Opening Night Pictures

Beth and Brian at the opening night party! For once it was Brian's opening night too and not just mine!


These are the gift bags that I slaved over before the opening. They are the gifts from the producers... a laundry bag with the Drowsy logo and a make-up towel with the Drowsy logo. Very cute.

A late night update

Brian: Hello from high atop the Delta Chelsea in DownTown Toronto. Beth and I have moved up to the 25th floor of the hotel after some changing of rooms to accomadate company needs and are sharing a nice suite. It has a kitchenette, a living room, a bed room, a bathroom and a little hallway.

Beth: And two closets!! So i can be organized and Brian's stuff can get put away so i can't see it laying all over the floor.

Brian: As i was going to say before i was interupted. We also have a nice balcony... But then again, everyone in this hotel does. But ours is bigger because it extends from the living room along the bedroom. Though you can only access it from the living room, there is a window in the bedroom.

Beth: Basically, have a bowling alley outside our hotel room. To quote a company member when describing the balcony: "Its long, skinny and useless." They could at least put a chair out there.

Brian: Hopefully at somepoint in this post, I will be able to complete a thought before the laptop is ripped from my hands. Anyways.............. ;

Beth: NOT TRUE! I asked very nicely for Brian to hit enter twice so i could type a thought. Although this time i did actually rip it out of his hands... oops... anyways... you were saying?

Brian: I dont know whats more entertaining... watching a p.c. user try to type on a Mac, or watching Beth's reaction to what i am writing. Anyway... This past week has been a bit of a blur. We have kept some of you up to date on the happenings, but to review for the rest of you.

Sunday (23rd) we opened the show to outstanding reviews here in Toronto. Afterwards the Presenters threw a party at the theatre for the company. While it was a nice party.... It lacked filling food. Beth and I had spent a portion of the evening chatting with the Lighting Designer, Ken Billington. After the party the three of us set out for a bite to eat and ended up at a steakhouse near the hotel and enjoyed some fantastic garlic bread,

Beth: SO GOOD! I could eat some right now. Mmmmm....

Brian: ^--- I agree with the above statement....2:00am munchies... Anyways.. we also had some great salads, mashed potatoes, onion rings, baked potatoes and a fantastic center cut sirloin. That was quickly followed by a nice 10 hour food coma.

Monday brought a relaxing begining, a nice swim in the hotel pool. P.s. This is where the Delta gets props. On the 2nd floor is the Family Center, including arcade, kids room, and family pool and a tube slide. On the 25th floor there is the adult area... a pool, gym, hot tub and patio/balcony. As you would imagine, the 25th floor is much more relaxing. Our half hour swim was followed by a lovely 1 hour in room massage for 2. Glorious. That was follwed by a 1 hour nap. The nap was followed by a feast. Emmet and Eric (Head Carp and PSM) are two fantastic gentlemen who know how to live it up on the road. They treated us to a dinner at Barbarians, the steak house near the hotel. Arriving at 6pm, we dragged our full bodies out of there shortly after 10pm. After 4 hours of gluttony there was not much to do but slip into yet another food coma.

Sadly the rest of the week was nowhere near as relaxing, but we are on the verge of our weekend now. Unlike normal people, our weekend ranges from End of show on Sunday, to 6:30pm on Tuesday. So with roughly.... 50 hours of freedom, we tend to try and make the most of it. So as the clock approaches 2am on sunday the 30th, bedtime calls. 1 show tomorrow and then Beth is off to bowling with the cast. I however am going to come back, kick back, relax, watch some football, and sleep. Until Monday night at 9pm when I am going to watch the Patriots. Glorious national broadcast.

I would be mistaken if I did not take this time to thank the Baltimore Orioles for their comeback win on Friday evening to beat the Yankees in 10 innings and seal the deal for the Red Sox in the East. Jay Payton triple tied it in the 9th, when a tired Mo blew it for the Yanks and Melvin Mora who bunted with the bases loaded in the 10th to win it. Thank you Gentlemen for your efforts at Fenway South.

Ok. Bed Time. Missing everyone back home, in NYC and all over, where ever you may be reading this(San Diego, Paris, Tampa) It's nice to know we are getting some great mileage out of this.

Beth: Good Night and looking forward to the Cochran/Renoni invasion of Toronto next weekend!

Brian: Guten Nacht!

Check Out

Check Out
(Cezch-Ow-T)
(Noun) (Anglo-Saxson)

1. The process during which 3 electricians stand around and make sure that the moving lights move and the conventional units do not.
2. A time during which 2 electricians watch a 3rd electrician punch buttons in a PDA and watch lights flash on, change color, move, spin and smoke.
3. A period of time ranging from 30 minutes to 45 minutes where 2 electricians pray hard that they don't have to do more than watch the 3rd electrician punch buttons on a PDA.

Oh Canada!

Hello!

