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January 16, 2010

Gold Star for Actors

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 7:08 pm

In my own mind, I award gold stars to actors who perform acts of extraordinary technical assistance while onstage. Today we had several worthy candidates.

In the party scene, Romeo dropped his (thankfully plastic) champagne glass, which is filled with diluted tea. Almost as soon as it fell, several party guests and servants were wiping it up with their handkerchiefs. One of the things I find most important with a new company is figuring out which actors have a special awareness of these kind of things and will take the initiative to fix onstage mishaps.

When Romeo threw his coat on the back of a bench and it slid off the back, Friar Laurence (Ray Chapman) picked it up and dusted it off completely in character, and laid it back on the bench nicely, which saves the scene change at the end where Romeo needs to grab it quickly.

And finally, Benvolio’s hat somehow got stuck onstage just upstage of a bench centerstage, where it would be very difficult to get it off through most of the very dramatic scenes in Act II. I didn’t think it was worth trying to get it off for the next half hour or so. Myxolydia Tyler, who plays a combination of Capulet servants we have compressed into one character named Perrin, had a plan, though, so I said she should try. What she did was the greatest act of sleight-of-hand I have ever witnessed in a career filled with actors trying to nonchalantly get incongruous props offstage. She hid a HAT, while also dealing with a serving tray and two (real) glasses filled with liquid, while standing, sitting, and then standing again and exiting. It was amazing.

I also have to give credit to Penny, our director, as during the rehearsal process when these kind of things would happen, she would stress to the actors the importance of dealing with unexpected events in a realistic manner, both because it makes sense to the audience, and because it’s often necessary for technical reasons to get things off the stage that shouldn’t be there. I very much appreciated her emphasis on that.

This was the first show where we really had to deal with these kind of problems, and I’m very impressed with how the cast responded.


In the Run

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 3:00 am

We’ve now done 3 official performances at the Guthrie. The day after opening, the rest of our out-of-town collaborators took off, and now it’s just the traveling company here in Minneapolis, along with visits from some of our local creative team — such as Andrew Wade, our vocal coach / guru, who has continued to surprise us by showing up in person to conduct his famous pre-show warm-up, when he has had free time from Macbeth rehearsals downstairs.

But for the most part, this has become like another stop on the tour. Everyone has gone home, and Corey and I are now maintaining the show. We don’t yet have our touring crew here (mostly because there’s nothing for them to do because we’re in a union house). They will show up a few days before we leave to learn their tracks and then load the show out.

To catch you up on what’s been happening since we started previews…

We’ve had great houses, and our notes from each preview were minimal, and the rehearsals during the day very easy-going. We were still tweaking things here and there, but there was no great rush or panic about it.

On the night of the final preview, Nick and I took Ashley to dinner as our official thank you for her help throughout our process. However, she hasn’t been needed that much for Macbeth, so she’s still assigned to us for the time being. In addition to helping us as we go back into rehearsal for Alice in Wonderland and the one-hour version of R&J that we will perform for younger audiences, she’s going to observe as much as possible of calling the show and Nick’s deck track (neither of which are particularly challenging or unusual, unfortunately).

Opening night was fun. We had just a few hours of rehearsal, but the rest of our time was taken up with preparations for the opening night events, and organizing and distributing the opening night gifts for the cast and creative team. It was kind of fun getting to play Santa Claus, sneaking into all the dressing rooms while everyone was out to dinner and leaving the bright red Acting Company tote bags, with two luggage tags and an Acting Company frisbee inside.

On Fireworks

On the day off, Laura (who plays Juliet) went to speak to one of the schools that came to our invited dress. She revealed that their favorite part of the show was the fireworks in the party scene. I found this absolutely hysterical since I think of the fireworks as some sort of stage management torture device, rather than something I should be patting myself on the back for. Basically instead of the lights and sound being programmed with a delay so they execute together, the sound cue of the rocket whistling up and then exploding is called first, and then I call the light cue to create the flash with the explosion sound. I managed to get them to put a delay on the first one because it executes with another sound cue, making the rocket almost impossible to hear. The first time I called the show from the booth was during the invited dress, where I realized I needed a dedicated monitor with just sound effects in it to call it well. It was nice to find out that the kids thought the fireworks looked good, even when I couldn’t hear what I was doing.

