(11) Melbourne, Florida

Saturday, October 11th: We left Orange Park and drove 182 miles(1439 total miles) to Melbourne, FL. Eric and I left well before everyone else because we had to take the truck to a Ryder Shop to have it looked at. We were having problems with the fan for our A/C. Can you imagine driving around Florida without A/C? It had been a hot couple of drives with the windows down. We got to the shop and the repair guy couldn’t figure out what the problem was. He kept asking how we were going to get to our hotel and I said we’d call a cab if we needed to. After about 20 minutes of work, the repair guy pulled open the air circulation panel and pulled out a completely dirty air filter. The filter looked like it had never been changed and this truck has 93,000 miles on it! He replaced the air filter and the A/C worked great. We made it to the Hilton Hotel and were happy to see that it was on the beach. You read that correctly, our hotel was on the beach. We had a 30ft wooden walkway from the pool side to the beach. We were staying on one of the skinny Islands just over the intracostal waterway from Melbourne. After we made it to the hotel, Eric and I walked over to a little dive bar near the hotel call Lou’s Blues. We had a fantastic lunch and the great conversation with the bartender. We told her that we would definitely be back for another meal. The rest of the cast and crew showed up and everyone ended up going for a swim in the Atlantic Ocean. It was really warm and the waves were pretty big upwards of 5-8ft tall. I rode a couple of waves in and scraped up my knees on the rough sand. It felt great and was a lot of fun. People were looking for food and we convinced everyone to go to Lou’s Blues for dinner. Eric and I had no problems eating there twice in the same day. It was much more crowded when we returned and they had karaoke as well. We went back to the hotel and everyone wanted to go swimming in the pool. There were a bunch of young kids running around the pool and playing in the hot tub so nobody wanted to get in. Finally, we went over to the hot tub and just got in with all the kids. They eventually left and I only stuck around for a bit then headed back to my room for the night.

Sunday, October 12th: Our first official DAY OFF! In the morning, Caroline, Eric and I went to the laudromat. We got lost on the way because the Laundromat that the GPS wanted to take us to didn’t exist(yet another GPS problem!) We were near a shopping center and stopped outside a Starbucks to ask for the nearest Laundromat. It was a quick find from there and we were back at the hotel by 12:30pm. I wanted to go into downtown Melbourne, so most of the cast and crew piled into one van and we drove into and all the way through downtown Melbourne without even knowing it! Apparently most of Melbourne shuts down on Sundays. We found an open Pasta restaurant for lunch and crowded all 11 of us around the bar to eat. It was a really good Pasta/Jamaican place and I had cheese tortellini in alfredo sauce with red grapes and bananas. It was really really good! We walked around a little bit and I found a neat little antique store. The gentleman who own the store also serviced broken phonographs and record players. He had an amazing collection of records and said we could take 10 or so with the purchase of a record player. Carolyn had followed me into the store and I’m pretty sure she would have bought a record player if she had somewhere to carry it on the road! After the short tour of downtown, we went over to Manatee Park, where you’re suppose to find Manatees. All we found was a bunch of catfish and a couple of turtles. We knew this before we went to Manatee Park. The woman at the front desk of the hotel said that we’d have to come back when the Manatees are mating. I took everyone back to the hotel and went out again to drive around the island we were staying on and the city of Melbourne. I found my way to the mall and just walked around a bit. When I went to leave, there was a torrential downpour outside. I sat just inside the doors for a couple of minutes and decided that it wasn’t raining hard enough not to run to the van and slowly make my way back to the hotel. It rained pretty good the whole way and most of the rest of the evening.

Monday, October 13th: I tried to do some work this morning before our load in and failed miserably! This was mostly because it was Columbus Day and no one else was working! We loaded in our show at the King Center in the afternoon. When we got there, we learned that they had a major event going on that Friday in the same theatre. As the load in went on, we learned that John McCain’s campaign had called and he was going to speak there! Through the rest of our time there, we heard all about what they would need to do for the Presidential nominee to come visit. This included taking out 300 seats from their orchestra for the press and also pouring a new concrete slab for the main camera!

