Life After Tour...

Hey y'all! Sorry for the late post, there's been a lot going on!

First, here are the links to all my pictures from tour, posted on Facebook, as promised in my last post!

Album 1: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.885329380922.2282257.26111938&type=3&l=354040e1d2

Album 2: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.885660063232.2282382.26111938&type=3&l=4bb312c149

Album 3: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.887630758942.2282801.26111938&type=3&l=c6dc59cd87

Album 4: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.960085424212.2292076.26111938&type=3&l=01ab2bdbd3

Album 5: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.962320440222.2292284.26111938&type=3&l=f5f70ba559

I also promised a recap of the last week of tour...so here goes! The short version, for once. =) We came back from a rather random layoff the second week of January and resumed the tour in Daytona Beach, FL. What a special show that was…a huge theatre with some pretty awesome dressing rooms, and some even more awesome guests…G-mom and G-pop brought ten of their friends up from Jensen Beach to see the show! It was so wonderful to have familiar faces in the audience for our closing week, and to spend time with everyone before and after the show. Oh also, our hotel in Daytona was on the beach…that certainly didn't hurt. =)

Helloooo Daytona!

What did hurt was moving on from Daytona…to Richmond, KY, and then up to Toledo, OH and Flint, MI for the rest of the week. We went from beautiful beach weather to snow that did not help our progress from one town to the next. Fortunately, we got where we needed to be in one piece, but what a way to end the tour! Never a dull moment…at one of the venues that week, the dry ice never showed up…whoops! And for our first of three shows in Flint, Auntie Em looked a little young…my glasses got misplaced and weren't located till halfway through the show!

Next stop after Florida...Kentucky!

We had a great closing weekend--Flint was a huge venue (four balconies, just like our opening venue!), and we had great audiences for all three shows. The last one was rough--not a dry eye onstage or off at the end of the show. But, we had a wonderful last night together--a big group dinner, and then a cast party back at the hotel: complete with a slideshow artfully put together by two ladies in the cast, and the Wozcars--our cast awards ceremony! I was presented with the Wozcar for "Most Oz Spirit"…it felt like redemption for all those senior superlatives I didn't win in high school. Mwahahahaha.

Our closing venue, in Flint, MI!

Backstage in Flint, closing weekend!

More backstage in Flint =)

The lovely ladies of Oz!

I've had a few weeks now to ruminate over my tour experience, and I'm left with a feeling or profound gratitude--for the experience, certainly, but also for the support I felt from friends and family literally all over the country--from Texas to California to Oklahoma to Philly to New Haven…I am just so thankful to everyone who made the effort to come out and see the show. You all made my tour experience truly unforgettable.

I've also been thinking about what I've gleaned from this experience…for one, I feel like I've learned what I'm capable of. I spent hours sleeping on the floor of a bus, often doing a show the same day, and I carted suitcases in and out of sometimes 4 or 5 hotels in a week. I did a weekend of shows in high altitude while recovering from food poisoning, and a full 8-show week with acute bronchitis. I feel like I've learned what my body can handle, and how to get it through situations it shouldn't have to.

But more importantly, I gained lifelong friends…my family of Wozians! I miss them like crazy already, but it's been amazing running into them at auditions back in NYC. We went through a lot of crap together, and a lot of wonderful, and they will always be with me…"like a handprint on my heart"…(obligatory Wicked reference!).

My beautiful cast, after our closing performance!

Our final meal together...the whole WOZ family!

And now, for a big, totally unrelated update…I'm actually posting this from Arizona right now! I moved back to NYC a week after closing, and was expecting to be there for several months until (hopefully) leaving for the summer again...and then two days after moving in I got a totally unexpected job offer! For a show starting rehearsals in less than three weeks, no less. So...now I'm back in Arizona...surprise! =) I'm doing Sunset Boulevard at Arizona Broadway Theatre in Peoria (http://www.azbroadwaytheatre.com for more info!). I'm in the ensemble and understudying Betty, the young female lead (you might be familiar with the 1950 movie it was based on, starring Gloria Swanson). We open March 2 and run till the 31st...and then I imagine I'll be back in NYC, but who knows?!? =)

The weather has been GORGEOUS, and the people I'm working with are just wonderful--a great cast, and a really welcoming company. We actually stayed in sponsor housing for a few nights this week, with one of the theatre's board members and his wife, while the show before ours was finishing up. They were so incredibly welcoming--making us dinner, taking us out for ice cream, shuttling us over to the theatre for rehearsals--it was just a lovely introduction to a great company! I'll be posting more updates in the weeks to come, including pictures of course…stay tuned!! =)

xoxo

Kelly

The Highest of Highs...and the Lowest of Lows!

