Tea Time!

I have been working really hard all day on a tea party that I'm hosting with a few of my friends. Ever since I visited London in July, I've wanted to come back and use some of my tea and cookies(oops, ate all the cookies before the party...but I've had them tempting me for 6 months! c'mon!).
So since the cookies from Harrods are all gone, I made my own Pumpkin Scones, with my favorite recipe from a Restaurant here in NYC called, "Alice's Tea Cup" and the secret to these is the clotted cream, but since I can't make it (they don't sell unpasteurized cream in grocery stores, which is the key ingredient in Europe), I made whipped cream from scratch, as taught by my mother (thanks mom!). I also made Earl Grey Tea Cookies, with a recipe from Real Simple, and I sprinkled snowflake shapes on each cookie with powdered sugar and a stencil!
The tea I'll be serving is Earl Grey from Harrods and a Vanilla Toffee tea from Tea Palace, both from London. Tea Palace is an amazing tea shop right in the middle of Covet Garden, I definitely recommend it!
I'll also be serving two types of tea sandwiches: Cucumber (duh, my favorite!) with a chive cream cheese spread, and a Chicken Guacamole sandwich. I'll have a fruit salad and some other small munchies too.
Oh I'm so excited to see some of the lovely people I've been missing for these past few months while I've been on tour!
Chris has been gone this weekend, in La (poor thing.) so I decided to have some girlie time! Pictures to come!
I also could not have done any of this without my sweet friend Kristin who lives down the street from me and is a cooking genius!
I'll have pictures up on Facebook tomorrow of our good times, and my Martha Stewart-Esq party!

O Canada

Well, I was forced to go back on tour. I told the producers that I could not afford to stay on tour because of the additional lay-offs they gave us. After saying my goodbyes, writing thank-you cards, completely convinced by the "we'll work it all out" conversation I had with the company, alas, they have no mercy, no sympathy, and will not let me out of my contract.

It's a long boring story, but the contract stinks, and the bottom line is, I need an agent to represent me and help me deal with all of this in the future. I also feel ready to pursue getting my Equity Card (the actors union), so that I will be more protected in the future by the union rules. I've put in a lot of dues in the non-equity world, and I feel ready to move on to bigger and better things.

So we have 4 performances this week, 2 in Canada (we're waiting for our bus in the Toronto Airport as we speak) and 2 in Toledo, OH. Then we're laid off again for 3 weeks until the New Year.

I'll post an updated schedule for the rest of the tour, as soon as I get it, closer to the New Year.

Please keep us in your prayers, as we try to make the best of this trying holiday season, we'll stay positive, thankful to be going home to spend time with friends and family.

Merry Christmas!

Road Woes

Well it's been 2 months on the road, and we've run into more problems than I've ever had on any production I've ever been a part of. I recently had the opportunity to go to New York when we had a few days off, and I was able to sit down with some of the production people in the New York offices, and I thought it went really well. They were very happy that I was able to come in, and inform them of many things they had no idea about. Most of the problems we've had, were the result of a communication problem. It seems that there were changes made on the production side of things that the cast was not informed of, which made things very confusing for us.

Now, after thinking everything was resolved, we've been hit by an even bigger blow. Hopefully everything will be settled by tomorrow, but the company running our tour has asked us to take the week of Thanksgiving "off", in hopes that they would be able to cut our pay to less than half. We were supposed to go to Las Vegas, but that got canceled, and the company has been losing money. Probably because they also produce Spiderman on Broadway, and there has been a lot of money lost there, I'm sure...This of course, is not our problem, but we are trying to work something out so that we get our full pay and still get to be with our families for Thanksgiving.

I for one, cannot afford to not get paid, so if they do not pay us, than that could be the end of tour for me. But I doubt it would come to that, because after the meeting I had with the production office, I have a hard time believing they would do that to us. We may also be able to negotiate on an individual basis. It's times like these I REEEEALLY wish I had an agent!!!