Well here we are in beautiful Toronto! The weather is absolutely glorious and the city is amazing. It's like New York, only cleaner and more polite. In fact, they are filming a movie on Yonge Street right near our hotel and it's supposed to take place in New York. So there are trash cans full of trash and piles of trash on the ground, and they actually have to put saran wrap over the trashcans and put signs on the trash that say "Set Dressing: Please DO NOT touch" because Canadians are so neat and polite that they kept picking up all the trash on the ground! Cracks me up.

There are about 5 hospitals within blocks of the hotel and theatre... not sure if that's a good thing or if i should be worried...

A shout out to Mr. Jeffrey Contray: There are Tim Horton's on EVERY CORNER here! They are like Dunkin' Donuts in New England. These people can't get enough of them! I think of you at least 8 times a day.

Also, i must say, Nana, you were right. Food IS ridiculously expensive in Toronto. I paid $4.95 for a half gallon of milk. That is just wrong. Fortunately, we have kitchenettes in our hotel rooms so that we can cook and save a little bit of money.

We are at the Elgin Theatre and it's great! The space is nice, although it is the smallest house we will play on the tour, and the people are so nice and friendly and an absolute joy to work with! We had our first preview/public performance yesterday afternoon. The matinee was alright, but the evening performance was great! The audiences are loving it.

These are the cupcakes that Charlotte sent us for our first preview. They were deeeeelicious!


Monday night the red sox were in town playing the Toronto Blue Jays and sadly, Brian had to work. However, I got to go to the game! (Brian still hasnt forgiven me... "You don't even CARE about baseball!") I went with some of the Drowsy company. It was a fun game (even though the sox lost) and the french fries were really good. Rogers Centre where the Blue Jays play is such a beautiful stadium! It is right next to the CN Tower (it kind of looks like the space needle) and all of these apartment buildings. We were up in the front of the upper deck with a great view of the game and the city.



On the way back from the game, we walked by this short little stone wall with a bunch of tiny plaques on them. So, being the good tourists that we are, stop to read them. So we read one, and it's says "Joe Schmoe: Auto Accident". We don't think much. Go on to the next plaque "PERSONS NAME: Fell off ladder". So we're a little confused at this point. Next plaque: "Gas explosion and fire". "Trapped between Tractor scoop and ramp". "Hit in head with falling debris." And they go on to list people's names and these ridiclously odd accidents which killed them. By this time, we were so confused and surprised that we were laughing, and laughing harder because we were trying NOT to laugh because it was kind of innappropriate to laugh at these people's deaths (kind of like laughing hysterically on christmas eve at church when the minister says "The warm breath of cows"... no?). Well we're still pretty confused as to what in the world it was about, but i saw a sign at the end that said something about remembering past accidents to inspire a safer future. So i guess it's their way of trying to avoid accidents in the future, but it was all a little bizarre for me. Oh Canada.

Anywho... time to go back to work. I probably wont get to write much until after opening night on Sunday. Toodles for now!

~Beth

24 for hours...

So my day began at 10:00am on Saturday when we began load-out at the Palace Theatre in Cleveland. At 8:00pm the entire show was loaded into trucks and the theatre empty. At Midnight we loaded a sleeperbus, and left for toronto. I crawled into my bunk at about 1:20am Sunday and woke up at 7:00am when we arrived at the Hotel. I was checked in, and in bed by 7:30. I awake around 11:45am and am not prepping to go to the theatre for 2:00pm to begin spot and rig. Should be a fun day. We are working until 7:00 Then im going to head back to the hotel to play channel surfer....SoxsYanks at 8:00pm and PatriotsChargers at 8:15pm. Cruel joke America.

Time to find some food.

Over and Out
Brian

B-Roll... Company Management Style

Hello all!

Well, i finally have a day off.

(And by "day off" i mean got up at 7:45 to drive someone to the airport, came back to the room, packed a bit, helped dissolve a check-out drama, drove someone else to the airport, and am now back in my hotel blogging before Papa's 94th birthday get together. PHEW!)

As you have probably guessed i have been extremely busy! Opening a tour is always busy, but when your first real move involves a border-crossing it's just plain crazy. For the past week i have been collecting Canadian tax waivers, passport copies, preparing and distributing letters for everyone to carry over the border with them that basically say "hey i work for Drowsy Chaperone! Let me in to Canada!" and corresponding with our border-broker (he basically advises us in what we need to do in order to get everyone into Canada without any problems).

And that's just for the border crossing!

I have also been arranging travel, re-arranging travel plans, tracking down opening night gifts, mailing taxes, driving actors to physical therapy, coordinating a guest list for our invited dress rehearsal last evening, getting together the group flights and hotel for our next 2 cities on the tour, handing out paychecks, setting up physical therapy in Toronto (which is fun, since it's IN ANOTHER COUNTRY! so their policies vary from those in the states) and a million bazillion other things.

However, I'm not complaining... i actually love the craziness of it all!

Last night was our invited dress rehearsal. Basically, it's still a rehearsal, but we invite some people to come see the show for free so that the actor's can have an audience. There were friends and families of the cast, donors and people involved with playhouse square, some college groups and, my favorite part of all, the random people that the company has met while here in Cleveland!