I had to go through this exact same thing last year with The Spy, in which several military flares were sent up in identical fashion, except it was even better because we only did the show like once a month, so I had even less time to get good at it! This show has about 8 fireworks effects more-or-less back-to-back, and based on my experience from last year, I’m getting decent at it pretty quickly. It’s pretty much the only thing I do in the show that’s difficult or in any way flashy from a stage management perspective, so hearing that it was memorable makes me feel good.

I know that all of my contributions help tell the story and elicit emotion in the audience, but it can be an adjustment to go from cueing falling chandeliers and towering pillars of flame, to calling nothing but graceful scene change light and underscoring, that are most effective when the audience isn’t really aware of them happening. So I do look forward to the fireworks as the one point in the show where everyone gets to admire the cool technical effect.

As the show settles in, I can now take time to start working on the finer nuances of my cues and really fitting them into the way the show breathes. There is an art to that as well, although it requires a little more patience to reap the rewards of it than the immediate positive feedback of getting a chandelier to explode perfectly on cue. I’m looking forward to really starting to work in depth on making each cue perfect.

Student Matinee

Yesterday we had our first student matinee, which went really well. We also had our first talkback after the show. I absolutely love doing talkbacks, so I always look forward to this. Corey did a great job moderating. He had also done a pre-show session with the students, so he had given them things to think about and discuss after seeing the show. I’m always very impressed how well the kids are prepared when they see the show, which is a testament to their teachers and the people in the education departments of the Acting Company and the Guthrie. On another note, it’s also fun to do talkbacks with a new company of actors because you usually learn new things about your coworkers by listening to their answers.


January 14, 2010

Evening Off

I call this: On the Road Again — Posted by KP @ 6:06 pm

Today is one of the rarest events on the tour — an evening off. We had a 1PM student matinee, followed by a talkback with about 100 of the students. By 5:00 I was home. Tomorrow we have a Skype conference with our publicist in New York at 3:30 and then a show at night. Between all this is something that might almost be considered a day off.

Earlier today I began supposing that the errands I had to run at the Mall of America might be easily done tonight, saving my day off for true rest. Most of all, the weather is really nice today. When I was done with my paperwork I raced home, threw off my Guthrie badge and hoodie, and tore the hood off my winter coat and grabbed a small knit hat that my aunt got me for Christmas. What weather is this that has me skipping through the snow with such abandon? Why it’s 29 degrees! Who knows when we may be so lucky again, and by golly I’m going to take advantage of it.

So with my light rail ticket in hand, I’m off to enjoy an hour or two of daylight and get some shopping done.


January 12, 2010

Daily Routine (show mode)

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 8:28 pm

A rundown of my routine during performances at the Guthrie.

1 1/2 Hours Before Curtain

Hang around theatre, make sure everything is prepared for the return of the actors. The stage should be clear for warm-up and props ready for fight call. This is the trouble-shooting time.

1 Hour Before Curtain

Voluntary warm-up begins onstage. Invite the cast to the stage for warm-up.

45 Minutes Before Curtain

Call the cast to the stage for fight call. The fight captain runs fight call, and we mostly stand off to the side making sure everything goes smoothly.

35 Minutes Before Curtain

With the conclusion of fight call, I holler up to the booth where our light board op puts us into blackout check. This turns off all stage and house lights, and if anything is amiss (lights on that shouldn’t be, or spill from improperly masked running lights), it will show itself. This usually takes about 5 seconds to establish that it is indeed dark, and for me to call for the lighting preset.

After we’re in preset, I check the stage for debris or people’s personal belongings they may have left on or near the stage during warm-up, such as coats and water bottles. I check that any onstage props and furniture are on their spikes and properly set, then invite Nick to inspect for himself (it’s really his stage, so unless he’s busy I want him to have a chance to approve it). Once Nick and I agree that we’re ready to open, I tell the house manager that the house can open, and our sound engineer plays a “welcome” announcement over the PA, telling the patrons in the lobby that seating will begin.

