MSG

So the anticipation leading up to our run at Madison Square Garden was pretty intense. We endured meetings with the producer and general manager, discussions about what the unions were going to do to our non-union production, worries about what the New York critics would say, and just a bunch of chatter about "playing in New York" for the first time.

Now that we are a week into the run I can say that it has been rather a let down. All of the worries about the unions have so far been unfounded. Nobody has thrown rotten eggs at me or tried to picket our show. I have read 4 different reviews now, and they were much better than I expected. It seems like we are being treated more as if we were Dora the Explorer Live than a serious piece of musical theatre. The real let down turns out to be the actual "playing in New York" experience.

We might as well be playing in any city given the audience behaviour here. They talk during the entire show, sit and eat their popcorn, peanuts, crackerjack, and they come and go as they please. In fact the audience has been noticeably bigger at intermission of every show than it was at the beginning. Where are these people coming from? But worst of all is the picture taking. It never stops. I am not talking about covertly snapping a picture with no flash. This is picture taking that is brazen and obnoxious with the brightest flash possible and no regard for the performers whatsoever. In fact there have been people in the front row blinding the performers with their flashes. I actually watched an usher go to the front row to tell a patron not to take pictures, and by the time he go back to his position on the wall she was right back at it. I really wish they would start dragging people out by their camera straps!

I hope that there is no significance to the trash can's placement!

The box office has more of a yellow brick road than our stage does. Hmm?

For those who don't know, Madison Square Garden is actually two different venues. There is the arena which is where the Knicks and Rangers play. It is also where the circus performs, as we have learned. Yes they booked the Ringling Brothers in the arena during the same two weeks as our show, and they have been disappointed by ticket sales! Hmm I wonder why. I also no longer need to wonder what stale elephant vomit smells like. All I have to do is enter the backstage door to know! But I digress...

The other space is what is now called the WaMu Theater. It is a more conventional theater space that can handle theatrical shows better than the arena. Over the years the musical version of A Christmas Carol played here as well as a different production of The Wizard of Oz. You might notice in some of the advertisements above it says, "Back after ten years". That is a bit misleading since our production is completely different than their production. Oh well these audiences are probably glad to get pictures of a different show!

New York, New York... It's A Helluva town

Once again I am departing from the chronology of my blog. To make matters worse, I am moving past a post about my trip to New York with Heather to posts about my run of The Wizard of Oz at Madison Square Garden. So please bear with me. We have now been in New York for 5 days, and we started performances yesterday. It has been really exciting, and not really the terrifying experience that I thought it would be. Rumor has it that The New York Times is coming tonight. I am more than slightly anxious at what kind of reviews we will get! Oh well, I'm having a great time, and that is probably all that matters.

This is my view (through the plexiglass) of the WaMu Theatre at Madison Square Garden.

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I will post more in the next week, but I wanted to at least get these pictures up. Needless to say, I have been seeing shows, meeting up with friends, and just in general using up the extra per diem they are giving us for our two weeks here in New York. In other words, there will be plenty to post about!

Scranton Cultural Center aka Masonic Temple

As much as I was impressed by the architecture in Scranton, I found the "Cultural Center" to be a mixed bag. To begin with, I never saw the words Cultural Center anywhere on the building. The building is actually the Masonic Temple. I never saw any kind of marquee for the cultural center or sign for our show. I did find this billboard right by our hotel.

The exterior of the building and the lobby were quite nice.

The interior of the theatre was extremely dark so most of my pictures were bad. At this point I had not gotten a new flexible tripod to replace the one lost with my other camera. I did like the creepy little figure with the mandolin though. I'm glad that he turned out okay!

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We did have an opening night party in Scranton. On the whole it was just like any other opening night party except that there was a huge spread of food. There was so much food in fact that they could have invited the entire opening night audience and had enough food!

As for the stage and pit, the term cramped comes to mind. This pit is probably the tightest fit that we have experienced so far. In fact when The Drowsy Chaperone played here they had to put the drums in a remote location. The above picture does not really do justice to just how tight the pit was, but I was sitting so close to Nate that we could actually talk during the show!

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Scranton was the last stop before our excessively long 4 week layoff. Once again, I think that everyone really needed a break, but 4 weeks was just too long.

First stop on the list of America's Fastest Dying Cities - Scranton Pennsylvania

Before leaving on The Wizard of Oz, I ran across a Forbes article entitled, "America's 10 Fastest Dying Cities". As I read the article, I started to realize that some of the city names sounded quite familiar. So I got out our tour schedule, and wouldn't you know it we were scheduled to play 3 of the 10 cities on the list.

