PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island: November 17 - December 7, 2008
We had 2 weeks of tech and 1 week of performances, got to know the company, grossed over $1 million our first week on tour and celebrated Thanksgiving.
EAST LANSING, Michigan - December 8 - 14, 2008
We had a company bowling night, but other than that the week sucked. It was cold and snowy and there was a stomach flu going around the company so that we never did a performance with our entire company the whole week. And for those of you not familiar with theatre - having multiple understudies on during your second week of tour is insanity!! Sometimes their costumes are not even completed yet.
Oh, also, I found another Sir Pizza in this world!
And the guy at Chipotle thought it would be really funny to label mine and Brian's burritos "His" and "Hers".
COLUMBUS, Ohio - December 15 - 21, 2008
It was cold. The theatre was small.
We did secret santa and I had Taylor Hicks. He said he collected "panties" on his secret santa form, so I bought him 50 pairs of granny panties at Wal-Mart and had each person in the company sign a pair.
We loaded out. It was cold.
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS BREAK!
December 22 - 28, 2008
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota - December 29, 2008 - January 4, 2009
Really cold. Now with snow. They have a giant Target downtown.
Took a party bus to see "White Christmas" in St. Paul and celebrated New Years with some of the Drowsy folk who were working on "White Christmas".
Mom C. sent Baklava and the cast loved it.
CHICAGO, Illinois - January 5 - 18, 2009
RIDICULOUSLY COLD! We're talking -30 degrees with blowing wind and lots of snow. Beth discovered a new found love for long underwear.
But our awesome hotel room had an amazing view of Grant Park and Lake Michigan.
Incredibly busy 2 weeks. It was so nice to be in a real city that we never stopped.
Opening night party was at Kingston Mines (local jazz bar where "Grease" was originally performed as a fun skit) - AWESOME - still the best party yet.
Got home and played in the snow in Grant Park with Kelly.
Our first official "golden day", or what we theatre folk affectionately call our day off, was so appreciated, that the entire company went out to Howl at the Moon, a dueling piano bar in Chicago, and went crazy!
One night after the show, a few of us went and had drinks at the top of the Hancock building for the amazing view of Chicago.
Bridget came to visit. We ate at Eleven City Diner for the 85th time.
Then we went to a Taylor Hicks concert.
Lacrosse + Basketball + Bumper Cars = WHIRLEYBALL!!
(www.whirleyball.com)
CINCINNATI, Ohio - January 19 - February 1, 2009
Still cold and snowy. Cincinatti is home of the Garfield Suites. A very strange little hotel where all the rooms are actually apartment style. However, they all look like they were decorated in 1984 and haven't been changed since.
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The theatre in Cincinnati has one of the best local crews in the country and is always appreciated by our show crew.
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We had an Around the World Party, where there were 3 "countries" hosted in 3 different rooms and we paraded from place to place with our passports.
Greece
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Mexico
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U.S.A.
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While in Cincinnati, we experienced a SNOW DAY!! We all received calls early one morning to find that our show had been cancelled for that evening. The city had shut down and was allowing no cars to drive on the roads. Therefore, we all stayed in and had a big pajama party all day long! Lots of movies and games.
Oh, and Will (our associate conductor) put on my mom's official 1980's shiny turquoise exercise spandex one day when we were bored.
BALTIMORE, Maryland - February 9 - 15, 2009
Crabcakes & Berger cookies!
Mom and Dad C. made a home-cooked meal for everyone at the theatre.
Olivia (our flower girl in the wedding) came to see the show and got the star treatment backstage. She met all of the actors, got to wear a pink ladies jacket and learned the official pink ladies handshake. She even got to wear Cha-Chas's wig!
OMAHA, Nebraska - February 16 - 22, 2009
This was our first time in Nebraska. The hotel was GREAT - the Magnolia Hotel is one of my favorites (although the one in Denver is by far the best).
Went to Iowa to go to the movies.
Went to dinner and a magician at the brewery made a card with Will's name on it stick to the ceiling.
Visited the CHOCOLATE exhibit at the train museum.
