Of course we were not in Madison during the ideal time of year. December in Wisconsin can be pretty brutal, and well it was. But I made the best of it, and did as much exploring as the weather and time would allow.
The Overture Center in Madison is a newer, state of the art facility. The building itself is quite spectacular with the openness of its design due to all of the glass windows. The theatre is very modern looking, but not ugly like some new theatres. Where are the pictures of the inside of the theatre you might ask? Well I certain took some, but they are gone forever. I will explain why in the post about my Christmas break. Stay tuned!
The one problem that we had with The Overture Center is that it was more difficult to move through the building than I imagine Fort Knox to be. Most of the doors are locked. You cannot get from backstage to the house and back without either going outside and reentering or finding an employee to unlock the doors. The route to the pit was not well marked, but we made it there on our first day. Unfortunately when we tried to leave after our sound check, we found that the doors we had come through were locked going the other direction. So then we tried certain elevators. The problem with that is they do not stop on all of the floors especially the ones that we needed. So after trying in vain to find the way, a couple of stagehands took pity on us and showed us where to go. I have a feeling that they have experience with visiting performers getting lost in that place. The strange thing is we have no idea why the security there was so tight. Everyone had to show their badge to even get backstage, and the security guard controlled the lock to the stage door. I know that I haven't toured extensively, but this is the first time that I have experienced anything like The Overture Center.
In the same complex as the Overture Center, is the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Contemporary art is very hit or miss with me, but I decided to give it a try and see if anything hit me. The museum is rather small (actually shockingly small), but they did have an exhibit which I found to be very interesting. It was called George Segal: Street Scenes, and featured Segal's big bronze and plaster sculpture of people placed in meaningful everyday life situations. One of the more powerful and famous pieces was a line of five bronze men standing outside a door in a brick wall entitled, "Depression Bread Line". It was very moving, and sadly may be very timely given the state of the country! As for the rest of the museum, there was a roof top sculpture garden. I did venture out there, but it was covered in snow, and I could only make out a couple of pieces underneath the snow. Well at least it was free!
While in Madison, I also visited the Wisconsin State Capital which looks an awful lot like the US State Capital. What made it interesting was that you could freely walk inside and take pictures (that is certainly not the case in DC!) There are some beautiful murals inside that I of course took pictures of, and given the time of year the state Christmas tree was also up. Alas I do not have any of those pictures! Again, see the post about my Christmas break.
I did expand my fast food horizons while in Madison. There is a chain of burger places called Five Guys. To just look at the restaurant one would not think, "Oh that is a place I should go and eat at." But now that I have eaten at one, I highly recommend trying a burger there. They were very tasty. Five Guys also prides itself on serving freshly cut french fries from potatoes that are sitting in sacks stacked all around the restaurant.
To finish up my time there, I did have one other excursion which is worthy of its own post. After our weekend of five performances (one of which was attended by some relatives), we packed up our stuff on the bus in the sub zero wind chills (ha ha Floridians!), and they drove us to O'Hare for our journey home.
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