30 Minutes Before Curtain

The famous “half hour.” First, I call half hour over the backstage PA. Then I gather up my belongings and head to the booth, where I will park myself for probably the next three hours. I set up my computer, and at least at this point where we’re transitioning from daytime rehearsals in the house, I carry my headset and script up with me.

Then I hang out and/or blog until I have to interrupt myself temporarily to call “15”.

7 Minutes to Curtain

I switch my radio from the “SM” channel for our theatre to “FOH” (front of house), and ask the house manager if we expect a delayed curtain due to late seating, traffic, weather, etc. This helps me plan the five minute and places calls so the cast isn’t standing around if we know we’ll be starting late.

5 Minutes to Curtain

I call “5”. This can be adjusted early or late depending on the expected actual start time.

At Curtain Time

I call “places.” Like the 5-minute call, this can vary, although unless something unexpected happens, I try to make it literally 5 minutes after the “5”. At this point I check in with the crew on headset and make sure everyone is ready to begin. As the cast arrives on the deck, Nick begins a head-count so we know when we have places.

When We Have Places

When we actually have places, Nick tells me, and I radio the house manager that I’m ready. She will either tell me that we need to hold for people being seated, or will order the staff to close the doors. The door people radio back that their doors are closed, and then the house manager confirms that we’re OK to begin, and wishes us a good show. And then away we go!


January 11, 2010

Post-Tech Day Off!

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 9:29 pm

We have finished tech, we did a very successful first dress rehearsal, then turned around about three hours later and did our final dress rehearsal for 300 high school theatre students.

On Saturday we had our first preview, last night we had our second preview. Before each show we spent five hours making changes to lighting, sound, staging, choreography, and fight choreography. All the shows have gone very smoothly, and the rehearsals during the day have been low-stress affairs. I’m very pleased with how it’s going.

I planned my week so that I would have today totally off as my reward for surviving tech and first previews. I bought 2 weeks of groceries last week, and got up early on Saturday to do some needed shopping downtown.

Today I got out of bed around 1:00 and then spent nearly 2 hours dealing with the 15 emails I woke up to. Having Mondays off is kind of annoying because everyone else has just gotten back to work and has lots of questions and things to get moving on.

Other than that I’ve been taking it easy until dinnertime. Tonight I updated our electronic script with a few small cuts and changes we made in the past week. I also found some small typos and formatting errors when I began using my calling script at the beginning of tech, because before that I’ve just been dealing with the original script we began rehearsals with and making the changes in pencil, except for a few particular pages which required me to print out the updated page.

With that done, I’m now starting the electronic calling script. I have no intention of using it until after opening night, as switching scripts from the one you learned to call the show on is kind of a scary thing. Ashley is staying with us longer than we thought, and among other things Nick and I have planned, she’s going to learn to call the show even though she wouldn’t actually be able to put it into practice. At the invited dress she sat next to me in the booth and updated our per-scene running times during the show. Once the new script is done, she can be another eye reading it along with the show to look out for any problems.


January 8, 2010

End of Tech

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 2:35 am

The show, she is teched!

Just as we got down to the wire, we finished the show with about a minute to spare! To be perfectly honest, we were writing light cues as we went through the tomb scene and I never got to call them, but they’re fairly simple and Michael and I felt we could see them in the first run-through. In our last moments we just ran the last few lines of the show again to make sure we got the final music and fade to black looking good, and then dismissed for the day.

Tomorrow the cast is called at 12:30 (making Nick, Ashley and my call 12:00 noon — yes, afternoon!), and we work for four and a half hours on a few notes (some funereal choreography and a wig quickchange) and then we’ll do our first run of the show around 2:00. After dinner we come back like it’s a regular show call, with a voluntary warmup, followed by fight call, and then the house opens at half hour for our invited dress. How “invited” one of those is can range from a few close friends of the creative team to a wider selection of friendly theatre people, to what we have tomorrow — 300 high school students from local Thespian societies, who are apparently so excited to attend the show that at least some of them have planned to wear formal wear. In response to this I am rearranging my wardrobe for the week to wear my dressed-up-for-calling-a-show outfit to the invited dress rather than to one of the public performances this weekend.

