(24) The Last Week of the First Leg

Tuesday, November 18th: We woke up and had a little bit of extra time before we left for Flushing, NY, which is in Queens. Jill and I drove the truck 40 miles(4106 total miles) down there and arrived just before the vans. We were supposed to park in this pay to park lot about a block from the hotel. Jill and I drove around the block once just to see what was around and figure out really quickly that there was no other choice. This part of Queens is packed REALLY tight with builds, cars and people. Some of the cast was saying that this area was called “Korea Town.” We ended up at the parking lot trying to find a place to park. The attendant came up to us and I told him we only needed to park for a couple of hours. We would be leaving then to go to load in at the venue. He said that it would be $30 for us to park there for a couple of hours. I said “What? It’s only a couple of hours, what about $15?” He thought about it and said “How long?” I said “We’ll be leaving at 1:30.” He thought about it again before agreeing. Jill and I parked the truck and sat there for a minute. We thought, yah know what, why pay when we could probably just drive over to the venue and leave the truck there! We started to pull back out of the lot when Caroline and Eric came in with the vans, which were also being parked in that lot. The attendant was dealing with them and asked where we were going. I said “Where not gonna pay, we’ll just take the truck over to where we’re going.” He thought for a minute and said “What about $10?” I said “$10 to park for an hour?” He said “Yeah.” I said “Sure, for $10 I guess it’s worth it.” So we parked the truck again and went up to the hotel. It had a small cramped lobby and all of our luggage was packed in the entrance way and the cast was waiting patiently. We left a short time later for load in at the Kupferberg Center. This was our hardest venue that we have worked in so far. We performed in a concert hall with no rigging at all what-so-ever except for the lighting equipment. Not only was there no rigging(which I use to put up most of my scenery) but the venue had a full ceiling, which makes it almost impossible to even mock up something to hold up the scenery. We learned that we would not be able to use most of our scenery which was very upsetting. It made for a long load in and not because there was a lot of work to do. That night, Caroline, Jeffrey and I went to a really great Chinese restaurant that everyone was suggesting called Joe’s Shanghai. It was really fantastic food and reminded me of Chinatown in San Francisco.

Wednesday, November 19th: We had one show today at 10:30am(38). After the show, our strike went faster than ever, mostly because such a small portion of our scenery had been used, and we had a bit of extra time before the cast was called back to grab some food. Caroline, Eric, Rudy and I walked across the street to an AMAZING New York pizza restaurant called Gino’s. It’s was like Sabarro’s but WAY better. We stuffed our food down and went back to the vehicles to make the 29 mile(4135 total miles) drive to South Orange, NJ. We had an hour or so at the hotel and I took the time to Google Map our drive to the venue. My contact in South Orange said that there is one 11’-11” bridge near his venue that we would not fit under. We ended up driving a long way to get around the bridge, but it was a simple route. As we neared the venue, we were very confused because the South Orange Performing Arts Center(SOPAC) also has a movie theatre in it. For a second I thought I had plugged in the incorrect address or found the wrong venue. Luckily, we found out that both the theater and movie theater share the same building. Load in went pretty well and we were back at our hotel by around 10:00pm.

Thursday, November 20th: We had one show at 10:00am(39) at SOPAC and then packed up the show for the third time in three days. We had time to grab some lunch at a local bagel store, which was really, really good. I was concerned about the drive today because we were going into Brooklyn and had not figured out a route that we could take. We were running into the problem of driving on either parkways or on city streets. Caroline had been to the venue and the hotel in Brooklyn with the tour she was on last year. She sent a message to her tech crew asking if anyone remembered how to get to either place. After lunch, I had a chance to call Elif, who was the Props/Costume Supervisor for the show Caroline worked on last year. She said they had taken some side streets that were ok for trucks and ran parallel to the parkways. It was very calming to know that there was a way to get to the hotel. Jill and I started the 46 miles(4181 total miles) drive and made it all the way to Brooklyn without any problems. We then got off the highway and started our city street drive. At this point, we turned on the GPS and hoped that it would help us get to the hotel. As we were driving around, the GPS took us away from the parkway and towards the center of Brooklyn. Unfortunately, this was a bad idea and we ended up running into a subway bridge and having to turn around in the street. We drove down the street parallel to the subway line and stopped at every cross street to see if we could pass under the bridge. Most of the bridges were 12’-6” tall. Finally we made it to 65th Street and crossed under the bridge. We drove on, thinking that we had found the way, when we hit another subway bridge and the game continued. We drove all the way down the parallel street until it dead ended and we had to go around the block. We backtracked to Coney Island Ave which took us over the parkway and closer to our destination. We slowly made our way over to Neptune Street and then back under the Parkway to Voorhies and finally ended up at the hotel! It was quite the journey and very tiring. We had a little over an hour before we went to the venue and I took most of the time to Google Map my directions there. We left at 5:15pm for our 6:00pm load in. The drive to the venue was uneventful, but finding the loading dock was very difficult. We did one lap around Brooklyn College(which was where the theater was located) before we stopped to call and ask. We had driven just past the entrance we wanted so we then had to do another lap around the surrounding streets to make it to the loading dock. We started about 15 minutes late, but no one seemed upset. We had a large crew for this venue and a large stage. It made load in go fairly easily and we were done just after 10:00pm and headed back to the hotel.

Friday, November 21st: We had one show at 10:15am(40). On the way to the venue, we drove through a largely Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. There were a lot of signs in both Hebrew and English. WE also found a Duncan Donuts that was Kosher! Before the show, I went around and said goodbye to the cast because they were driving back to DC right after the show and we would be in the middle of load out. The show went well and load out was pretty easy. The crew went to lunch at the Corn Bread Diner, a little Southern Restaurant near the venue. The food was amazing and we were all stuffed when we headed back to the venue to take the vehicles back to the hotel. Here is where the fun started. I started pulling away from the loading dock and had to make a little bit of a sharp turn past a Public Safety hut. I was being very careful not to hit the yellow pylon next to the hut that I didn’t realize that the roof of the hut extended further over the pylon. I was at the gate when I realized that the truck was rubbing on something. I searched in all my mirrors and realized that I had caught the corner of the Public Safety hut and put a nice big gash in the side of the truck. It was so frustrating knowing that I had driven all the way through the Northeast, through some pretty tight spaces and sharp turns, and on the last time I was going to drive the truck I got in an accident. The Public Safety Officer took my information and another Public Safety Officer told me that I was definitely not the first to do it. Eric and I got in the truck and made our way back to the hotel. That was our third day in a row of morning shows and load outs and LUCKILY we didn’t have to drive anywhere today. That afternoon was given over to resting. That evening, Caroline, Rudy and I went to a really nice Italian Restaurant that also had off track betting(how New York is that!) After dinner, Eric, Rudy and I played a little Wii Golf before going to bed.