Hiatus

I must apologize for our prolonged absence. Between the month that was San Francisco, and the 5 week-wedding planning/vacation/bday/visit friends and family insanity, we were very neglectful of our blog. We are currently in San Diego, enjoying the weather of Southern California. We head to Sacramento on Monday morning. Hopefully by the time Drowsy wraps up we will be back into blogging mode.

For those who don't know, Drowsy will not be the end of our touring life. Both Beth and I will be going on tour with the national tour of Grease: You're The One That I Want! The show was cast on Broadway via a reality tv series, although we don't know if anyone from the show will be going out on the tour. We start tech in Providence on November 7th and will be opening there December 2nd. After that, it's a whirlwind tour of the US again!

Stay tuned!

LA - Week #1

Our first week in LA was fun - we had our first performance on Tuesday evening and officially opened on Wednesday. The theatre had offered everyone in the company a pair of tickets to the show for friends or family so it was a great audience! Our friends who came were Hannah Johnson, Tony Mannix, Amy Hilner and Emily Richmond (plus friend). After the show we had a little Wagner reunion at the Bonaventure Brewing Company at our hotel with Chris Bruce (who is on tour selling the Drowsy merchandise... or trying to at least...).




On Thursday, Brian, Hannah and I attempted to go to the beach, but we got a late start and had so many errands to run that we decided to just go back to the hotel and swim in the pool on the roof of the 4th floor.


Friday we finally made it to the beach! We went to Venice beach and had a blast. It was a beautiful day. Hannah and I took a walk and ended up walking almost the entire way to the pier in Santa Monica and back. (We thought Brian was taking a nap, but apparently he was not successful in falling asleep and was bored to tears. oops!)

This is a stop sign we saw walking back to the car. They replaced the "Y" in All-Way perfectly with an "R". Oh those clever people out there...



On the way home we stopped at In-N-Out Burger, a West Coast staple. Delicious milkshakes and fries!

On Sunday night, Hannah and I went to see "Wicked" at the Pantages theatre in Hollywood. Beforehand we walked around and I was a total nerdy tourist, taking pictures with all of the Hollywood Stars on the sidewalk.

Judy Garland(Appropraite, since we were going to see Wicked... ha.. haha... no?)

Here's a Cochran!

My toes with Frank Sinatra's star!

Me and Hannah at Wicked!

After the show, we went to hang out with some of Hannah's friends at their apartment. We had lots of fun - and wine and cheese fondue too!

Next blog... adventures on our day off...

Ketch Up! - Grand Canyon-Vegas-LA

I figured Beth had written enough, so it's my turn to enlighten all the minds who tune into this blog.

After our short and fast week in the upper altitudes of SLC, We were heading into a week layoff. Being out west, a trip back east and then returning west again didnt make much sense to us. So after a little planning, we decided to drive to LA with some pit stops on the way.

Monday morning we picked up the car, packed it all up, and took off for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. A beautiful drive down 15, 89, 89a and Highway 67 brought us to the Grand Canyon Lodge at the North Rim.

We checked into our little cabin and went down to watch the sunset. After watching the sunset, we had dinner at the lodge, followed by some star gazing. It was amazing how dark it got at night and how bright the stars were. Very beautiful.

The next morning we grabbed some breakfast and went for a hike on the Bright Angel Trail, a 45 minute hike out to an outcropping on the rim. It was a nice hike and gave us some spectacular views.

After a small snack and some refreshment we packed up the car for Leg 2 of the journey. (After a quick stop in the Grand Canyon gift shop... christmas presents anyone?!)

A 70 mile retracing of our steps set us on our way to Las Vegas. Another beautiful drive took us along the way. I will say, the most enjoyable part of the trip from Salt Lake City to the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas was the down hill nature of the journey. 10-20 mile stretches of 6% downhill grades, makes for amazing gas mileage. At one point we took a long winding road down into a valley, where out of the rocks came a bustling little suburb. We stoped for lunch before continuing onto Las Vegas. Shortly after 4pm we rolled into Las Vegas proper and arrived at the Luxor Hotel. We checked in, and took a nap. Beth was feeling under the weather.

