Well, hello!

I'm a little late starting this Blog, but here it is...this is my blog of my first ever tour.

I'm in my hotel on the 3rd stop of our national tour (Texarkana, TX). The entire cast and crew had the day off yesterday which was very nice. Today, the actors are off, but the crew is working at the venue, doing Load-In. That means that they are unloading the truck that holds our entire set and getting the stage ready for us to perform on tomorrow. They hang the lights, build our set, plug-in our sound cues, test our sound levels, and test all the equipment. It's a pretty big job. We depend on them to make our set seem the same in every venue, even when the venues are different sizes.

We have 4 crew members: Andrew is the production manager and is basically in charge of all the technical nuts and bolts (literally) of assembling the set. Elif is our wardrobe supervisor. She sets all the wardrobe pieces where we need them in the wings and backstage and in order of the show. She helps us with quick costume changes backstage and makes sure we can't be seen in the wings from the audience. Andrew and Elif are both backstage during the show helping with moving the set pieces, replacing props after we use them and being on hand if we forget something. C.C. is our lighting supervisor and makes sure all the venues have hung the right colored lights in the right places so that we have all the warmth and drama of the lighting that was designed by the people at The Kennedy Center. Kristin is our sound supervisor and she makes sure our microphones are on and off at the right times, as well as making sure we can hear ourselves in the sound monitors onstage. The monitor speakers are different than the speakers the audience hears during the show. They sit in the wings and face the stage so we can hear ourselves and adjust to blend with each other as well as hear the sound effects cues.

The entire cast and crew is under the direction of Malia, our stage manager. She sits in the booth at the back of the venues and "calls the show". This means that she is on a headset with the rest of the crew and she reads along with the script and tells the crew when to execute which cue. For example, when I am playing the waiter and I'm describing the restaurant, she gives Kristin the cue to play the Restaurant Music which sounds like a big flourish. When I hear that cue, I come out the front door and start my lines. She tells C.C. to bring the lights to a beautiful warm orange as I move to Stage Left (this is the audience's right as they look at the stage) to describe the sunset. Then as I make a big cross to Stage Right and talk about the charms of the Caribbean moon, Malia gives the cue to C.C. to bring up the cool blue lights. It's so cool because I can see the lights come on as I say an exact word every time. Then I exit and get ready for a quick change and Elif is on the headset telling Malia if I'm going to make it on time as she helps me zip my boots and ensures I didn't forget to take off my earrings.

It's a pretty tight ship as Malia and the crew make sure everything and everyone on stage is out and back in time and in the right clothes and sounding good and lit correctly. I've never been on a crew before, but it looks really hard and it certainly takes a certain kind of person to do it well. We have a great group.

Of course, sometimes there are little slip-ups, but it's not too big of a deal. In the last show, for example, I finished singing my song and the light is supposed to dim on me before the girl playing the Amazing Voice is supposed to go on with her line. But the light didn't dim until much later than usual. I was standing there longer than I normally do because I wait for the light to dim before I turn around to exit. It was kind of weird. I'm not sure if Malia didn't give the light cue at the right time or if C.C.'s light board didn't respond correctly. In times like that, you just keep acting and pretend like it was supposed to be that way. And then you laugh at it afterward. It happens, even with people trying their hardest. Sometimes, the actor switches a line or does something different by accident and then Malia has to catch up the cues to follow what happened unexpectedly.

The actors help by trying to keep everything the same show after show, down to the details of STAND HERE for this costume change, wait in the wings until THIS VERSE before moving backstage so you don't get in people's way as they exit, take your props off the table at the same time so Elif knows you have what you need. The props are always in the same place so everyone knows where their stuff is. Before the we get changed into our costumes, we all meet onstage for sound checks of our microphones and to check the monitor levels. We walk through our fast changes and make sure we know how to run around the back of the stage to get to the other side.

The cast is a fun group. There are 7 actors, 4 play kids in the show and the rest of us play the adults. All the men in the cast were in the show the first time around when it played at The Kennedy Center last year. All the women are new to the show. We all work well together and everyone's upbeat and easy to get along with. I'll try to post some interviews with these folks so you can get to know them a little bit.

So, as I said, I'm currently in my hotel in Texarkana, already on this tour. But I started on this trip several months ago when I was trying to get the guts to audition. I'll talk about how I started this show in my next blog entry.