Tuesday, October 14th: We had a 10:00am(8) and 11:45am(9) shows. Both went very well and load out followed without any major problems. The loading dock here was on an incline, with the cab of the truck higher than the end of the truck. This made it a little difficult to load up our truck and took a little more sweat and blood to make it all fit. In the early evening, I went down the beach and found Rudy walking around. I am so glad that he was down there because it was like Oceanography 101 with Rudy! We found a baby turtle who was trying to get out to the ocean. It was really awesome to watch this tiny creature get thrown around the waves. We also found a couple of washed up jelly fishes that were still alive and a tiny bullfish which Rudy threw back into the ocean. That night, Eric, Rudy, Carolyn, Johnny and I went to play pool at a local pool hall. Johnny and I were destroying Eric and Carolyn until Johnny sunk the cue ball while trying to sink the 8 ball. I was on the winning team for the next two games and then Carolyn and I played Eric and Johnny. This was the only game that Carolyn and I were on the same team for and the only game that I actually lost! It was so nice to go out and just relax over a game of pool. Almost felt like I was back in Mountain View!

(10) Orange Park, Florida

Thursday, October 9th: We started today with a 257 mile drive(1257 miles total) to Orange Park, Florida which is up near Jacksonville. The drive went well and we were at our Country Inn and Suites by early afternoon. After a lunch at Panera, Caroline, Jill, Eric, Rudy and I (collectively called the Tech Crew) made our way to the Thrasher-Horne Center for the Arts. On the way there we were following the directions on our GPS which took us down a wrong street. We were very confused and ended up calling the Technical Director for the venue and asking for directions. We got there just before our 5:00pm load in was suppose to start. Unfortunately, this was just the first bump we ran into. When we got there, we also learned that they did not have the lighting cues written for the show! Our lighting cues were written for and ETC Expression Console, which is the kind of computer that controls the lights. This venue had a Strand Console, which can’t read the same files as an ETC Expression. We had sent them a print out of the lighting cues with the understanding that they could be written in before we got there. Eric had left his computer at the hotel but I had brought mine and had a copy of the lighting cues as well. While they were focusing the lights, one of the venue staff was also writing in the light cues. He got about half way done before my computer ran out of batteries and I had left my power cord at the hotel. We finished the load in by around 10pm at which point I drove Caroline, Rudy and Jill back to the hotel, got my power cord and came back to the venue. Eric and the venue staff worked for another hour, until 11:30pm writing light cues. It was a long night and we still had work to finish in the morning.

Friday, October 10th: We had a 10:30am(6) and 7:00pm(7) shows. Eric and the venue staff worked right up until the show started writing light cues and still wasn’t quite finished. We had about ¾ of the show finished and had a few different light cues we could jump too when the show was finished. When we started the first show, the house crew hadn’t turned off the work lights in the house! This means we couldn’t go completely black. It was fixed halfway through the first song, but it didn’t start the day well. After the first show we had a Tech Crew meeting to discuss future venues. Then I went out and spend the afternoon driving around trying to purchase some hardware for the show which I couldn’t find anywhere. The second show had a bad start as well. Somehow is all the cue writing an extra cue had been added near the beginning of the show. We spent half of the first scene in a black out because we were in the wrong light cue! Load out went much quicker than I could have expected. We were out in just under 2 hours again and made our way back to the hotel for a good nights sleep.

(9) First Venue, Sarasota, Florida

Check out the slide show! I updated it with some new pictures!