...literally.  And figuratively.  These were the weeks of mountains and valleys...and Secret Santa and hospital trips.  Sorry for the much-awaited update, folks...this is gonna be a long one!  But the font's big!  You can do it!


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!!

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!

The California Theatre of the Performing Arts in San Bernardino!

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. =)

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!

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!

Ice skating rink in Avon, CO...theatre was underneath!

Lovely stream in the ski village in Avon!

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. =)

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!

Our cast, posing with ginormous cakes!

Monster cinnamon rolls at Heaven on Earth! Mmmmm...

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. =)

A few of us outside the theatre in Phoenix!

...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

Happy New Year!!!

All I can say about this week is...wow.  What a whirlwind.  I am just overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude--to the 60+ people who came out to see the show in Philly and New Haven, and to apple cider vinegar/my body for getting me through 8 shows in two cities with a horrendous upper respiratory infection (thought it was reflux phlegm...till I started coughing it up.  Yep, not reflux anymore!).


Tuesday (12/27) was our first day back from our two-week Christmas break, and also pretty much the BEST DAY EVER. =)  Thank you to everyone who came out that day, and the rest of this week--thank you especially for the entrance applause, the restaurant chanting, and making me weep at curtain call...I just feel so blessed. =)

Friends at the stage door!

We had four shows in Philly in two days--phew, welcome back, folks!--at the gorgeous old Merriam Theatre--and I had friends and family at all of them!  It was such a great couple days catching up with everyone...like Christmas all over again!  And it was unbelievable to be performing in one of the theatres that was Broadway to me when I was growing up.


Speaking of which--I think I mentioned that in one of several interviews I did leading up to the Philly shows--here are the links to all of them!  Two are South Jersey papers, and two are Philadelphia suburb papers:


Courier Post: http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011312250002
Gloucester County Times: http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/towns/index.ssf/2011/12/washington_twp_native_plays_gl.html
Montgomery News Co.: 
http://www.montgomerynews.com/articles/2011/12/20/entertainment/doc4ef10123309b8538946735.txt?viewmode=fullstory
Allentown Morning Call (scroll down for this one!): 
http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/arts/theater/mc-theater-1222-20111221,0,2837621,full.story


I also got my first fan mail of the tour in Philly!  That's kind of an exaggeration, but I did get a few emails and a facebook message from people who saw the show and loved it. =)  It was very flattering, and also incredibly encouraging, since I've been fighting illness all week and felt pretty terrible about some of the shows.

Beautiful sparkly pink Glinda flowers from friends!

Thursday morning, we headed out of Philly and on to New Haven...yep, back onto the floor of the bus!  And for longer than expected...the three hour drive turned into more than six with all the holiday traffic we were fighting.  Note to self: just don't take 95 next time.  Poor life decision.


We had four shows in New Haven (right by Yale) and much of it is a blur for me...I feel like I spent most of it hydrating and medicating!  We raced to get ready for the show after our late arrival Thursday night, and then Friday I had more visitors!  Some of my best friends from Montclair drove out to see the show--and we went to Pepe's before, a famous New Haven pizza place that was supposedly responsible for bringing pizza to America.  It was SO GOOD.


Saturday was my most boring New Year's ever...I went down to the bar for about a half hour, rang in the new year with my cast, and went right back up to my hotel room to drink more tea, take Nyquil, gargle apple cider vinegar...and pass out.  Worth it, though, because all in all it's been a pretty incredible year. =)


And today, Sunday, we had our final show at the Shubert Theatre...after mass in St. Mary's--established in 1832, the second oldest Catholic parish in Connecticut. So much history this week...the Shubert opened in 1914 and is where hundreds of pre-Broadway tryouts and world premieres have taken place--more than any other theatre in the country--including Oklahoma!, back in 1943!  Check it out: http://www.shubert.com/shubert-theater/the-history.  Incredible. =) Sutton Foster, now a multiple Tony Award winner, came through here as a teenage chorus girl on a tour and her signature's on the wall backstage by her show's logo...and now we all get to become a part of that history!  Our lovely props mistress painted our logo on one of the walls backstage so we got to sign it as well.  There are probably hundreds of these lining the walls backstage, and under the stage, all over...it was amazing.

