Wings

I have wanted to visit The Milwaukee Museum of Art for some time now. I believe that it is a decent medium sized art museum, but more so I wanted to see the Calatrava "Wings". The Wings are actually a sunscreen designed to open up at the beginning of the day, and then close with the museum at the end of the day. I had heard so much about the Wings that I was very excited to finally get my chance to see them.

The Wings did not disappoint. I believe that at different times of the year they also light them different colors. Sadly I did not get to visit the museum though due to our performance schedule. Oh well. Milwaukee is not that far away from Mom and Dad's house.

Madison Again? Sure Why Not.

On an earlier tour schedule for Wizard of Oz, we were supposed to go from Rochester to Toronto and Milwaukee for a split week. Well that always struck me as being really strange. Why would a presenter in Toronto book a show like ours for the first half of a week. I mean even just a weekend would be weird, but the beginning of the week?! So I was not surprised when the booking fell through. Thankfully we ended up with the former Toronto days free as they were not able to find a replacement booking. Our company manager decided that since we needed to be close to Milwaukee he would book us a hotel in Madison for the days off. Some people were less than thrilled about this choice, but I was all for it. I enjoyed my previous visit to Madison as much as possible, but it was freezing cold. The beginning of June was being the perfect time of year to visit Madison.

Sadly our hotel ended up being 5 miles away from the downtown and campus area of Madison, but we had rental cars! I even walked from the hotel to downtown one day. The weather was beautiful so I figured why not!

Wisconsin Capital Building with fountain


For those who do not know the geography of Madison it is also called The City of 4 Lakes. Above is Lake Mendota and below is Lake Menona.

As for my activities in Madison, I did not end up going crazy. Aside from walking around downtown and the University of Wisconsin campus, the most exciting thing I did was to return to Das Essen Haus!

Mmm beer and pretzels. Sehr gut!

My Trip To Exotic Osh Kosh

One of the great things about working in the theatre is that you are constantly meeting new people and therefore you end up with friends in many different places. My friend Kristi worked at Amish Acres for a couple of years and then ended up moving back to Osh Kosh, Wisconsin. Since we had free time in Madison, I borrowed the rental car and drove up to pay her a visit.

I was very excited because I hadn't seen Kristi in years so we had much to catch up on. Of course we mostly talked about Scott and how he doesn't keep in touch with any of us!

After dinner we went to a local ice cream place / biker hangout. It was a good time sitting in the car eating our ice cream and people watching the bikers. Also just for kicks we tried to call Scott, and amazingly he actually answered! So it turned out to be a great little side trip. One that I hope to be able to repeat again in the not too distant future!

University of Wisconsin Madison

Given the fact that our previous stop in Madison was in the freezing cold of December, I decided to skip exploring The University of Wisconsin campus then. But since the weather was beautiful in June, I took full advantage of the situation. I found the campus to be quite nice.

This is the University of Wisconsin Union Building.

It was quite sunny that day.

I think that it goes without saying at this point that I prefer Bloomington over just about any college town. Madison included!

Performance 200

Our 200th performance occurred in Rochester. We had a cake.

(Well perhaps the bakery was busy that day!)(The camera phone snapshot does nothing for the cake either.)

Eastman School of Music

I would not trade my time at Indiana University for anything, but occasionally I wonder what it would have been like to attend a different music school. Eastman is one of the few others I would have considered. Now that I have been to Rochester, I'm glad that I never really seriously considered Eastman. I really enjoyed the large campus experience at IU and of course I love Bloomington!

Eastman is a very prestigious school, but it is very small and stuck in the middle of Downtown Rochester. I'm not sure if it is true, but I heard that the Eastman students have to travel to the main University of Rochester campus for the general ed classes. No thanks.

It's Not My Fault

I tried to on two different occasions in November four years apart from each other!

Rochester Memorial Auditorium

Coolest Doorman Ever

One of the few experiences that I had yet to have on tour was to meet a particularly memorable local. Being in the orchestra, the musicians really don't really interact with the locals at the theatre. At the Rochester Memorial Auditorium, I ended up talking to the doorman at the stage door, and he turned out to be really interesting. He has worked at the theatre forever, and has more stories than one could take in during a week long engagement. Also instead of painting wall tags, at the RMA Bob the doorman takes the program and makes poster board creations for everyone to sign. Here are some of them:

And of course best for last!