Sunday, October 5th: On the road… FOR THE FIRST DAY! The US Amry had a Ten Mile run that Jen Howard(who is the Program Assistant for the Tour) and David Kilpatrick(we call him DK because of all the Davids) were going to run in. The run went down Virginia which is in between my apartment and the Kennedy Center. Dave McLellan(one of the cast members) went down to cheer on DK and Jen. I met him down there and we searched the crowd of runners. I think we missed DK, but Jen saw us and we gave her a good cheer as she ran by. After that we went back to the apartment and with bags packed we made our way down to the vans and truck parked outside the Kennedy Center. The company met there and had bagels, donuts and coffee before departing. Eric and I got in the truck, blasted “Roll Out” by Ludacris, and pulled away from the Kennedy Center. We drove 521 miles to our stay at a Holiday Inn Express in Walterboro, South Carolina. We saw a lot of signs for Bojangles Chicken and Biscuts. It looks kinda disgusting, but hey it’s a southern thing. We also saw a sign for “F’real Milkshakes” at a truck stop. I wondered what’s in a f’real milkshake but we didn’t have time to stop and get one. There is a large stop on the North Carolina/South Carolina border that has a ferriswheel and a bunch of shops and what not called South of the Border. It looked a little intimidating but the vans stopped there. We just barreled on through. As the sun started to go down, the screen on our Magellan GPS turned dark like it was night time. That’s when Eric and I both took of our sunglasses. When the Magellan says it’s night, it must be night!

Monday, October 6th: We woke up, had a free continental breakfast at the hotel and then got back on the road. We drove 479 miles(1000 total miles) to our stay at a La Quinta Inn in Sarasota, FL. Along the way, we hit rain in Jacksonville, just after Orlando and then again right before Tampa. I haven’t been in a thunderstorm in close to 3 years(since I left Cincinnati) and it was just great! The GPS took us this really bad way once we got off the high way. We drove a 26’ box truck through this slightly run down neighborhood that we probably should not have and it spit us out a couple of blocks away from the hotel and told us that we were there! My Aunt Cathy met me at the hotel and we had dinner, which was very nice. We talked about everything that was going on in the family and she kind of convinced me that I should go our family reunion in a couple of weeks.

Tuesday, October 7th: The morning was taken up with a bunch of phone calls and paperwork. As you can see, I rarely have any real time off. Any free time is taken up by advancing the show to the future venues. I got a phone call in the early afternoon from the Van Wezel Performing Arts Center(where we were loading in today) saying that they didn’t have some of the gel colors for the lights. Eric and I hopped in the van and drove down to the venue to meet the local crew and drop off some gel color. We only stayed for a few minutes, but we could tell that the local crew was going to be good. Around 2:30pm Caroline, Jill, Eric, Rudy and I loaded into one van and the truck and drove over to the venue. The Van Wezel Performing Arts Center is this large purple building right on the Gulf of Mexico. They have a beautiful view from the loading dock in the back of the building. The load in went very well with no major problems. As I said before, the local crew at the Van Wezel is really good and was a huge help. It was nice having skilled people to help us get used to loading the show in and out. We finished around 8pm and had to go run some errands and get dinner. Eric, Rudy, Carolyn(one of the performers) and I drove over to Wal-Mart to get a fan and could find the kind we wanted. We didn’t really want to keep running around because we wanted to watch the Presidential Debate at 9pm, but knew we had to try the Target as well. We found the target, found the fan and ran home as quick as possible! Everyone was gathered in Dave’s (another performer) room watching the debate so we joined them for the fun.

Wednesday, October 8th: Our first two shows on the road! We had a 10:00am(4 total shows) and 11:45am(5) shows. The first show went great and the cast took a picture in front of the curtain after the first show. Right before the second show started, the woman making the preshow announcements tried to walk onstage before Caroline was ready to start the show! The venue’s Technical Director really wanted to get the show started because we had to take an hour lunch break after the show before starting strike. The show ran without any problems. During our hour lunch break Eric and I ran out to get ratchets and lunch and had to rush back to make it there in time to start load out. It took just about 2 hours to load out, which was really exciting because we were expecting it to take closer to 3 hours. The local crew did a fantastic job and we were back at our hotel before 5pm. That night, I took one of the vans and drove down to Siesta Key. There were some restaurants and shops on the “downtown” street(which was about 3 blocks long). I got some post cards from the Beach Bazaar and food from The Broken Egg, which was really good. It was really nice to have the first venue under our belts!

