Walking In Memphis

I had never been to Memphis before we made a stopover on our way from Greenville to Fayetteville. I did come close last year though. After I knew that I had been hired to play for The Wedding Singer, I checked the schedule to see where the tour was going to play before I joined it. My thought was that I would drive there and see it. Memphis was the closest city to Nappanee which wasn't really that close at all. Plus I was dealing with an unpleasant situation at my day job (i.e. Sue going completely insane) so I did not take a road trip. Now that I have been to Memphis, I completely regret it!

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Memphis is famous for blues music and barbecue: neither of which I enjoy. But it was still a cool place to hang out. We got in somewhat late that day so we did not have all that much time to explore, but really one doesn't have to explore much in Memphis (and probably shouldn't for that matter!). Beale Street is the place to be. Beale Street is a stretch of restaurants, blues clubs, and shops all contained within a couple of blocks. Joel had recommended a couple of different restaurants to us, and after looking at their menus online I chose Blues City Cafe. As it turns out, Joel was also going there so we had dinner and then met up with some of the other Wizard folk in the club.

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After listening to some rather good Johnny Cash covers, a bunch of us shifted gears and went to The Flying Saucer for some speciality beer and soft pretzels. The Flying Saucer is one of those places that you learn about while on tour. It is a small chain of restaurants which specializes in good beer. They even have a mug club for people who are crazy enough to try all of their 200 or so offerings. I somehow think that I will not be on tour long enough to even come close to that! Memphis marked my third location for the Saucer, and as we discovered there was a fourth one in our not too distant future!

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So after all of the revels we eventually dragged ourselves back to the hotel so that we could go to bed for our 5am bus call!! Boo!!

New Year's Eve in Greenville

New Year's Eve has always been one of my most hated holidays. I always feel really torn on New Year's Eve because for the past 10 years it has meant the end of the theatre season at Amish Acres, but with that came the end of my theatre paycheck for the year. More importantly though it has also meant the dreaded New Year's Eve Cabaret at the Round Barn. Sadly the cabaret over the years has always ended up being a thrown together at the last minute affair, which never turned out the way that it was planned. Also as a holiday I do not see the point in celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of a new one. It seems very arbitrary, depressing, and strange to me.

This was the first year in 7 years that I was actually able to do something else besides act like I was playing something for the Round Barn cabaret on New Year's Eve. It was also my first New Year's on tour. As fate would have it we were in Greenville for the holiday. I have to say that I actually enjoyed New Year's Eve this year, and the best part of being on tour for a holiday is that the company plans and pays for the event. All I had to do was show up, eat, drink, and have a good time!

So many of us showed up in a vest and tie combination that we had to have a group picture. (I'm not sure how TJ and Bruce who are obviously not wearing the outfit ended up in our picture though!)

Nate and I have several pictures with this same pose and same expressions on our faces. We have decided to make it a recurring theme. He will alternate the shade of blue and I will wear a different skinny tie.

Ryan 1 and Ryan 3 (and some one's tongue)

I think that this picture is worth slightly more than 1000 words!

The annual pit-audio-wig picture (We were trying to get a band picture and ended up with two additions to our group.)

How Did They Know?

I think that they must have installed this sign after looking in the pit during the final Wizard scene!

And Now For The "Hate Crime" Leg Of Our Tour

Perhaps the title of my post is a bit harsh, but I have to say that this leg of the tour was one that I did not anticipate with much excitement. After all any city that could harbor an institution like Bob Jones University, is not a place I want to spend time visiting.

On the plus side, this was our first taste of warm weather in a few weeks. Also the Peace Center while not the most elegant theatre ever designed, was a nice spacious facility. Well with one irritating issue.

We had to endure two fire alarms during our week at the Center. One of them happened on Sunday during the Matinee. We had just gotten to the scene where the Wicked Witch makes her first appearance when the alarm sounded. They cleared out the entire building including the audience. After waiting for the fire department to give us permission to reenter, we then had to wait for the electronics in the pit to reboot. It ended up taking so long, that they just set up a second keyboard, and Joey played from the keyboard for the remainder of Act I. Oh and the cause? A local wardrobe crew member was steaming a costume under a fire alarm! Because of the delay, the venue had to provide us with dinner between shows so we all got free Jimmy Johns!

I tried to take one of these sidewalk ads for myself, but after picking it up I decided it was just too gross! And really what would I have done with it?!

Proctors Theater

The Proctor's Theater in Schnedtedy was a pleasant surprise. So often the theaters in smaller towns might be beautiful old theaters, but are too small to fit the full set. Thankfully that was not the case here. The theatre had recently been renovated, and we were able to do the entire production.

As I was going through my pictures for this post I only had a couple of pictures of the interior of the Proctor's. I was really disappointed, because it was a really nice stately old theater.

Our weekend in Schnectedy was somewhat all about Brett. He was interviewed and photographed for an article in the local newspaper. I couldn't resist taking a picture of Brett having his picture taken. I am really disappointed because this picture is with my old camera and not very good, but I do love that Chris is in the background making a face!

Schnectedy (spelling?), NY

So as if it wasn't bad enough that we had to fly back on Christmas day to rejoin the tour, we spent the night in the Wyndham at the Newark Airport. Merry Christmas to us! In the morning, we all hopped on the bus and headed up to Schnectedy.


We were only in Schnectedy for 3 days, but really that was enough. There is not that much to do. We had great audiences for the show which made us all happy, and almost made traveling on Christmas worth it.