Some examples of random people:
*a postal worker who sold an actor a stamp
*the employees at the M.A.C. makeup store at tower city where we get show makeup
*the physical therapists, doctor's and receptionists from Lutheran hospital
*2 businessmen and their wives who picked up an actor's dinner tab

The invited dress went WONDERFULLY! The audience absolutely loved the show! It was so nice to hear people laughing. Meanwhile, as the show was going on, Denny and i were in the company management office (See below for a picture of the fabulously ORANGE company management office)finishing up work and packing the office up into our road box.



****A side note explanation about the ORANGE office. Denny, the Company Manager, has been touring for about 10 years and wears suits everyday, so when he goes on a tour, he picks a color and only brings clothes, accessories, office supplies in that color. That way, everything mixes and matches and he doesn't shop too much cause he cant buy anything that's not that color. Drowsy Chaperone's color is orange!

After the rehearsal, the producers hosted a post-invited dress soiree in this fabulous little place behind the theatre. It was a lot of fun for everyone to hang out, have some food and drink and for the Producers to get to know the company a little better.

Throughout the night, i managed to have red wine spilled all down the front of me. However, i would just like to say, that seltzer water is a miracle worker! It all came right out!

Well, hopefully once we're open i will have much more time to blog... and there will be more of Cleveland when we come back!

So long for now!
Beth

p.s. B-Roll is when a film crew comes in and films the show. The footage they get is called B-Roll (the B stands for Beta) and is used to get clips of the show for advertising and marketing purposes.

p.p.s. here are a couple pictures of the amazing Cleveland greyhound station. They really have some amazing old architecture in this city. I LOVE IT!

B-Roll

Up in the spot booth this afternoon for a run thru. There is a film crew here to shoot a b-roll of the show for the advertisements. So in order to make things come out smoother, we have to put color correction on the spotlights. So i taped onto the front of the units color correction and Rosco 03. So, as i hang out up here, i just wanted to post a funny picture of a sign above my spot.

For those of you having a hard time reading the pencil writing below, it says
"Turning off a spot light?"

Next up we have a view thru my Tel-Rad. This is a handy little device for making pickups in the dark. U center the dot on whom ever u want to pick up.

Next we have a view thru my Tel-Rad when it is not pointed at the bright stage but at the wall.


Time to go run it

Over and Out
Brian

Apologies

Just wanted to post and say sorry for the lack of updates over this past week plus. Just been running ragged. Up at 7, in at 8, out at 11. Just long days and down time is nap time. But i figured i should post something before we ship out.
Things are wrapping up. As much stuff as we are doing to get the show ready to go and run, we are also packing up and getting ready to split town for Toronto. We're having a semi open dress tonight, and friday night, and then we are in at 10am saturday to take it all down, and put it on the trucks. Hopefully that will be done by about 9pm... followed by showers and bording the overnight sleeper bus to Toronto.

Well, i am off for now.
P.S. Im throwing together a mailing address book. So if you want to drop me an email with your mailing address, you might just get a post-card, and if ur lucky maybe a christmas present.
So drop me an email at BandBonTour@Gmail.com

Thats all for now. Time to go climb some sound towers and take measurements. Woohoo 20' free climbing.

Over and Out
Brian

High Atop the Palace Theatre...

Hello all,
I am reporting in from the spot booth high atop the palace theatre, here at playhouse square in Cleveland, Ohio. Only 100 steps up to the booth. See the picture below. We are currently in tech. We began Tech Thursday evening with a 4 hour rehearsal, which got us through approximately... 5-6 minutes of stage time. Wooo Hoo. Right now we are in hour 3 of Tech on Day 4. We are on scene 13 of..... 18. So after 23 hours of tech, we have made it thru 13.5 scenes. And we have 9.5 days left of tech, before we even do previews! Not too shabby. Actually it's kind of mind boggling to me, because i am used to the Wagner tech schedule. A time slot in which we have 13 days to tech an hour and 40 minutes show. I am used to teching a 3 hour show in 8 days.

Nevertheless, tech pushes on. We have work calls in the morning and tech rehearsals in the afternoon and evenings. Having sunday and monday off to relax was a blessing. But for some reason i felt more tired then, than i do from working. I would be in major default if i did not toss a shout out to my boy Clay Bucholz for his tremendous pitching performance Saturday night. As well due credit should be given to Dustin Pedroria for his Amazing, Rookie of the Year Defense. And a final shout out goes to Jacoby Ellsbury... who i think in a few years will be a top notch star. I lied, another shout out goes to my brother david, who posted pictures of facebook from the wedding. Who let me go around with my shirt untucked? I looked like a complete bum! oh well, thats life.

Time to throw some pictures up here. and then type up some descriptions.
A view from my Booth

My trust spot, the Lycian 1290XLT

Bob the Lobster, after a steam bath

My old Blogging partener. I miss her, great at checking spelling and punctuation.


Time for dinner break

Over and Out,
Brian