(8) Last Weekend in DC

Thursday, October 2nd: Back in the Office for some more paperwork. Now that we’ve run the show a few times and things have been worked out, it’s time to update all the paperwork. I am responsible for paperwork concerning each venue as well as our production as well. For each venue, I have to call the Technical Director or Production Manager and talk to them about how large their venue is and how our show will fit into their theatre. I also get to play 20 questions with them. Those questions range from what their loading dock is like to what type of lighting and sound systems they have to whether any of our shows will be signed, American Sign Language, to making sure our load in and show times are set and that they will have the correct number of crew members for our show. As you can see, it’s a good 30-45 minutes on the phone hashing out all the details. Often times, they don’t have enough lights to hang our entire light plot. At that point I normally hand off some information to Eric, the Lighting Director, and he calls their head electrician to figure out all the details. That night Eric, Rudy (the Sound Supervisor) and I went over to David Paige’s for a chili dinner and to watch the VP debate. Boy was that an interesting debate to say the least. It was nice to have a home cooked meal before we really hit the road.

Friday, October 3rd: Eric and I went out to do more site seeing. We went immediately to the Capitol to get passes for the Capitol tour. After we got our passes for the 11:10 tour, we walked around the corner to the Supreme Court building. It was pretty awesome! Unfortunately, they do seminars in the court chambers when they aren’t hearing cases so we couldn’t go inside. The seminars were about an hour long and we didn’t want to wait for the next one. They have some great historical information about the differences in the Supreme Court as compared to who the Chief Justice was at the time. After we had our fill there we went back and tried to go into the Library of Congress, which is right next door. As we walked up the steps we notice the enormous line that stretched down the other side. We didn’t have time to wait so we went right to the Capitol tour. The capitol tour was a little disappointing. We were hoping to inside the actual Senate and Representative Chambers but they were debating the Bail Out Legislation so both houses were in session. You can go to your Senators or Representative and ask for a gallery pass but we didn’t have time. We are going to try to go when we are back in April at the end of the tour. I was wearing my SF Giants hat and was really hoping to “run into” Nancy Pelosi so I could say, “HEY NANCY! I’m from San Francisco! Can I have a Gallery Pass for today?” Boy that would have really made my day! Inside the Capitol is also the original Supreme Court Chambers which we walked through as well. After that we left and walked past the Newseum which is a new museum dedicated to the history of Journalism and also where “This Week with George Stephanopolis” is filmed. “This Week…” is my favorite Sunday morning news show. Outside the Newseum they have the front page of one major news paper from each state for that day. They also have a couple of international newpapers as well. We’re also planning on going into the Newseum in April when the tour is over. Finally, Eric and I walked up to Chinatown and had lunch. Then we headed back to the Kennedy Center to do yet another afternoons worth of work.

Saturday, October 4th: Today was similar to yesterday but without the tourist stuff. I got everything packed up and planned what I was would not be taking on tour with me. The afternoon was a lot of printing off paperwork so that I could work from the road without an internet connection. And tomorrow… WE’RE OFF ON THE ROAD!

(7) Tech Rehearsals and Performances

Sunday, September 29th- Wednesday, October 1st: Technical rehearsals, technical rehearsal and more technical rehearsals! All day, every day, from 9am-10pm (more or less) we’ve been spending in the Atlas Theatre perfecting the show to take it on the road. It’s been a long few days, but things are coming together well and there haven’t been any major bumps. We also had an invited dress rehearsal and three performances. They all went over very well with no issues. After our last performance, we had a champagne toast with Norton Juster and Sheldon Harnick. Norton Juster wrote the book that this show is based off of and Sheldon Harnick wrote the music. Sheldon Harnick also wrote the music to “Fiddler on the Roof” the popular musical. I got a chance to meet both of them. The whole cast, crew and design staff got a party bag of gifts including a copy of the book “The Phantom Tollbooth”, a Kennedy Center t-shirt and some other small toys for us to play with on the road. A lot of the cast and crew (including myself) got our books signed by Norton and Sheldon. Now that’s something to hold on to! Darrell Ayers, Vice President of Education for the Kennedy Center, was there and gave a short speech. In it he said we’d be visiting “29 states, 58 cities, 128 performances.” Norton asked “Aren’t there 50 states?” Darrell responded “ Yes. We’re working on Alaska.” Norton said “Yah know, you can see the Kennedy Center from Alaska!” If you don’t get the joke, you obviously haven’t been following national politics! I just about fell over from laughing. I should also note that the other show that is touring from the Kennedy Center this season, “Blues Journey” is going to Hawaii for a week!