Here is our confirmed performance schedule for the next week:

11/14 (tonight): Rocky Mount, NC 7:30pm
11/15: travel day
11/16: Jackson, MS - Thalia Mara Hall, 7:30pm
11/17: Jackson, MS - Thalia Mara Hall, 7:30pm
11/18: Montgomery, AL - David Theater, 7:00pm
11/19: Oxford, MS - Ford Theater, 8:00pm
11/20: Longview, TX - Belcher Theater, 7:30pm
11/21: Texarkana, TX - Perot Theater, 7:00pm

I'll keep you posted on what happens!

From the road...

I'm currently writing this on the bus, and we're driving from South Carolina to New Albany, OH. It's going to be a long, rainy day.

It's someone's birthday today, so we decorated her bus seat and gave her a crown to wear, cuz it stinks that her birthday is on a travel day...but at least we don't have a show and we can party later!

Everyone is sleeping...we have "quiet hours" until noon every day, which is really great. We haven't had many bus behavior problems, but everyone, myself included, gets really restless towards the end of long travel days. Playing movies on the bus helps, if everyone can agree on what to watch, which is never. Today the birthday girl's pick is "Hocus Pocus", my closest claim to fame, for those of you who know the story.

The bus driver is really great, his name is Mike. Mike is a Southern Man, very chivalrous and polite. I don't know how he does it. This bus is enormous.

And now for my weekly vent/ rant:

We've been on the road exactly a month today, and I've been feeling a little homesick lately. Okay a LOT homesick. It seems that everyone has had family and friends come to the show, except me. There have been missed opportunities because we don't get the schedule until the last- minute (which completely violates our contracts, which say we're supposed to get our full schedule of the upcoming week the Sunday before that wee begins!). Bailey, for example, was coming to see a show that got canceled this week.

The thing that keeps me going is that Chris and Millie are coming to see me in New Haven, CT in a week and a half! Counting down the days!

There have been a lot of frustrations about the logistics of this tour lately. Mostly having to do with the scheduling. The one-nighters are killing us. Not just because we're performing in a different place every night, but also because the drives are always so long. Our show is long, and we have late nights, and then early mornings because of travel, and the sleep we get on the bus is not restful. We don't have much of a turn-around when we get to the hotel before we have to be at the theatre, and then the cycle starts again.

This would be much different under UNION rules, but we're being taken advantage of because we're non-union, and they don't have to follow rules. It would make this production much more professional if they did. The tour I went on last fall was non-union, but they chose to follow the union rules anyway so that their cast/ crew were happy and had a good experience. THAT is a professional company.

Our hotels have been really nice, but for the last little while, they've been in the middle of NOWHERE. Literally. No food, no grocery, no stores, nothing in walking distance. I'm not sure what they expect us to do. I get instant meals from Wal-Mart for these such occasions, but a girl needs fresh food! I'm not asking for a Whole Foods everywhere I go (which would be nice, by the way) but at least give me a Piggly Wiggly!

Okay, enough of the negative. "keep it positive...", thanks Elle (Musical Reference).

Tour Fun

Just a few fun thoughts so far:

1. I can't keep track of what day of the week it is, or what time zone I'm in. We've been in all possible times zones in the last 2 weeks.

2. Every place we've been to has been new to me, I've never been to any of these places so far.

3. We've played two arenas with almost sold-out houses of about 1500 people, maybe more. Tonight's performance was in front of 1655 audience members.

4. Trying to sleep on the bus is tricky. Trying different positions every day, but can't sleep more than a couple of hours at a time at most.

5. I'll see Chris a month from today- yay? Not soon enough, counting down the days. I don't know what married people did without video chat on tour before these digital days. It really makes ALL the difference to actually see his face when I talk to him!

6. Best Place I've been so far: SEATTLE, WA!!!

7. Looking forward to: having people I know in the audience!

8. Trying to eat as healthy as possible, but we are limited by what restaurants/ shops/ grocery stores we can walk to. Pocketing all the free snacks at the hotels that I can!

9. WORST HOTEL ROOM so far: Butte War Bonnet Hotel in Butte, MT (we like to pronounce it BUTT, just to be immature). Just sketchy-looking in general.

10. BEST Hotel so far: Courtyard Marriott in Meridian, ID (the rooms were huge and nice, although there was no breakfast, there was the corn maze and it was awesome).