The first city from the list that we visited is Scranton, Pennsylvania. Never having been to Scranton before, I did not know what to expect. As it turns out Scranton is not so bad. There were places to eat, including the ubiquitous Subway, and some great old architecture. Here are a few examples:

Nashville to Syracuse by bus...WHAT?

After concluding our tour of the ...villes with TraceAdkinsVille, we made our way to Syracuse by bus. If it sounds like a miserable way to travel between Nashville and Syracuse then you would be right!

To add insult to injury, our second day on the bus just happened to be Inauguration Day. As most of us were loathe to miss the Inauguration itself, we stopped at a New York Travel Plaza and watched the swearing in and speech at the Roy Rogers. Ah the joys of being on the road!

Photography by Jason Simon
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We had a split week in Syracuse so I did not get to explore much. I found a Jimmy Johns and Pita Pit so I was set for food. I took the shuttle to the mall to get a haircut, and I did my laundry. The only other thing of note that I did was to watch the inaugural parade before heading to the theatre.

Oh and the theatre? One of my least favorite. First, it was impossible to find. The theatre's address is the backside of the building which bears no resemblance a theatre whatsoever! In fact had I not run into one of the crew members, I probably would have been late to sound check. As for the house, I think that Civic Center is the perfect name for the theatre. There is nothing remotely beautiful about it. Merely functional.

Syracuse Stage is a regional theatre that is only a couple of blocks from our hotel. When I walked past the first time, I noticed that they were doing a Sondheim revue called Putting It Together with a fantastic cast (Lillias White, Chuck Cooper). Sadly though, I can now add Putting it Together to the list of shows that I did not get to see while I was in town with a tour. They did have a performance time that I could have attended had the show not opened the week after we were there! Curses!

Opening Night Party in Nashville

The view from our opening night party

This is potentially the most disturbing picture I have taken to date.


Mixing with the crew

After we took this picture, Nate and I realized that we have others that are exactly the same pose and expression so we have started a series of the exact same picture.

The three Ryans

Finally a picture of just the band!

Trace Adkins...who?

For a couple of weeks before we got to Nashville, all we heard about was the fact that Trace Adkin's daughter was going to be a munchkin in the show. I responded to this news with a big "ho hum"! After I looked up who Trace Adkins was exactly, my opinion did not change. We kept hearing various rumors, like Trace was going to give a curtain speech at every show, but there was one thing we knew for sure. This was going to be a big deal to people in Nashville.

As it turns out, he was there at our opening night. He gave a curtain speech that night (a very awkward scripted speech), and since it was also his birthday we played and sang, "Happy Birthday" after the curtain call. Then he joined us at our opening night party. I did not bother to meet him. What would I have said, but several people met him and took pictures with him. My favorite being the one with Tommy. It pointed out just how tall Trace Adkins is (and how not tall Tommy is!).

photography by Jason Simon (aka Cowardly Lion)

"Okay, everyone look in a different direction!"

Back To Where I Left Off: The Tennessee Performing Arts Center

The Tennessee Performing Arts Center is an unremarkable modern facility. The stage and pit were spacious and we were able to do the entire show. The auditorium is very 1970s in its design. Annoyingly the program is magazine size and will not fit into my Playbill binder! The only thing that made the week remarkable in any way was the hubbub over Trace Adkins and his munchkin daughter. Oh and the fact that we were sold out. Hopefully that translates well into our overage check!

A Few Last Thoughts From Ottawa

One thing that I found frustrating about playing in Ottawa was the fact that this display case is the only bit of advertising that I found in the city. There were kiosks all around the National Arts Centre, but not one of them had our poster in it. This display was in the box office, but there were no flyers or anything to take away. It was amazing that we had an audience at all.

This is my best attempt at getting a good picture of the Parliament West Block building. Oh well!

I love visiting foreign countries if for no other reason than getting to use play money. Canadian money is fun. The $5 bill has hockey players on the backside!


The Rideau Canal runs through the center of town and along the backside of the Arts Centre. During winter it becomes the "Worlds Biggest Skating Rink". Rumor has it they filmed the epic chase in Blades of Glory there. Unfortunately it was too warm to take advantage of the ice. The snow for that matter. I also looked into cross country skiing in Gatineau Park.

I love visiting Canada, and I look forward to my next visit. Vancouver Olympics anyone?!?!?