Hope all is well!

Brian

Tech Rehearsals

Thursday, September 25th: Today we dropped the set off at our trial venue, The Atlas. It’s not in the best neighborhood but the theater is pretty nice. Unfortunately, you can’t back a 26’ box truck up to the loading door, which is at truck height(the height of the bed of the truck). Some of our boxes we had to take around the alley, in a different loading door, through another theater and up an elevator to get the theater we were using. The rest of our boxes we had to lift from our truck over a small gap and into their loading dock. Overall it was a really painful process and probably the worst situation we would have to deal with. Fortunately, we were only dropping off the scenery. We headed back to the offices to work for the rest of the afternoon.

Friday, September 26th: Today started off about a bad as possible for a load in day. I woke up at 6:30am and found an email message from one of the Atlas Staff saying that our house crew was called at 9am, not 8am as we had planned. I called my boss to let him know and then called the rest of our crew to say that we’d be leaving at 8:00am instead of the original 7:15am. We left the Kennedy Center just after 8:00am and on the way got a phone call from the Production Manager at the Atlas saying that the house crew had actually been called at 8:00am as originally scheduled. By this point there was nothing we could do about it and ended up starting on a very slow note. The rest of the day was spent figuring out how the set actually fits together, which was very exciting since no one who had done the original production was there to help. It actually went together very easily and with only a few runs to the hardware store.

Saturday, September 27th - Sunday, September 28th: We finished up the set and then started actual tech rehearsals. It was a slow process, but we made it through the show in the afternoon. Most of the time was taken up by working out the technical issues in the show and generating our run crew sheets (the paperwork that tells us what scenery to move and when to move it!) It was another long day but a lot was accomplished. On a funny note, I learned that you can’t eat 6 salteen crackers in a minute without drinking any water. We were sitting eating dinner and Diana, the Costume Coordinator, came up and asked if we could eat 6 salteen crackers in a minute. Most of us were like “No thanks” but my boss just couldn’t pass up the try. We all set our watches and looked on as David P. and Diana tried to eat the 6 salteen crackers. If you’re curious how it ended up just try it.

Hope all is well!
Brian

Almost time for Tech Rehearsal!

Sunday, September 21st: Today was a much less exciting day. Eric and I went to another Nationals Baseball game, where they ended up losing to the Padres. We sat next to a very nice older couple and talked to them a bit. The gentileman was like a baseball almanac. He was spouting off fact after fact about players and franchises and records. I was wearing my San Francisco Giants jersey and green Washington Nationals hat(mostly because I forgot my SF Giants hat at Brekky’s house in Cincinnati: Thanks Brekky for sending it me!) I decided that I wanted to get another Nationals hat, but one with the DC logo instead. They were selling for $30 in the stadium, but when we left the game we stopped at one of the street dealers. She had a different SF Giants hat with a picture of Barry Bonds on it, but I told her I wasn’t interested. I was interested one of her DC hats which she told me was $25. I told her no thanks and she immediately asked how much I wanted for it. I told her $15 and she said sure. I was pretty excited so I bought it and ended up giving my green Washington Nationals hat to my boss.