A few thoughts from the day:

We experienced one of the funniest, most pure forms of comedy I’ve ever witnessed in a tech: towards the end of the show, Romeo visits the shop of an apothecary to buy some poison, and calls out to the apothecary when he arrives. This scene is staged right in front of the staircase, and Sonny tried to knock on the set to summon the apothecary to crawl out from his hovel, where he keeps his business apparently somewhere under the stairs. Seems like a simple task. So Sonny knocks on the side of the stairs, and it’s rock solid and makes no sound. So he knocks on the decorative spindles on the staircase. Same thing. He tries the handrail. He tries the bench which is right downstage of the stairs. Every surface he tried to knock on had absolutely no resonance. Every time he tried something else everybody in the theatre howled with laughter. The stairs are steel encased in wood, and I guess this proves that they’re very well built! Eventually, the staging was changed so that he goes up the stairs to the first landing. From there he can stomp on the floor, which is lexan over metal grating, and that makes a satisfying noise.

Today was the first time the database has saved me by giving me an error when I schedule something against Equity rules. It’s always been a good guard against typos, but this time I was so sure in my incorrect math that I was actually digging in the formulas to figure out why it was broken. The formula actually thinks of the problem in a more correct way than I was counting it in my head (span of day minus length of meal break), and showed me that I had reduced the meal break without reducing the span of day, thereby making more working hours than allowed. So I felt like the time I took to build some rudimentary rule-checking into the schedule form was well spent. It doesn’t understand things like tech days, but when I get a chance to revise it before my next show that will be something I flesh out.

Another somewhat funny observation:

At one point we must have spent 10 minutes sitting watching the director, staff director, prop master, costume designer and prop crew gathered in a quiet circle, apparently discussing how Juliet can conceal a dagger on her person. As our lighting designer and I decided, we were witnessing the costume equivalent of everybody standing on the stage looking up in the air (it’s sort of a tech stereotype that if you see a large group of stagehands, a stage manager or two, and especially a director or designers all standing on stage staring silently and thoughtfully up into the grid… you’re not going anywhere for a while!)

Ow, My Ear!

By the end of today I have had a headset on my ear for 28 of the last 49 hours, and my ear was starting to hurt, despite the recent modifications I’ve made to my headset with a Dr. Scholl’s pad. I don’t have a default ear preference, though I generally have a strong preference on a per-show basis. It almost always has to do with which ear will generally be pointed at what I’m listening for — either at the stage, at people who might come up and talk to me, or at an audio monitor — and then putting the headset on the opposite ear. For example at Phantom on the deck I’m most often standing stage left facing upstage, meaning my left ear is pointed at the stage, so I always wear my headset on the right. Twice I’ve been cushioned from head injuries because I just happen to wear my headset on the right side, so I guess it’s a good choice. However, when calling the show I wear the headset on the left because the audio monitor is next to my right ear.

During a long tech I will usually try to switch ears every few hours, but in this case the comm rack is to my left and I’d be getting tangled all the time if I put the headset on my right side. I do think the Dr. Scholls was a great idea though. It’s definitely more comfortable than any on-ear headsets’ padding I know of. My custom orange earpiece foam cover is really starting to rip, and that’s making me sad (it’s a little smaller than it should be to fit properly, but it’s the only non-black one I could find, and I like it because no one can take my headset by accident, or “accident” even).

One more cute story:

In a fascinating example of how light and music can tell a story, we were kind of hanging out waiting for a light cue to be written. Ray (Friar Laurence) was lounging on an onstage bench up against the stairs. Laura (Juliet) was lying down in the tomb, where she had been for probably hours, with an occasional break.

While the cue was being built, a single par on the floor stage left was turned on, casting a wash of sidelight across Friar Laurence in his priestly garb, and creating grotesque shadows of the staircase all across the wall of the set. At the exact same moment the light was turned on, the sound department, completely independently, tested a sound cue of very loud, ominous music that we had never heard before. Everyone in the room had been just kind of doing their own thing, but for the few seconds that sound cue played, there was a very specific story happening onstage that captured everyone’s attention — the young woman laid out in a tomb surrounded by candles, the mysterious priest sitting nearby — was he there to dispel the demons, or might he be possessed himself, concealed in the disguise of a man of the cloth? Once the mood had been established, Laura played into it, reaching her arms up from under her shroud, an overhead shaft of light on her being the only other illumination besides the par and the candles. All the while Ray just sat there, silently contemplating… what?