National Arts Centre, Ottawa

I know that I have made this statement before, but I can now say The National Arts Centre in Ottawa is the most confusing theatre that I have played. Firstly it is a complex of several performing and rehearsal spaces like The National Theatre in London or The Kennedy Center in DC. The venues at the NAC are designed as a series of hexagons which makes navigating the backstage areas very confusing.

Our first day there, I happened to run into Nate on the way so we walked in together. Except that he did not know where the stage door was so we just entered from the front of house. Then once I got backstage I just started to wander around until I saw some sort of sign for the orchestra pit. Well it turned out to be the wrong orchestra pit. So with the help of 3 different local employees I eventually found the correct pit except that the last guy could not let me in because it was locked and he did not have the magic key. Thankfully everyone was pleasant enough, and I eventually was let into the pit. The stage door turned out to be on a lower level of the complex that was only accessible through an adjacent park or the exit of the parking garage. It was very confusing!

See hexagons

As we learned on Saturday night, the lowest right box in the above picture is called the Governor's General box. It is used for heads of state like for instance the Prime Minister. After our Saturday matinee, we noticed a group of important looking people being lead around backstage. Turns out they were the Prime Minister's security detail because Prime Minister Harper was attending the evening show with his family. I have to say that it was pretty cool to have a head of state in the audience, even if I would have had no idea had we not been told. Afterwards, he headed down to the stage, and we got to meet him and took pictures. I am trying to get a copy of one of the group shots. I'll post it as soon as I do.

As much as I found the exterior of the Arts Centre disappointing and very uninteresting to look at, I did like the interior of the Opera House where we played. The ceiling created a very neat effect with the lights and panels. The pit was also very spacious and clean. And there were two practice rooms right outside the pit door. That never happens!

This Must Be Why They Call It Parliament Hill

A view from the Alexandra Bridge.

Musee Canadien des Civilisations or Canadian Museum of Civilization

One of the more interesting aspects of being in Ottawa is its location. Ottawa proper is in Ontario, but it lies right on the border with Quebec and is separated by the Ottawa River. Quebec is of course very French so there is quite a bit of French everywhere you go in Ottawa. Thankfully everyone speaks English so it is never a problem because I do not speak a word of French nor would I dare to given insult that often accompanies mispronouncing French! I may have a new project to occupy my time on the bus though. Not that I will ever be fluent in French, but I want to at least be able to go into a French restaurant and order something from the menu!

So I began my Friday with my normal agenda of things that I really wanted to do. On the top of that list was a visit to the Canadian Mint. I had gone to their website to find out about the public tours, and it stated that reservations were recommended. By recommended they must have meant required because when I got there the gates leading in were closed, and there did not appear to be anyone in the ticket window. (Imagine the Wonka Factory) Oh well mostly I wanted to visit the gift shop because Canada has some really cool quarters that commemorate the Vancouver Olympics. I have gotten 2 just from paying for things, but I was hoping to get a set of them. Alas!

So the second item on my agenda for the day was to go to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. To get there you have to cross the bridge over to Gatineau, Quebec. Gatineau is adjacent to Ottawa and from what I can tell it is its own city and not a part of Ottawa, but it is considered a part of the Capital. If that makes sense.

One of the things that you first notice about Ottawa is that all of the signs are in English and French. One of the things that you first notice about Gatineau is that everything is listed in French, but not necessarily also in English. Curious that!

So one of the main reasons that I wanted to go to the Museum of Civilization was that I had read the building is very cool, and in fact it is! What took me by surprise is that the museum itself was also very cool. It has all of the requisite museum things like an Imax theatre and display of Egyptian artifacts. Those are all well and good (and I did take advantage of both), but the more interesting displays to me were the First Peoples Exhibit and the Canadian History Exhibit. The First Peoples Exhibit was dedicated to the native people of Canada. Sadly it seems that the Aboriginals of Canada got much the same treatment as the Native Americans in the US. Although I don't think that the Inuit of the Northern Territories were ever really in danger of having their land (or ice might be better) taken over by the Europeans!

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History has never been a favorite subject of mine. It is not that I am disinterested, but I just don't have a memory for dates and things so it usually goes straight out of my head. And well the things I learned at the Museum of Civilizations will probably do the same thing, but at least they are displayed in an entertaining way. It felt a little bit like being in EPCOT in fact. They have recreated various settings like an early city street, and populated them with live actors to continue the illusion. I quite enjoyed the replica of a music shop in Winnipeg although I have my doubts that one of the instruments is actually period! If John was still working the museum job I would highly recommend that he visit this one as I think this is what more museums should be like.