Monday, September 22nd-Tuesday, September 23rd: These two days all run together. Most of my time was spent in the office calling venues and working on paperwork for load in, tech and load out at our trial venue here in DC. Eric and I took our 26’ box truck to the scene shop to pick up the set. On the way back, we got lost because of some bad directions. We realized we could take the route we wanted to because we were in a truck and didn’t want to make any illegal left turns. Unfortunately, it took us to some places we REALLY shouldn’t have been. Made a right turn onto Constitution where we couldn’t make the left turn we needed to. We figured we go down a few block, make a few legal left turns and get back on Constitution going the right direction. We made one left turn, then a second left turn and immediately realized that we were on Pennsylvania Ave headed right toward the White House. (Don’t forget we’re in a white unmarked 26’ box truck). We started to frantically looking for another left turn, so we didn’t get too close to the White House, but couldn’t find any. All of a sudden we found ourselves at Pennsylvania Ave and 15th Ave, right across the intersection from the Capitol Police barricade to the White House. There was a police car behind the barricade that backed up about a foot and looked like it might come around the barricade. Eric and I were going crazy worrying about what would happen if we were pulled over! Luckily, the light turned green, I slowly made the left turn, and gently drove off back towards the Kennedy Center. It was a little hectic, but very funny since nothing actually happened.

Wednesday, September 24th: Today we packed the truck for the first time and boy is it tight. There is not one square inch that is wasted in the pack of this truck. I took a bunch of pictures, but really there is no other way possible to make everything fit. We were missing a few small pieces and had to guess where those pieces will end up in the real pack of the truck. It took a bit of time, but I’m pretty sure that we’re really close to the perfect pack.

Work with a little play

Monday, September 15th: When I got back to work on Monday afternoon, two more of the technicians for the show had arrived: Eric Behnke, the Lighting Director, and Jill Tarr, the Costume/Props Supervisor. Eric and I have been working all prepping for the show. There is a lot of paperwork that we are sending to each venue. I have to take our show and make it fit into each venue, which means crunching and stretching our set to match the venue. It’s a tough process and very time consuming.

Tuesday, September 16th: Eric and I took a walk around Georgetown, which is a 10 minute walk or so from where we are staying. We walked down the main street, with dozens of restaurants and shops, then up around the University, which is gorgeous. We passed the French Embassy and came back down Wisconsin Street, which also has a bunch of restaurants and shops. Finally we passed the Embassy of Qatar and headed back to the apartments.

Wednesday, September 17th: Eric and I went to the Washington Nationals Game. It was a really nice night and they were giving away green Washington National’s hats for a Half-Way to St. Patrick’s Day Celebration. After coming in, we walked all the way around the ballpark, which is really nice. My boss here is a big Nationals Fan and he had suggested we go to the game that night. So when we got back to the main gate I tried to get him a green hat. I walked back into the area where they were handing out the green hats and pretended I was looking for a friend. I got right up to where they were handing them out and was caught by a security guard who came up and said “He already got one!” I was so close too! The Nationals ended up losing to the New York Mets 9-7 and it was only a mediocre game, but it was really nice to get out and do something.

Friday, September 19th: Eric, Jill and I had to go get physicals so we’d be approved by the Department of Transportation to drive our 26’ truck. We got to work around 7:30am so we could get the place early enough. After this, I went with David Paige to pick up one of our two 15 passenger vans. I took the van and went out to TSA which is the shop doing some of the refurb on our set. I got to TSA and found them working on one of our pieces which was suppose to get rigged to fly. The guys working on it didn’t know what I was talking about. When Mike, the manager/owner, came around he said they didn’t have time and we probably didn’t have the money. Then he took me though a bunch of stuff detailing how one of the set pieces goes together and works. This was great because the drawing that I had were completely different from how the pieces were actually built. Mike sent me away with a bunch of drawings from the original production and much better idea of what the set actually looks like. It was a good thing too cause we load in the set next Friday!

Saturday, September 20th: Eric and I walked all the way down to the National Mall and back. I got pictures of The White House, the Washington Monument, The Capitol Building, Most of the Cabinet Department Buildings, The National Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the WWII Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. I’ll post a slide show of this later. It was pretty awesome and a lot of walking. We’re making plans to get a tour of the Capitol Building and see the Supreme Court Building as well.

Hope all is well!

Brian