Brett who plays the Reed 3 book actually grew up in Schnectedy, and his parents still live there. They invited the orchestra over on Sunday after our matinee for a pizza party. It was quite fun, and we capped the evening off with a rather spirited game of Trivial Pursuit. Also coincidentally, Brett's birthday was just a couple of days after we left Schnectedy so we had a little celebration one night. Joelle, Brett's girlfriend, drove down which is always fun. I love hanging out with Joelle, and cannot wait to see her play Shawntel in Jerry Springer the Opera!

I took this picture for Mom. If you have seen and analyzed the 12 Days of Oz video from You Tube , you may have noticed that all but the top of my head got cut out of the clip of the orchestra. The video was filmed and edited by Chris, our Tinman, so as retribution I took this picture.

Christmas Break

So let's see. My Christmas break started on December 15th, and it is February 9th. I'm not even two months behind in my blog. At this point I will be lucky to remember anything! I will give it a shot though.

The first thing I remember is having to work my way through the mess in my bedroom at my parent's house. This was the first time that I had been home since I first left for Wizard, and there was a pile of stuff to organize. Sadly as I sit typing this two months later, there is still so much stuff to organize, but I shall persevere!

As much as trendy things annoy me, I have grown to really appreciate Facebook. One of the things that it does is to help reconnect me with people I have lost touch with. One of those people was my good friend from high school Heather the Groovy. I was so excited when she added me as a friend, and I immediately wrote to her and suggested getting together on my break. We did meet for lunch, and I had a great time catching up after so many years.

Speaking of catching up, I made it into Chicago a couple of times, and one of those time was with my mother. We had decided to take the train into the city, and in typical Claus fashion we pulled into the parking lot just as the train was leaving the station. So we had to wait for the next train. As fate would have it, while we were waiting an old friend of my mother's walked into the station, and so they had a very pleasant time talking on the train ride up. Mom's friend was going to the Opera so I suggested that they come up to see Wizard when we are playing Chicago. Hopefully they will.

Aside from my trip in to go shopping with Mom, I also took the train up to see a production of The Brothers Karamazov at the Lookingglass Theatre, and to meet up with my friend Eric. The Lookingglass Theatre company is my favorite theatre group, and I go to see every one of their productions when possible. Back in high school I saw their production The Arabian Nights, and to this day it is my favorite piece of theatre I have seen. They are reviving it this summer, and I recommend that everyone check it out. The Brothers Karamazov was very good example of why I love the Lookingglass, and though it is not the most Christmasy of stories, I was glad to see it.

I also made a whirlwind trip out to South Bend and Nappanee. In that trip I was able to meet Sherry for lunch, get a haircut from Laurie, do some shopping and banking, meet Tanya for dinner, visit my old landlord and landlady, and see A Wonderful Life at the Round Barn. It was a very full day, but planned well. I was glad to see Wonderful Life at the RBT because it is the first production that I was able to see there since I left for Wizard. I am not a huge fan of the show, but the production was good, and the orchestra sounded really good. I guess they didn't really need me after all.

So now for the tragic new about my camera. It disappeared during my break. I had it at the beginning because I tried to upload my pictures from Madison one day. My computer was being stupid and it wasn't uploading correctly so I stopped and decided to try another day. Well that other day never came. I can come up with only two scenarios as to what happened to my camera. First it might have fallen out of my murse on the train. Second I threw away a bag of garbage at the train station and it could have fallen into that. Either way is pathetic and does nothing to make me feel better about losing my camera. Oh well!

Christmas itself was a pretty low key affair this year. I actually flew back to rejoin the tour on Christmas Day so we had our Christmas on the Sunday before. The family gathered at my parent's house and mostly the presents involving me were distributed. It was fun to watch my niece Reagan because she is at that age where she is just starting to know what presents are and to enjoy opening them. Apparently I made a wise choice this year with my stuffed Daisy Duck doll. I assumed that since Reagan was a fan on Mickey's Clubhouse she might want a Daisy. According to Toni, she was quite fond of it. I like it when I pick good presents.

All in all it was a good break, and was certainly appreciated. The Wizard of Oz is fine, but it is nice to escape every so often!

Das Boot

Joel, our company manager, is from Wisconsin. He grew up not too far away from Madison so he was our tour guide for the weekend. One of the activities which he highly suggested was to go to Das Essen Haus and play the boot game. Basically the boot game involved drinking beer from a glass (or plastic nowadays) boot, but there are many rules involved with the game. For example once picked up the boot can not be placed on the table again until it is empty. Also the toe of the boot must be pointing up whilst drinking, and one has to flick the boot with a finger after they have drunk their share. The boot then gets passed around until it is empty and then the person who finishes the boot has to pay for the next one. (I think. It was rather complicated, and there is a lot of beer in one of those boots!) So Chris, Brett, and I joined up with Joel for a rousing night of beer and pretzels at Das Essen Haus. I of course swore up and down that I was not going to drink from a communal boot, but I after much pestering I acquiesced. If nothing else I had a bit of a cold, and I thought I might teach them a lesson! We did play by the rules, but we did not really play to win. I have to say that there is an art to drinking from the boot. The reason for keeping the tip up is that an air bubble forms when the boot is tipped up. For the inexperienced boot drinker this can mean a faceful of beer. Thankfully I had been warned so I was able to avoid catastrophy.

Oh Joel ever the jokester. I'm sure that he purposely wore his boots to Das Essen Haus!

Oh and we drank two boots!