Lions, Tigers, and Beers. Oh My!

As much because there is nothing else open late at night in downtown Houston, we started off our two weeks by going to Flying Saucer. (I've described it before so I will refrain from doing so again) Several of the company members have Beer Knurd membership cards so they are now on their quests to get their own personal plates. The visits to Flying Saucer were pretty regular during the first week. After noticing how often people were going, someone decided that it would only be fair to award The Wizard of Oz company collectively a plate. (Legally Blonde has one at The Hobby Center) Not that we reached 200 different beers, but for a group of actors, musicians, and technicians to drink as many beers as they did in two weeks the plate was justified. I did my small part although I was still hurting from the two weeks in New York!

So Jason schmoozed the management, and we not only were awarded a plate they gave us a little party. Sadly the plate was not ready until the Monday when we left so we could not be there for the unveiling, but Jason was able to hurry down there and snap a picture before getting on the bus!

Skeksis

The Dark Crystal anyone?

(Oh and in researching the spelling of Skeksis, I noticed a sequel planned for 2011. Very excited!)

I Am I Don Quoxite...

the Cellist of La Mancha.

Haven't You Heard? It Was My Understanding That Everyone Had Heard? Heard What?

Bird, bird, bird, bird is the word.

Actually I don't really give a wet slap about birds, but I do like to take pictures of them in the hopes that I will see one that Jamie has never seen!

Points of Interest

Walking through Hermann Park, I found a few things that I thought were interesting:

Coincidentally, as I was walking through the park I was listening to one of the Lord of the Rings audiobooks. I suddenly realized where Tolkien came up with the name, "Treebeard".


We happened to be in Houston for Easter. The wreckage was all over the park. Nothing like teaching children to pollute and litter at an early age. Way to go Houston!

Monday In Hermann Park With Ryan

After visiting the zoo, I spent some time wandering around Hermann Park. It was so relaxing and beautiful that I came back again. Here are some highlights:

There is a big lake in the middle of the park. Now the lake has all of the water fowl that you would expect, but also swimming around were a few of these water varmints. I'm not even sure what exactly they were. They did not appear to be beavers. Perhaps they are some variety of otter?

This building is not actually in the park, but it is visible from all over the park.

Statue of Sam Houston

This is an outdoor performance venue. I am not sure if it is affiliated with Theatre Under The Stars or not, but they were rehearsing a production of Beauty and the Beast when we were there.

Houston Zoo

I came close to going to the Houston Zoo last year with Steve Baldridge, but we were sidetracked on the way by the Natural History Museum. So this year I headed over to see what the zoo was like. The zoo is in the middle of a huge park called Hermann Park so it was somewhat difficult to find. It was worth the effort though as The Houston Zoo was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

When you first enter the zoo there are signs everywhere for Toby the Red Panda, or as they claim, "The World's Cutest Animal". Now I will not deny that he is cute, but...

I would take an otter over a red panda any day!

Earlier in the week, the zoo hosted a Wizard of Oz day. Sarah, our first cover for Dorothy, made an appearance by the lion cage (imagine that!). I really did not know about it otherwise I might have gone. There were still remnants of the event though.

Really Texas?

Ugliest decoration on a building ever!

Hobby Center, Again

There is not much to say about the Hobby Center this year that I did not say last year. In some ways it is has some of the most luxurious facilities of the venues that we have played including a musician's lounge with couches and a TV right next to the pit. The pit is very spacious, and the locals were very nice to us this year. In fact they had a cookie and cobbler bakeoff, and a small brunch for us. Funny thing is they had nothing for us last year. Hmm I wonder why?!

As for the house itself, it lacks the charm of an old theatre, but it is much nicer than say the soulless Syracuse Cultural Center or New York's Gershwin Theatre.

One of the more interesting aspects of the theatre is the ceiling. There is a theatre group in Houston called Theater Under The Stars (TUTS), and the Hobby Center was built partly to give TUTS a home. So along with the touring shows, TUTS also produces shows at the Hobby. In fact they did a production of Bombay Dreams which they toured and I saw in Atlanta. But to get back to the point, the ceiling in the Sarofim Hall at the Hobby lights up in the star pattern of the Summer Solstice over Houston. And actually every five minutes there is a strand that lights up and looks like a shooting star. Sadly the ceiling is hard to get a good picture of because of the oval of bright lights around the stars.

Of course sometimes it is cloudy over Houston!

Houston A Year Later

Our two weeks in Houston represented a first for me (well actually a second). It was my first repeat city between two different tours. Having already spent two weeks in Houston a year previous, I knew what to expect and was not looking forward to it. These are the things that I remembered about Houston from The Wedding Singer: it was really hot, downtown is a wasteland after 4pm, it was really hot, nothing is open on the weekend, it was really hot, and there is nothing interesting to do downtown. (Oh and it was hot!) So imagine my surprise when I actually had fun this time around. There still is not really anything to do downtown, but I discovered a few places farther afield. There were a few more food options. But most importantly we became addicted to The Flying Saucer! (Oh and it was still really hot!)

It is a little bit sad to me when interesting old buildings like this one get swallowed up by behemoth new ones.

I just love the former Enron building. It is so spectacular in a really blue sky like in this picture.

Stop Spreading The News

I've already thoroughly beaten the dead horse that was our New York run. So I'll be moving on to Houston.

This post did give me the chance to add a couple of pictures that did not make it before.

Shuffle (The Hell) Out Of Buffalo

After all that we went through, I was more than ready to leave Buffalo. If nothing else Max (our Reed II player from The Wedding Singer) was meeting us the next week to take over playing for Terry. Plus we were on our way to New York City for two weeks!

I am assuming that Buffalo did a similiar exhibit of public art like Chicago's Cows. This buffalo is in the box office of Shea's.


I love that it has a window and that they can change the artwork for whatever show is currently playing!

Anchor Bar - The Original But Not The Best (well if you are into that sort of thing)

Those who know me know that I have several food issues. I do not like to eat large slabs of meat, I do not drink something that was squirted from the underside of a cow, and I especially do not eat meat that is still attached to the bone. Therefore the thought of paying a visit to the home of the original Buffalo chicken wing was less than thrilling to me. But as they say, "When in Rome..."


So we headed to the Anchor Bar. All the way there, I was hoping that they would have something that I would want to eat. Thankfully they offered boneless chicken fingers so that I could at least experience the taste and see what this chicken wing craze is all about. I have to say that The Anchor Bar did not make a believer out of me, but then I did not think that it would. Seeing all of those bowls full of bones, and people sticking the things in theirs mouths. Gross! I'll take Thai food any day!

Shea's Buffalo

Amongst all of the empty buildings and just general dumpiness of downtown Buffalo, sits Shea's Buffalo Theatre. It is amazingly the best of both worlds. Shea's Buffalo is a beautiful old theatre with a spacious and modern backstage facility. Sadly many historic old theatres are not able to expand their stage facilities (I will have a perfect example of this when I cover Chicago), but thankfully this was not the case in Buffalo.

I love trying to find the detail like this in historic old buildings.

Despite the terrible review and the union protesters, we actually had great audiences in Buffalo. In fact I think that most of our performances were sold out. Hurray for overage!