11 Shows in 9 Days...Living the Dream.

Hey world! Sorry we’ve been so bad about blogging this last week, but as you can see from the title- we’ve been a little busy. Not to worry, we survived out 11-day stint and have lived to tell the tale. So listen to our tale of woah:

We started off nice and easy with a 2-day sit-down in Newport News, VA. We suspect that our Holiday Inn may have been shut down in 1993 and didn’t tell anyone (it had no sign). I had my first Hibachi experience our first night in town, in which the chef kept referring to me as “Harry Potter” and I failed to catch the shrimp in my mouth. Lexie’s purse, as we discovered later that night, had a little more luck than I did.

The renegade shrimp  (on top of a pursed Splenda)

Then, our walk to the movie theater led us to a straight-up highway so we decided it would be wise to call a cab. To pick us up. On the side of a highway. Yep. Now I wanted to see the world die of an imaginary bird flu in “Contagion,” but the group opted for “the funny cancer movie.” Just so we’re clear: there is nothing funny about cancer. Except a row of gay boys sobbing on each other while Lexie laughs at them.

Other highlights of Newport News included the fancy raincoat I purchased at Banana, the lady we paid at the Aveda salon to gently rub our backs even though we asked her to go harder repeatedly, Jerome giving Pat (Frau Blucher) a lap dance to the disco version of “He Vas My Boyfriend,” and the most stressful dresser experience I’ve ever had. My dresser, bless her heart, looked about 70 years old, and was overwhelmed. She would show up at my dressing room door PANTING even though I had a solid 10 to change and was already done. I told her to take a load off on the couch and BREATHE. The last thing I needed was my dresser to have a heart attack. AJ’s dresser (who would ask him about hangers while he’s doing a quick change and screaming “PANTS! PANTS!”) and mine made quite the dynamic duo of stress. Needless to say I spent most of my down time in the green room listening to AJ’s dulcet tones on the piano.

Then began our 6 one-nighters in a row- meaning we would get on the bus at say, 6 am, drive all day, do a show that night, and do it all again the next day. How could we possibly handle this, you might ask? Well to be honest, it was cake after Windwood. Last year, my  YF castmate, Graham, and I did the tour of “The Music Man” with WindWood Theatricals in which we did 4 months of one-nighters. Like I said: cake. This week also brought us back to two of the same theaters in Morgonton, NC and Shreveport, LA. Check out where we signed the walls last time!

Mine says "The Coveted role of Ewart Dunlop"

We've come so far...

Our final one-nighter at The Strand in Shreveport was the “doozy that made us woozy.” We arrived at the theater to discover that half of our set has been cut because it did not fit. Highlights of this adventurous performance included: Elizabeth (Inga) and I moving a giant set piece inconspicuously during “He Vas My Boyfriend,” AJ and I moving the lab table mid-scene all the while doing a “mad-scientist-laugh” for about 30 seconds (which feels like 5 minutes), and last but not least- me singing an entire VERSE of Mariah Carey’s “Hero” while AJ attempts to shut the broken dungeon door in my face. When he finally realized it was futile, and we were both on the verge of tears, he shouted “GO AWAY” and I promptly exited the stage. It took the audience another minute to recover. In retrospect, I should have re-entered and continued the song. It would have killed. You always think of those brilliant things when it's too late, ya know? Although this was our smallest stage to date it was by far our BEST audience. I’m so glad we brought such joy to Shreveport.

Our 11 show stretch wrapped up in Springfield, MO where Lexie and I got in the car with a stranger who drove us around for an hour looking for an open Walgreens. Now before you get mad at our recklessness and tell us we could have ended up like those people on the crime shows that my Mom and Lexie are obsessed with, let me point out that he was a cute local gay in a turtle-neck who loved Disney Princesses and Colbie Collait. A special shout-out to Matthew Evans: We’ll always have Walgreens…

And some of us will always have “Tangled.”

Well, if you’ve made it to all the way to the end of this post you’re either extremely bored or my Aunt Patty. Congratulations. We are going to try to keep on top of this “blogging” thing so our posts aren’t so epic. We’re just finding our groove, ya know?