And then the sound cue was cut off, and more lights were added to the cue, and it was just another moment in rehearsal. I feel like I studied directing for years where my teachers tried to teach us just that: it has nothing to do with your budget or resources. You can tell an entire engrossing story with a single light, the right music and some simple costume pieces like a priest’s collar and a sheer piece of fabric, without a word even needing to be spoken. I absolutely sucked at that when I was in school, and here it happened completely by accident. It was just a wonderful little moment that highlights the things that really make theatre work.

Tech Table

Finally, here’s a picture of my tech table, which I love very much, and will be sad to say farewell to after the afternoon’s rehearsal. I saw the booth for the first time today. It was rather uneventful. I don’t expect anything about it to bother me, but I didn’t see anything that blew my mind either (knowing this place, there probably is something, but like the electric pencil sharpener built into the cue light panel, you just need to know where to look).


January 7, 2010

Tech Day 2

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 2:23 am

I have to keep this somewhat brief as I’m a fool and left my computer charger plugged in at the tech table.

Today was our second day of tech. The first day was a 10-hour day, this was the first of our two 12-hour days. We also had the amazing tech dinner tonight. I think I mentioned this last year, but if you ever get an offer to work at the Guthrie, I recommend taking it for the tech dinner alone. An army of volunteers cooks an endless variety of foods and desserts — the hardest part is figuring out how to get all of it on your plate. Here’s my plate:

Our progress is a little bit ahead of schedule, although I’d feel more comfortable if we were further along.

We’re now in the middle of Act III Sc. 3, which is more than halfway through the show and way more than halfway in terms of scenes that are expected to be time-consuming. We had very few notes at the production meeting — the meeting was adjourned 17 minutes after we stopped rehearsal, which is pretty amazing. There are quite a few people at each meeting. When we all gathered yesterday I was really amazed. These are all the people we might have on a given day:

1. Production Stage Manager (that’s me)
2. Assistant Stage Manager
3. Stage Management Intern
4. Director
5. Staff Repertory Director
6. Choreographer
7. Fight Choreographer
8. Production Manager (Acting Company)
9. Production Manager (Guthrie)
10. Scenic Designer
11. Associate Scenic Designer
12. Lighting Designer
13. Assistant Lighting Designer (Guthrie)
14. Lighting Supervisor (Tour)
15. Prop Master
16. Costume Designer
17. Associate Costume Designer / Wardrobe Supervisor (Tour)
18. Wardrobe Supervisor (Guthrie)
19. Voice and Text Consultant
20. Assistant Voice and Text Consultant
21. Sound Designer
22. Composer
23. Acting Company Artistic Director
24. Acting Company Associate Artistic Director
25. Crew Supervisor (Guthrie)

It takes a lot of people to put a show together, and that’s just the people who are there physically putting the show together. Outside the room there are press and marketing people, education directors, general managers, house managers, security, photographers and videographers, and countless others who are involved at various stages of the process, before an audience ever sees the show.

The cast seems to be in good spirits, even though the show is structured in such a way that some people end up waiting hours and hours between scenes. We have been able to give five of the actors a later call for tomorrow because we next see them in Act 5. We have an amazing greenroom known as “the hub” with gorgeous views of the Mississippi, a fridge, two microwaves, a toaster over, four vending machines, coffee, water, tea, and a number of very comfortable couches, tables, and a computer. I think that may have something to do with people’s patience! I have visited on breaks to spend some time with our neglected actors, only to find them deeply engrossed in card games and internet surfing, so I think they’re doing OK!

Here Elizabeth and Jesse enjoy a break in the kitchen area of the hub, in their party costumes (Act I Sc. 4). Elizabeth plays the Nurse and Jesse is Abraham (shown here) and Friar John.

People have also been in the house watching a lot, which is really nice. The house is comfortable and very intimate, and despite being a traditional proscenium with two balconies, you really feel like you’re all in the same small room. It doesn’t have much of an “us-and-them” feel between the people onstage and those in the house, so I think that also adds to the camaraderie among everyone involved in the process. There has been a lot of laughter and enjoyment of everyone’s work, and no yelling, which is always the best way to have a productive tech process.