That evening we set out for dinner at the MGM Grand. Our original plan was to eat at this italian place, owned by Emeril. Turns out, not so italian, more so, cajun fish house. Oh well. We went next door to Pearl, a fantastic chinese restaurant. We got.... Chicken Dumplings to start, followed by Almond Crusted Lemon Chicken, Sweet & Sour Pork, and Garlic Stir Fried Asparagus. Now, truth be told, we had to wait, quite a while for our food. We didnt complain, but we were just curious why our food was taking so long. As soon as the waiter realized we hadn't gotten our food he was extremely apologetic and got right to getting our food. (Plus, the food was amazing, and totally worth the wait!) In return for our patience we received two delicious deserts on the house. I'll describe em to you next time i see you, Beth says im rambling. Onto the next phase. ( we also went to Wolfgang Puck's restaurant at the MGM Grand and it was awesome!... ok moving on...)

On Wednesday morning, Beth went and had a spa morning. She got a manicure and pedicure at the Bellagio spa and then returned to our hotel for a massage. I slept in and then ventured around the casino at our hotel.

On Wednesday night we went to see Cirque Du Soleil's "O", their amazing water show. It was mind blowing. The set, the cast, the lighting, the rigging, the automation, the water aspect. It was an amazing spectacle to behold. It was a high point of my theatre going experience. Anyone who has the chance to go to Las Vegas, must see this show. Pure genious.

(The random man taking this picture apparently did not understand that we were standing in front of the "O" sign because we wanted it in the picture.)

After the experience Wednesday night, we went home, and discussed the idea of getting tickets for Cirque's "Ka". Thursday morning, I woke up and called the concierge and he got us tickets for "Ka" 6th row center. Amazing. This was their martial arts show. Probably even more technically spectacular that "O" But not as entertaining. Ka featured a 50' deep abyss which one could not see into, and a 70-80' high proscenium. Once again, if i ever run into you, i will explain to you the marvel that is "O" and "Ka".

So during our visit to Las Vegas, Beth learned to play Blackjack. I must say, in addition to being a fast learner, she also was a fairly good winner, if not downright lucky. She had a good streak going, but hit some cold cards on our last night and ended up even. I too ended up pretty much even.

After our adventure in Las Vegas, we grabbed the car and took off for L.A. A very very boring drive. Flat, if not somewhat uphill, and killer on gas mileage. So we got into downtown around 4 and checked in to the hotel.

Beth wasn't feeling too great, since the cold she had ignore during our Grand Canyon and Vegas adventure was finally catching up to her. We pretty much just crashed, ordered room service and watched TV all night. It was 4th of July, and we didn't feel like hunting down fireworks, but we were able to see some out the window of our hotel!

Ok... this is Beth taking over now...

Saturday we pretty much just hung around the hotel relaxing, and then went to my cousin Kris and Mark's house in Simi Valley for dinner. We had a FANTASTIC time and a DELICIOUS dinner! Especially the homemade peach pie. Also, we played Wii and hunted for creatures in the back yard.

But the most amazing part of the whole night...

(are you sitting down Mom and Dad R?)

BRIAN ATE AN ARTICHOKE! AND LIKED IT!

Now, i'm not just talking about an artichoke heart. I'm talking the whole shabang. It looked like this...

It was really great seeing Kris - who I hadn't seen in almost 10 years! - and so nice to finally meet her husband Mark.

Sunday, Brian and I went exploring a bit around Los Angeles. We went to 3rd Street in Santa Monica to do some shopping and then had dinner at Mr. Marcel's where the one and only Hannah Johnson works! She didn't know we were coming so it was really funny when we showed up. The food was great and the service was EXCEPTIONAL! After that we went to see "Wall-E" at the movie theatre across from our hotel and then headed home.

Brian started work the next day and our whirlwind layoff week was over.

More on LA to come...

Catch up! - Salt Lake City

After Kansas City we headed on to Salt Lake City, Utah. Since the 2 cities were so far apart, it was going to take the trucks longer to get there, so we didn't open until Wednesday night. This gave us all an extra day off, aside from our travel day. However, since we didn't open until Wednesday, we did 8 shows in 5 days. It was a pretty crazy week to begin with, and then everyone in the company started getting sick and passing it on to one another. Fortunately, we went right into a layoff week for everyone to rest up.