Ate Omaha steaks at Sullivan's with VIRGIN MOJITOS! Then we went back another night, and all the waitresses were wearing pink angel wings, and they gave Beth a pair, which she wore home over her winter coat.
TUCSON, Arizona - February 23 - March 1, 2009
Finally warm weather!
Ate lots of mexican food and drank lots of margaritas.
SAN DIEGO, California - March 2 - 8, 2009
More warm weather!
More Margaritas at Lime!
One night we went to an Irish pub in the Gaslamp district where a man was singing Irish folk music. 2 slightly intoxicated girls in low cut shirts were dancing to his song. When he was done with his song he said, "I would like to thank the lassies for shaking their wobbly bits!"
Beth went to the San Diego Zoo with Jason, Dan, Louis and Greg.
Bought a t-shirt with a hippo butt on it.
We affectionately call him "Jazz Hands Panda".
We went to LegoLand with Jack and Greg.
LOS ANGELES, California - March 9 - 22, 2009
We were practically sold out our 2 week sin LA and had amazing crowds! It was such a cool experience to play at the Pantages Theatre right in the middle of Hollywood.
Since all of the hotel options were really far away or really expensive, we rented a house with Kelly, Will and Dan. It was in Hollywood in walking distance of the theatre and AMAZING!
We also had a gourmet kitchen with a sub-zero fridge, separate wine fridge and a Wolff oven and stovetop. We took advantage and made a homemade chicken pot pie one night!
(Sorry Mom R. - they're not homemade pie crusts)
One night we had a mini Wagner reunion in our hot tub with a bunch of college friends who have since moved to LA, including HANNAH (Beth's college roommate and one of the bridesmaids - she's the pint size one in front).
Our first week in town, we all got up super early and went to a taping of
THE PRICE IS RIGHT!
We all got matching t-shirts made that said "Drew Carey: I'm the one that you want!"
At the end of the show we got to meet Drew Carey and take a picture on the Price is Right set!
Our last day in LA was Beth's birthday! Other than it being my birthday, it was a pretty rough day with 2 shows, a loadout, lots of insanity going on at the theater and one of the jerky crew guys yelling at me for no reason. When I got home, Jack, Kelly and Will had thrown me a surprise prosecco and hot tub party with crepe paper and everything!
SAN FRANCISCO, California - March 23 - April 19, 2009
We rented another house in San Francisco since we were here for a month with Kelly, Jack and Dan. It was a great 4-bedroom house with a roof deck that overlooked Golden Gate Park and the Golden Gate Bridge.
It was great except for 1 thing - it was at the top of an incredibly steep 5 block long HILL!
While the train that we took to work every day was at the bottom.
(If you see that church on the left, with the 2 tall parts sticking up - that's where we caught the train.)
Aside from that, it was an AMAZING month, filled with lots of fun things! One of the best parts was our show schedule - we had Wednesday matinees, which meant that we ended our week on Sunday matinees and had some form of a real weekend.
On our first Sunday night off we went to one of our favorite restaurants in San Francisco - The Stinking Rose, and all GARLIC restaurant! I you're even in town I HIGHLY recommend it! (www.thestinkingrose.com)
We then went to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D IMAX with our friend Greg...
The next night we went on a dinner date with our friend Kelly (Assistant Stage Manager) and her husband Drew who was out visiting. We went to The Boulevard, where Mom & Dad C. had gotten us a gift certificate for Christmas.
Our next weekend we headed out early Monday morning to Napa Valley for some wine tasting with Kelly, Drew and Jack! We went to 4 our first day, including Cakebread, Opus 1, Diamond Oaks and Saddle Ranch. Then we went back to our hotel, which was made out of old train cars, so we each had out own individual train car to sleep in, for a much needed nap!
Once we woke up, we got dressed and headed over to the French Laundry for our 6:30 reservations.
Dinner at the French Laundry would take up an entire posting of it's own, so we'll just say that is was an amazingly exceptional dinner, worth every penny, that lasted 5 hours. And Brian ate a fish egg.
