to Phoenix on Sunday 12/4, the day after our shows in Everett…and then we had a whole day off the next day! Like, a real day off. No show. And no bus. I…slept. And explored. Went shopping--our hotel was right in the downtown area, with lots of vintage and antique stores, and great restaurants…I am now obsessed with Planet Smoothie. Oh and that night, a bunch of us went to a restaurant called Blue Adobe that I had actually heard a lot about last time I was in Mesa (I did a show there August/September 2010), but hadn't been to…it was amazing. New Mexican cuisine…and sooooo good.
The theatres in Mesa and Phoenix were both wonderful--the Mesa Arts Center is a pretty new, and expansive facility with lovely fountains and whatnot outside, and in Phoenix we performed at the Orpheum Theatre, built in the 1920s and part of the old Orpheum vaudeville circuit. It was a beautiful theatre…and more history, which I clearly love! Phoenix was home to more great food and shopping, but we didn't have much time to relax and enjoy with a 6-show weekend. We had great shows all week, though…I think we were all just ready for Christmas! Our saxophone-playing friend outside the theatre helped with that--serenading us as we left every night with Oz tunes and Christmas carols. =)
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| A few of us outside the theatre in Phoenix! |
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| ...and there's the inside of the Orpheum in Phoenix! Beautiful. =) |
Secret Santa also helped…this was pretty much the best Christmas ever!! I've never done a Secret Santa before and it was so much fun! We started the weekend after Thanksgiving and did the final exchange 12/8 after our first show in Phoenix. Preston, my Secret Santa, left me everything from Sweet Fiesta Starbursts, to penguin gel window clings for the bus, to chocolate Scrabble...and then my final gift was Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas on DVD! We all had so much fun planting gifts for each other...on bus seats, in costumes at the theatre, at our dressing stations... =)
We closed in Phoenix on Sunday evening, 12/11, packed up, celebrated a cast member's birthday, and rolled out the next morning to fly home for Christmas! I headed to Kansas first for a week to see the bf, and then went home the next week before we picked back up in Philly...
...which leads to where I picked up with my last/most current entry! More to come soon, a recap and reflection on the last week of tour, and as always check out Facebook for pictures--I racked up 5 albums of pictures over the course of the whole thing! I'll post the links on my next entry.
That's all for now...! =)
xoxo
Kelly
...which leads to where I picked up with my last/most current entry! More to come soon, a recap and reflection on the last week of tour, and as always check out Facebook for pictures--I racked up 5 albums of pictures over the course of the whole thing! I'll post the links on my next entry.
That's all for now...! =)
xoxo
Kelly