Our logo and signatures! A work in progress when I
took this but it was finished later =)

Signatures of past performers inside my dressing table...
you better believe I added mine to the bunch!

The Shubert...during loadout! So much history
took place right here... =)

Now, it's off to Kansas in the morning!  We have a brief random one-week layoff, so I'm going to visit Dan, and then we pick back up in Florida next week.


Coming soon...a recap of the last few weeks of the tour before our Christmas break...I promise!  And more pics soon, too!


xoxo


Kelly =)

From Canada to Mexico…and coast to coast! (3)

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. =)

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!

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

From Canada to Mexico…and coast to coast! (2)

11/7-11/13

After New Bedford came a very trying 26-hour bus ride to Valdosta, GA.  We left right from the theatre and stopped for dinner, and then lunch (at a truck stop where they called numbers when people's showers were ready...), and dinner the next day...and finally arrived at the hotel around 11.  Fortunately our show was the next day so we did get some rest before performing again.

Valdosta was another blur of a day...more lovely weather that we didn't have much time to enjoy!  And it was another crazy show...with half the set, an outside backstage crossover, and many delays once again.  To top that off, a poor little local munchkin's skirt fell off during "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead"...luckily she had a petticoat underneath and she handled it like a champ! And later, one of our jitterbugs slipped and fell and another danced his wig right off...yep, a crazy show.

That same day, we received word that we were flying to McAllen, TX the next day…surprise!  We had left Ogdensburg, NY across the river from Canada on Friday morning just four days prior and would be at the bottom tip of Texas only a few miles from the Mexican border the next day around noon....AND we had done four shows in the interim!  What a whirlwind...

Bienvenidos a McAllen!

Hidalgo was kind of a bizarre experience--our first, and I think only, arena setup…and we were literally on ice.  Covered ice, but still ice.  And what a strange experience to walk past skate rental on the way to the dressing rooms...  Oddly enough, even though we were in this huge space (3000+ people in the audience), there were a number of things we had to cut because of the way it was set up--fly, for one--and because of one particularly difficult set change the flying monkeys (myself being one of them) were told over the monitors just minutes before the show to "improvise" until we saw that the set was in place for the scene following ours.  We dubbed it the "monkey dream ballet" and it was actually pretty hilarious--my fellow monkey decided to be attacked by the fake Toto double he was carrying and his wig flew off in the middle of the struggle.  I guess that's the price you have to pay sometimes for making big choices… =)

Other highlights of the Hidalgo experience: finding a note left for me by one of my friends from the summer (she had been there with her tour a few weeks prior)…and also seriously the cutest kids we've ever had.  I mean, I've loved pretty much all the kids, but these were just so wide-eyed, inquisitive, and happy to be there…and they called me Glinda offstage as well, which was just hilarious.

State Farm Arena in Hidalgo,TX!

Galveston was next, and what a travel day we had to get there…stopped once at a checkpoint on the way where our bus was searched by dogs looking for drugs and Mexicans, and stopped again for lunch--in a ghost town with a single restaurant (an excellent Mexican restaurant, but in a bizarrely deserted town…).

Galveston was wonderful…one of my favorite towns to date.  Of course, it didn't hurt that we were across the street from the beach in 70-degree weather!  Our first night there, we celebrated my roommate(the Wicked Witch)'s birthday, complete with a nice dinner out and some time in the hotel's AMAZING outdoor heated pool.  The next day, I went for a looooooong walk on the beach, played in the Gulf of Mexico, and had the best lunch ever: Ben and Jerry's Coconut Seven Layer Bar ice cream.  Mmmmmmmm. =)

Hellooooooo Galveston!

We had two shows that weekend (Saturday and Sunday), which was exciting because we were in yet another gorgeous, historical space: the 1894 Grand Opera House.  And, the first of the two brought me my first visitors!  Sunday was even more fun…apparently, every Sunday is Beauty Mark Sunday which is not a thing I knew about before, and for the crew, this one was Mustache Sunday…so the whole cast drew subtle beauty marks on their faces, and the crew did the show with fake mustaches.  Never a dull moment!