The next day we stopped in at Bouchon Bakery - Thomas Keller's bakery he built to bake the bread and pastries FOR the French Laundry - for some breakfast and coffee. Then we poked around the town of Napa, visited the awesome chocolate shop called Woodhouse Chocolates (best salted caramels EVER) and the fun olive oil store called Olivier's, and hit 2 more wineries. The first one is the reason that we now refer to this day as "Castle Day". The winery is inside of an enormous Tuscan castle and after tasting the wine we went exploring around the grounds.
When we got home, we decided to line up all of our prizes from the weekend on our kitchen table...
Later that week Brian and I made a trip to Las Vegas for my cousin Bobby's wedding!
The Bride & Groom - Bobby & Mallory
Soon-to-be Bride & Groom - Beth & Brian
The Boys - JP, Bobby & Bob
Baby Brandon!
The whole family!
And of course, since we were in Vegas, we had a little fun while we were there!
Our last week in San Francisco, a group of us went on an old-fashioned fire engine tour of San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge! We got to wear real fireman's gear and were entertained by our tour guides and "fire captains" the whole time! If anyone is ever in San Francisco I highly recommend it!
www.fireenginetours.com
After the tour, we all went out to lunch and explored the city. FYI - this store's advertising worked.
PORTLAND, Oregon - April 20 - 26, 2009
Portland seemed like a fast stop, but it was a great town! Opening night was Denny's birthday so he had a big birthday party at a restaurant called Veritable Quandry and we all wore blue!
One night, while at the bar of Veritable Quandry, Kelly and Beth managed to get 2 members of the Soul Patrol to buy us drinks.
Beth's favorite thing in Portland is 24-hour donut shop called Voo Doo Donuts that makes crazy and interesting donuts. i.e. donuts with cocoa puffs, captain crunch or fruit loops, giant apple fritters, a voodoo donut, which is a person shaped donut that comes with a pretzel stick to stab the person donut with!
www.voodoodoughnut.com
But the best was the "Tex-Ass Donut". It's your basic glazed donut but it was LITERALLY the size of Beth's head!
COSTA MESA, California - April 27 - May 10, 2009
Beautiful weather, GORGEOUS new performing arts center, giant mall across the street.
We went to Six Flags on our day off.
Celebrated Cinco de Mayo with a company-sponsored party in the black box theatre.
Went to Laguna Beach for lunch one day. Ate some delicious gelato.
SEATTLE, Washington - May 11 - 31, 2009
Seattle is our favorite tour stop yet! Such a wonderful city, the weather was beautiful and we rented a 2-bedroom condo in Belltown (15 minute walk to theatre, 2 blocks from the harbor, 6 blocks from Pikes Place Market) with Jack.
The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle is GREAT! The staff is great, the theatre itself is great, the location is great, and our offices even have windows - which makes it a little ok when we're stuck inside on beautiful days.
On our first day off we went hiking at Mt. Rainier with Jack.
One day Brian thought it would be funny to dump all of the warm laundry on me while I was reading a book.
We went to the Jim Henson Exhibit at the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum.
This was Beth's attempt to get a picture of Brian and the space needle. If you look really close you can see Brian in the bottom of the picture.
We also ate lots of delicious food at Purple - a wine bar near the theatre, Tango - an awesome tapas restaurante with AMAZING paella, and made lots of delicious meals with fresh food bought at Pike's Place Market. The first weekend we were in town was the Seattle CHEESE Festival! Kelly and Beth had a BLAST, but as i'm sure you guessed, Brian didn't step foot near it. We also ate crumpets from The Crumpet Shop, a fun place to go for breakfast, lunch or afternoon tea.
And this just sort of sums up our life...
APPLETON, Wisconsin - June 1 - 7, 2009
Appleton was an interesting little town, but an enjoyable one. It's very much a college town and the street we stayed on, just a couple of blocks from the theatre, is where EVERYTHING in the town was. Restaurants, bars, local shops, etc.
It was a fast week but we had a lot of fun. We stayed at a Radisson Hotel, and all of the rooms had sleep number beds! This made Brian very happy, as he has been obsessed with the concept of a sleep number bed for years. It also made for interesting conversation - finding out what everyone's sleep number was.
This was a sign hung up in the hotel gym that we found amusing.