We have another 12-hour day tomorrow. The good sign is that we have started with actors at 11AM every day this week. The first day Nick, Ashely and I got in at 9:30. Today we got in at 10. Tomorrow we get in at 10:30. The three of us decide this at the end of the night in a form of decision-making I would call a democratic dictatorship (which means that we all put in our ideas and reasons, I make the final decision, but can be influenced if Nick and Ashley tell me I’m an idiot or a masochist), based on what we think we need to accomplish before we officially begin work. Getting to sleep later on longer days is a really good sign, and good for our mental and physical health, too.

A Special Announcement

I have to give special credit here to Nick. As I was finishing this post, my battery up-and-died on me, while still showing half a charge. At 1AM I sent him an email asking if he was still up and if I might borrow his charger, and he kindly obliged and even delivered it. So I am much indebted to him for making this post possible, as well as allowing me to do my job in the morning!

I will close this post with a portrait of Nick at his ASM station backstage. Which, by the way, is more full-featured than most PSM stations I’ve worked with. It has the same two-camera monitor I have, the paging mic, a script holder and an area where he keeps his laptop, as well as drawers of first aid, spike tape, and who-knows-what-else. That’s one of our prop road boxes in the rear.


January 5, 2010

Quick Tech Update

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 6:27 pm

We’re almost at the end of our dinner break for the first day of tech. We’re in scene 3, after four hours onstage. It’s not the best pace, but it’s certainly not bad. Things are progressing steadily.

I don’t have a whole lot to say. I’m getting kind of tired. Perhaps I need some caffeine. I didn’t really take much of a break on our 2-hour dinner. The cafe and restaurant here in the building are closed, so I just had a little snack I brought. I had to meet the guys who are shooting our B-roll video to show them around the theatre so they can scout locations for cameras. They’re shooting during the invited dress, which will be attended by about 300 high school Thespians, so we need to know what seats to rope off.

After that I’ve been arranging last-minute wig fittings, and answering general emails. The cast is back in 3 minutes so I’m going to run now. Bye!


January 4, 2010

From the Archive: How I Got Home from Houston

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 7:26 pm

I was telling this story recently, and as the word “blog” hadn’t been invented when it happened, you haven’t heard it, and it must be told.

Some years back, when I was but a wee professional PSM, I was on tour in Houston. Houston was our last stop before returning to New York for two weeks layoff for Christmas, and then our New York run. As the tour had been a less-than-perfect experience, we were all very much looking forward to the end of the week in Houston, to return home for the holidays and generally escape from work for a while.

We somehow survived the week in Houston without anyone quitting, committing suicide, or murdering anyone (which was an especially precarious feat because due to the two weeks off, we could have quit at the end of the Houston stop without breaching our contracts).

This backstory informs the desperate events that followed.

Our flight out of Houston was from George Bush Intercontinental Airport, around 8AM. We had four actors, myself, my assistant, and the production manager. We arrived at the airport and lined up to check our bags, thrilled that we would be home in just a few hours. When we checked in we were told it was snowing in New York and our connecting flight had been canceled. We decided to take the first leg of the flight to Atlanta and see if we could get on another flight if the weather cleared up. I should also mention, we were flying AirTran, which if you didn’t know, is the name that Valujet changed themselves to after they killed all those people due to their negligence. I also should mention that our producer and some other folks I can’t remember were also flying out that day, but had a direct flight on Continental.

We checked in, went through security, and arrived at our gate. Our flight to Atlanta was delayed. And delayed. And delayed. The other flight on Continental was boarding nearby, and we said goodbye to our colleagues, and waited more hours.

Sometime during this waiting period, we started to go a little crazy (this is where you have to bear in mind all the things leading up to this day, and why just getting home was of such great importance). We had a fake cake in the show, that our set designer had lovingly built. It really did look like a realistic ice cream cake. Due to its delicacy, whenever we flew it traveled with someone as a carry-on. This day was my turn to guard the cake. It was in a cardboard box, which if I’m remembering correctly, was tied up with string so it could be carried.