!894 Grand Opera House in Galveston

More excitement in Galveston included...well, our first truly smooth shows in a while, a little girl dressed as Glinda (OK...she was in a Barbie princess dress, but we all knew what it was supposed to be!  she had a wand!!), and our male swing going on halfway through one show due to a minor injury.  Outside the theatre, my roommate and I got matching sweatshirts (well, she got it first and I really liked it!), I attended mass in yet another gorgeous historical cathedral, and a guy in the grocery store parking lot next to our hotel rolled down his window when he passed to sing to me about my cowboy boots...in a surprisingly hilarious and non-creepy way.  Yep, Galveston was one of my faves. =)

From Canada to Mexico...and coast to coast! (1)

Sorry y'all…this is gonna be a long one…three weeks to catch you up on!  But, I'll post it in parts so hopefully it's a little less overwhelming. =)

11/2-11/6

After our weekend in Cleveland we left for Ogdensburg, NY for a show Thursday, November 3.  The Cleveland-to-Ogdensburg transition was another that exemplified this crazy life on the road...we went from the jaw-dropping Palace Theatre to a junior high performing arts center in the middle of nowhere.  Our hotel was in a rustic spot on the St. Lawrence River, and we could literally see Canada from our porch.  Laurie and I did somehow manage to score a two-bedroom suite at the hotel, but unfortunately we weren't there long enough to make use of it!

The Saint Lawrence River and Canada, behind our hotel room!

Our experience at that theatre was...challenging, to say the least.  The stage was tiny, more than half the set had to be cut, we couldn't fly, and we ended up called to the theatre early to re-space some of the bigger numbers.  AND our "dressing room" was set up in the school library...some of those books took me back!  After a whirlwind of preparation, including dealing with sound and light issues, and at the last minute, finding out about a service dog in the front row (which could have caused major problems for Toto!), we eventually started the show 45 minutes late.  But the battle was far from over...during the show, we dealt with more technical issues, including a local crew rumored to be ex-cons (never got a confirmation on that one, but it gives you an idea…), and the scarecrow's dresser up and left a few minutes into the show without telling anyone.  But, people loved it...it was amazing to see the audience so supportive when we felt like such a mess.

Middle school library or dressing room? A little bit of both...

Next stop: Rutland, VT...and what a difference!  Another beautiful old theatre (actually about the capacity of the theatre in Ogdensburg, but with much more character!), a great little town with cute stores, coffee shops, and delicious food...we were all wishing we had more time there!  The show went SO well--our local munchkins were super energetic, and it was one of the best audiences we've ever had--I got entrance applause when I came out in the bubble!  Just another instance that proved that sometimes our smaller, more intimate audiences are the best ones. =)  They clapped at everything, and a guy from the theatre came on the bus to talk to us afterwards about how impressed they were, and how pivotal our show was for the future of the theatre.

The Paramount Theatre in Rutland, VT!

We left Rutland early the next morning for a matinee in West Point, NY...one of the most exhausting days yet!  We had gotten back to the hotel after 11 the night before and had to be up before 7 to load the bus and drive right to the theatre for a 3:00 show.  Somehow in spite of the exhaustion I managed to have my best quick change to date--not sure how we did it!  West Point was a huge space, which was nice for us backstage but caused a bit of a disconnect with the audience...it was a way bigger audience than we'd had all week but quieter, and they just seemed far away...the show went fine, though.

After the show we got on the road to New Bedford, MA, where we had another matinee the next day.  After a bunch of delays totally beyond our comprehension we finally left the theatre, stopped for dinner, and arrived at the hotel two hours after our projected arrival time of 11:30 pm...only to pass out for less than 8 hours and get up the next morning to do it all over again. Thank goodness for an amazing mass and Dunkin' Donuts around the corner from the theatre to get me through the day!  And also, a crazy cab driver who managed to start the day off with a laugh--a total hippie with an almost comical Boston accent who began the short trip to the theatre stopped behind a row of parked cars thinking they were waiting for the light to change, and ended the trip asking us how to spell "cash" for our receipt--he was pretty sure it was 
C-H-A-S.  After all that the show went pretty well--another delayed start and we weren't able to use pyro, but thankfully another amazingly appreciative audience.