Salt Lake City wasn't the greatest stop for the Drowsy Tour, because we were so busy that we didn't get to do much. The biggest highlight of the week was getting to see Chris and Diana Carlston! We went out to dinner on Tuesday night and got to catch up after almost 10 years!! (I'll be seeing Courtney this week in LA!)

Also, some of you who are quite familiar with Drowsy, may be wondering how the Utah joke went over at the end of the show? It was an absolute showstopper! The audience laughed so hard they had to stop the show and wait for the laughter to die down before they could continue on. We could not have asked for a better response!

Catch Up! - Kansas City

Hello to you dedicated reads of the Beth and Brian blog, who, if you are reading this, are still checking our blog, hoping and praying that we have updated it. Well, today is your lucky day! A bona fide brand new post that has nothing to do with a slap-yo-mama good burger!

It has been quite an eventful month so we will start back in good old Kansas City, Missouri...
circa June 17, 2008...

The first thing you should know about the Starlight Theatre in Kansas City is that it is an outdoor ampitheatre. Yes, that's right, OUTDOORS! It seats 8,000 people and is like being at summer camp. Since the theatre is outdoors we only did 6 evening shows, and they didn't begin until 8:30pm, and even then it was light out for the first 45 minutes of the show.

Here are some photos to give you an idea...

Our Stage Door!

The views from Brian's booth...

The Starlight Theatre is in the middle of Swope Park and only has 1 road that leads to and from the theatre. I'm sure you can imagine the kind of traffic that builds up at the end of a performance! Therefore, instead of sitting in traffic, everyone in the travelling and local company has a tailgate party every night after the show. (The fact that no one comes to our show and therefore there was no traffic did not deter us from partying!) Needless to say, Drowsy Chaperone took these parties to a new level of ridiculousness.

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Tuesday, June 17 - OPENING NIGHT: The party was held by the theatre and it was a lovely opening night party. There was food and drinks and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Also, during the day on Tuesday, Denny & I went to Home Depot and purchased a grill. That's right - a full blown grill. We take our parties seriously.

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Wednesday, June 18

Hosted By: Company Management & Stage Management

Theme: MONKEY LUAU

The company and stage management teams hosted the first party and decided on a Monkey Luau theme. We went all out, complete with hawaiian music, leighs, blow up monkeys, monkey hats, hawaiian shirts and, the topper of it all - ORANGE DRINK COOZIES that said "The Drowsy Chaperone: Luau June 2008". We served shrimp and pineapple skewers, mango salsa, Corona and sodas. Oh - and we had HULA hoops too!

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Thursday, June 19
Hosted By: The Crew
Theme: FIESTA!!

Thursday night it was our crew's turn to host the party. They decided to do a Mexican Fiesta. They made fajitas and guacamole, had 3 pinatas, bought fake mustaches for everyone to wear and had poppers on the table. Everytime someone set one off everyone would shout "AY YI YI YI YI!!!! ARRIBA!" and other stereotypical mexican things. They even had the "Our Lady of Guadalupe" candles from the dollar store. Also, we did the limbo and the Macarena.

Kevin trying to break the chili pepper pinata.

Brian with his mini-maracas.

Bob limbo-ing in his giant Texas hat.

In case you can't read the sticker on his shirt, it says "Border Patrol".

Gene, the head of our wardrobe department, took the monkey pinata and dressed it up to look like one of the monkeys in the show - cymbals and all!

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Friday, June 20

Hosted By: The Local Crew

Theme: BBQ

Friday night the local crew hosted a BBQ. But I forgot to take pictures. I think they were a little overwhelmed by our insanity.

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Saturday, June 21

Hosted By: Georgia Engel

Theme: Americana

Saturday, Georgia volunteered to host the last of the tailgate parties. The theme she decided on was "Americana". We had hamburgers and grilled chicken, chips, pickles, rootbeer floats and a pie eating contest.

Chuck Rea: Pie Eating Champion

Oh yea - we roasted marhsmallows for s'mores too!

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On Sunday, we packed it up and headed off to Salt Lake City. All in all - one of the best weeks I've had on tour yet!

Now you may be asking yourself, what has happened to this grill that was used for all of these festivities? Well, the grill had a road box built for it and it travels on our truck with us. So we can cookout wherever we are!