I’m sure so many years later I can’t adequately explain how it started, but we began creating an entire scenario about the importance of protecting this cake. Everywhere we went, we would say, “Do you have the cake? Is the cake OK? The flight’s cancelled, but the cake is still safe!”

Sometime around 3:00 (so 7 hours after we were supposed to leave Houston), our flight to Atlanta finally made it into the air. We landed in Atlanta in the early evening.

We went to the AirTran desk, where they were totally unhelpful, and because they’re a terrible airline, they had no relationships with other airlines and couldn’t help us transfer to another flight to New York, Philly, or anywhere nearby. By this point, the people who were on the Continental flight are home in their apartments.

The best we were offered was a flight to Baltimore. We figured if we could get that far we could take Amtrak or drive the rest of the way. While my assistant finished up the arrangements to get us on that flight, I was on the phone to Amtrak making reservations for the last train of the night from Baltimore to Penn Station, and the production manager was on the phone with Hertz renting us a car at the Baltimore airport.

With these options laid out, my assistant made her escape and decided to stay with friends rather than attempt our foolhardy mission to make it home to New York that night. And then we were six.

So we made our way to the new gate, guarding the cake all the way. As we traveled, the legend of the cake grew and grew. I recall at some point, after our flight had been delayed yet again, we began deciding who would be cast in the movie recounting our adventure to protect the cake.

Finally, sometime after 8PM, i think, our flight departed Atlanta for Baltimore. The last train was around 10PM. Nervously we would look up the aisles at each other, wondering if we just might make it. I think we landed at about 9:55. So we made our way to the Hertz counter, so grateful that we had bothered to book two different modes of travel.

I may have my times off a little bit throughout the story, but one thing I remember is that when we crammed all our luggage and 6 people into a minivan and turned the key, the clock said 12:00 midnight exactly.

Our production manager drove with the intensity of our desire to get home (and to protect the cake!) and when we emerged out of the Lincoln Tunnel it was 3:00 exactly.

The funny thing is, I don’t remember what happened to the cake at the end of all that. I remember getting let out of the car at 42nd Street and 9th Ave and making my way home. Someone must have taken the cake home for safekeeping for the two-week layoff. Maybe it was me.

Anyway, that’s my story of travel woes, perseverance, and the insanity that comes from being trapped in the airline system for about sixteen hours. It’s surely far from the worst kind of travel nightmare, but it was the passion with which we wanted to get the hell home that made it an unforgettable experience.


Day Off Dilemma

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 3:59 pm

It’s the great decision that needs to be made on any day off in Minneapolis in January:

Is what I want to accomplish in the outside world really worth leaving the house?

On our day off we also go grocery shopping in the Guthrie van. There are usually three grocery runs, at 10am, noon, and 2pm. I like to take the 10am one, because it gets me up early so I don’t waste the entire day sleeping. It also acquaints me early with how cold it is. Which is usually pretty damn cold. Except when we greet each other in the front lobby of the Guthrie to meet the van, we usually use a stronger word than “damn.”

So today I was planning to go downtown to Nicollet Mall. This always has to be explained to people: Nicollet Mall is not a mall like the Mall of America is a mall. It’s a mall like the mall in Washington is a mall, except instead of national monuments it has like, a Target, and an Office Depot, and a Barnes and Noble, and a Walgreens, and so forth. And it does have one national monument, which is the statue of Mary Tyler Moore outside Macy’s. Anyway, it’s simply a pedestrian-friendly thoroughfare that runs through downtown.

So I had some things I needed from Target and/or Office Depot (or Office Max, I can never remember which it is). The question is, how badly do I really want to go there? Do I really need a nice big eraser when I’m frantically making changes in my calling script during tech? Does our extra cast member since last year really need a valuables bag that matches all the other ones, this week? If I bother to replace my exercise band that broke this fall, will I actually use it? If I tour with a second lingerie bag, will my socks really dry any better by being split up into two piles? Well yes. Does it matter this week, when I have free laundry 8ft from my bed?

On such things do I dwell on my day off.

And then finally I went to WeatherBug on my iPhone for the hourly forecast, to decide if there might be an optimal time of day for this journey. And I actually said to myself, in total seriousness, “Oh look! At 3:00 it’s going to be 6 degrees! Maybe I can make it!”


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