A recap of our first week back on the road!

I'm starting this update from Georgia as we're nearing the end of a 26-hour bus ride from New Bedford, MA, where we performed yesterday.  Didn't know I could sleep on the floor of a bus, but I can happily now cross that off the bucket list…

First things first: I've posted my first few albums of pictures from tour on Facebook!  Here are the links (you can see them even if you're not on Facebook):

Album 1
Album 2
Album 3

I've also recently updated my all-new website with pictures from my last few shows...check it out at www.kellykarcher.com!

Our first week back on the road (10/24-10/30) started in Greeneville, TN, and is honestly kind of a blur…our first week of one-nighters!  Meaning, we had one show in each town and drove to a new place the next day.  Tennessee was beautiful--we were in the Great Smoky Mountains, surrounded by gorgeous fall leaves in 70 degree weather.  Unfortunately we were inside for most of it, in brush-up rehearsals for our first show back!  And then it was on to Kentucky early the next morning.  Luckily, there was a Dunkin' Donuts right next to the hotel, so that got us through. =)

Welcome to Greeneville!

I feel like that first week back exemplified life on the road…our first three shows in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Michigan were in high school performing arts centers (our "female principal" dressing room in Michigan--for me, Dorothy, and the Wicked Witch--at first consisted of some tables set up in the school's computer lab; we said we'd be happy to join the rest of the cast!); and we ended the week at the Palace Theatre in Cleveland, built in 1922 and at one time home to performers such as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and the Three Stooges.  It's interesting, though--I've found that some of the smaller venues can have the best audiences...there's an intimacy that I didn't expect to serve a show this big, but it does.  The audiences that are closest to us tend to be the most responsive and vocal even when they're small, which is surprising--but so much fun for us!

That week, more than anything, it just felt so great to be back at work!  We went from a choppy schedule before the break to our first 8-show week (a Broadway schedule…plus travel!), and it was amazing to see it all come together again.  Our first show back had kind of a weird energy--a little hesitant--but by the time we had our third show of the week in Michigan it felt solid again.

From Michigan, we went to Cleveland for the weekend, which was a complete whirlwind (5 shows in about 50 hours), but also wonderful--not only were we in an amazing space, but we were finally comfortable enough with the show to enjoy it!  We were able to play, and find new things...to make discoveries as our characters.  And both the venue and the theatre district were unbelievable...I take back what I said about Fort Worth; Cleveland's Palace Theatre is now the most beautiful theatre I've ever performed in...huge and gorgeous and so much history, and built like a Broadway theatre!  Here are a couple pictures taken by one of our cast members...there are many more on Facebook!

The Palace Theatre in Cleveland, OH!

The lobby of the Palace... =)

We fortunately were able to stay in Cleveland for Halloween...fortunate mostly because our hotel rooms were larger than my New York apartment (which has never happened and will probably never happen again)...thank you, Embassy Suites!  We trick-or-treated to each other's rooms and then had a pretty hoppin' party...complete with spooky decorations, dancing, and butterbeer!  I was Posh Spice, along with three other cast members and our wig/makeup guy as the other Spice Girls...and we won the "best overall" costume award!

Spice Girls!

The next day, we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for some more history...and ended the day at the Chocolate Bar downtown...mmmmm.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

One of my favorite parts of the tour so far has been the kids, onstage and off--there is always a girl (usually in the front row) dressed up as Dorothy, and we've had some witches and scarecrows and lions as well!  And the kids onstage with us playing the munchkins have been so much fun to work with…I remember, I think in Michigan, looking around during Munchkinland and seeing this one girl with her face lit up singing "tra la la"…she was having the best time!  And in Fort Worth, we met a little girl--maybe 2 or 3--in a restaurant after one show and she was shyly singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."  In Cleveland, the doorman at the Stage Door told us his nephew saw the show--his first theatrical experience ever --and said, "This is the best day of my life!"  And another girl during our last show there shouted, "Glinda! Glinda! Glinda!" from the audience as I came onstage in my bubble…it really puts into perspective why we do what we do, and who we do it for. =)


Hope to post again soon with more updates from the last week and a half...lots of love!


xoxo


Kelly