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!

Buffaloed

Our week in Buffalo started badly and ended even worse. To begin with as we were approaching the hotel, the company manager got on the bus microphone and told us to take our bags up to our rooms and assemble in the ballroom as soon as possible. Our producer wanted to have a meeting with us. That is never a good sign! I was guessing that the meeting had to do with our upcoming two weeks in New York. Perhaps trouble with the unions. What we did not expect was that we might have trouble with the unions in Buffalo. Well one specific union: the stagehands union. Apparently IATSE was urging the Buffalo locals to strike and not work our show. So our meeting was about what would happen if that was in fact the case. Thankfully everything went according to plan the next day during load in, and the show was able to go on. We did have some picketers outside the theatre that night. But apparently it was only a handful, and they were not too obnoxious.

Buffalo was actually the next stop on the list of America's Fastest Dying Cities. Downtown Buffalo is okay although there is not much to it. At least there are a few places to eat and drink.

Oh and speaking of drinking, St. Patrick's Day occurred when we were in Buffalo. It also happened to fall on our opening night for which the theatre had a party. In an embarrassment of riches, NETworks had a St. Patrick's party for us that night too. So after the show, we started at the opening night party which was surprisingly good. They actually had an open bar and a nice spread of food. Then we made our way to the Century Bar for green beer and appetizers. I think that the only thing keeping me from having a severe hangover the next day was the fact that I ate so much!

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And then there was Friday night. It looked to be better than the average Friday night. Nick our sound guy was celebrating his last night on tour, and in an impressive move that I am still marveling at, Noah was able to hijack his party. Noah announced to everyone that Nick's party would take place at a bar called Marcella so that everyone could witness the infamous Midget Drag Queen Sabrina. Amazingly everyone went along with it, and that is where Nick decided to go. So I went back to the hotel after the show to get ready to go out, and that is when I learned the horrible news. I ran into one of the chorus guys who broke the news that Terry, the Reed II player, had fallen and broken his wrist. Now when I say fallen, I mean that he had flown over the handlebars of his brand new $2000 foldable bike, broke his right wrist bad enough that it needed surgery, and smacked his head into the concrete. All of the details came out as the night progressed so needless to say, it put a bit of a damper on the evening. But Sabrina was every bit as fabulous as billed and everyone was in such a fun mood that it turned out to be an evening polar opposites. I was having a great time dancing, drinking, and watching Sabrina all whilst wanting to strangle Terry. (Oh did I mention that the hotel was a mere two blocks from the theatre and he was riding on the sidewalk with no helmet or other protective gear?!?!!?)

So Brett and I met with Nate and Terry on Saturday in order to divide up the Reed II book as much as possible. For the most part we were able to cover the important moments in Terry's book, but it sure made for an interesting weekend of shows!

Ottawa - Been there done that

Since I have already posted about Ottawa, I will skip ahead to Buffalo, NY.

Syracuse X 2

After leaving Morgantown, we drove up to Syracuse to spend the night before our border crossing into Canada. Since we had already been to Syracuse and stayed at the same hotel, I knew what to expect and what I wanted to do. First and foremost I needed to do my laundry. So as soon as we arrived at the hotel, I loaded up my laundry bag and headed to the laundromat. Then for dinner, I headed over to the Pita Pit. (Mmm Pita Pit!)

In the morning, we had a relatively late bus call of noon so I had time to walk over and see Syracuse University. I don't remember why I ran out of time to see the campus the first time we were in Syracuse, but actually as it turned out, I really only had time to walk along the edge of campus. Thankfully there were some picture worthy buildings so my trip was not in vain.

After my whirlwind tour of Syracuse University, I headed back to the hotel. I loaded up on soaps (the Renaissance hotel chains have the best soap!!) and loaded my stuff on the bus for Canada.

Cosmic Bowling (and drinking)

When I arrived in Morgantown, I was at critical level with my laundry. Aside from underwear, I essentially had nothing that was clean. So one of my first activities was to seek out the laundromat listed on our city sheet. Along the way, I ran into Caitlyn who was walking in the same direction so we walked together. When I arrived at the laundromat it was closed, but we discovered a bowling alley. Caitlyn was inspired, and decided that the company needed a bowling outing.

So that night we reserved a couple of alleys and meet up for a night of crazy bowling and drinking.

Look at that technique. Those bowling lessons in Lowell were for naught!

Oh did I mention the drinking?!

Things got so crazy that Tim and Chris switched hats!

At some point in the evening, I decided that I had to buy a t-shirt to commemorate the evening. I chose the lovely lavender colored shirt that they were selling. Later on in the evening, I had to use the restroom, and came back to this spectacle. I'm pretty sure that I actually fell to the ground laughing.

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All things said and done, it was a crazy fun evening though one that I was not ready to repeat for quite some time. In fact, I think that one bowling outing per tour is about my limit. Needless to say, I was at Burger King the next day consuming the magic fast food grease!

Morgantown, WV

To cap off our crazy Flint and Wabash week, we ended up in Morgantown, West Virginia. Why not?! We played on the campus of West Virginia University. Playing on a college campus was not a new experience for us, but this engagement had a couple of major annoyances. Firstly we were there during an audition weekend for the music school so there were nervous high school kids everywhere. Oh how I do not miss those days! Secondly the university had a production of Hamlet happening in the Arts Center where our show was playing. This would not have been a problem except that they would only give us a couple of dressing rooms as the others were being used by the students in Hamlet. The musicians are often made to dress in really unglamorous locations, but dressing in the hallway right in front of the elevator has to be the bottom of the barrel!

I don't think I really have to comment on the theatre. The pictures speak for themselves!

The other big annoyance was the fact that WVU's basketball team was playing a big NCAA game the second night of our show. Amazingly we did actually have an audience, but there were loud people all over the campus that night! I think that this round building is where the game happened.

Hmm, questionable?!

Well that kills the magic!