11. Best screw-up in the show so far: Last night in Butte, Montana during the "Dream Ballet", lets just say the you-know-what hit the fan:
The first girl who enters after Curly and Laurey start the dance, forgot her contacts and she's pretty blind. All the girls enter in a sequence that's only set to the music, so if we get thrown off, it all gets thrown off. Well, my poor, blind friend without her contacts couldn't see that she went into the wrong wing, got confused, and when we all tried to follow her, we were all behind the music. Eventually, we got back on, but then one of the other girls got her dress (and self) caught on the fence up stage, so we're all trying to keep from busting out laughing in this serious/romantic scene. We think the worst is over, when Ado Annie comes in with Laurey's veil and it also gets stuck on the fence, and she's trying to rip it off in the middle of the dance.

We've also had a few incidences where the "map drop" (which is actually supposed to drop in from the ceiling) had to be rigged to a pulley system instead when there was no "fly space" at the theatre (which just means the stage wasn't tall enough to drop scenery in). One particular incident involved a middle-aged tech-guy who actually pulled the map drop across the stage DURING scenes and dances. On top of that embarrassment, it kept getting stuck in very crucial moments, so where there was an important scene or dance, there would be this guy, YANKING on the map, trying to get it to pull across the stage. For SHAME!

Okay more later, phew!

Oklahoma National Tour - Idaho

We took a very early flight from NYC to Salt Lake, a small plane to Butte, MT, and then a 5 hour bus ride to Idaho Falls, ID. But we're here, and we open tomorrow night! It' been a rush of costumes, music, lights, sound, hair, and makeup ever since we got here Saturday night. Although it's been crazy, only one of us has gotten sick from all of it, which is good that it wasn't more of us, I guess. It's very dry here and the altitude is high, so we have a lot to adjust to. Our hotel is nice here, the outdoor pool is nicely heated, and there's a 24 hour gym with a sauna and hot tub!

New schedule info to come!

Chicago

Here's the WHOLE story if you're interested in my crazy adventure:

We had just arrived back into the US from our European trip at midnight the night before. At noon, I received a call from a friend who had done a show the summer before at the Summer Theatre in Meredith Village. She said the director was looking for an emergency replacement for the role of Velma in Chicago. The catch was: there was only 3 days until opening night! I said I'd love the chance to put this role on my resume, but I had never done the show before. She said she would just tell the producer I had done it. I said "No! Don't say that!" but it was too late. The producer called me to offer the role, and I told her that I actually had performed some of the songs for cabaret shows and was very familiar with the music, but had never done the show itself. I assured her I thought I could do this and would love the opportunity, so she told me to get on the next bus to Boston and they'd pick me up from there.

I called around everywhere trying to find the script to the show, but no one had it. Finally I found one at the Marriott Marquis Broadway souvenir shop in Times Square, so after coping the score (which was over 200 pages) I lugged my suitcase to Times Square, picked up the script, and caught a cab to Penn Station. On the bus, I listened to the soundtrack, highlighted my script, and tried to memorize the music as much as possible.

When I arrived in Boston, I was picked up by one of the staff members and we drove 2 more hours to Meredith, NH. By the time we got to where I was staying, it was almost 3am. The accommodations, were less than sanitary, but that's another story. Welcome to non-union regional theatre.

My schedule for the next two days went something like this:
I woke up at 7am for an 8am rehearsal. That's 4 hours of sleep people.
I worked with the director until the cast came in for rehearsal at 11am.
We ran through the show at 1pm, and plugged me into the scenes.
We had our first non-stop run-through at 6pm. I worked with the band at 10pm.
In bed by 1am.
Up at 8am, 2 dress rehearsals.

Finally Tuesday, we had our final dress rehearsal in the morning, and opened that night!

I finally got a hang of things, and was able to actually enjoy my work at about Thursday of the first week.
Then we ran the show one more week and I was done, two weeks total. It literally flew by in a flash.

I really enjoyed working with everyone there, everyone was so encouraging and helpful to me, it was amazing how everyone joined forces to get it done.
It was a great personal experience too, I am so glad I was able to test and push myself to my limits, and find out that I am capable of doing more than I ever thought I could do! I am proud of my performance and proud of myself. It was a priceless experience, and I'd do it again!