Hi Kids!

Sorry.. it's been a few days, I know. It's not that I've been really busy...just lazy. So, sorry if this is a bit long.

Let me see, since the last blog entry we've been three places, Baton Rouge LA, Wickenburg AZ and Queen Creek AZ.

Baton Rouge was fun because one...we were finally out of the cold weather and starting our swing south and to the west coast, and two... I got to see my sister-in-law Martha and her daughter Julez. Such a treat to have them come to the show. I'm going to sound like a broken record saying the same thing about theaters and stuff, but hey, my blog, my rules. But the Centroplex was a very nice theater, another big hall, about 2000 seats. We stayed at this New Orleans-flavored Best Western with the iron trim and central lobby that all the floors look down on, very cute.

Next stop was Arizona, but we only had one day to get there so we had to leave George the bus driver and our second home (the bus) behind and hop a flight to Phoenix...well two flights and two bus rides actually (one stop-over in Dallas) and make our way to Wickenburg AZ ( Yeah, I've never heard of it either) and to hear my compadre Chuck tell it ( He lives in AZ ) some people in AZ have never heard of it! lol! I'm kidding, but Chuck does say that he considers it the boonies and I agree. It's a non-profit theater located on a fairly new high-school campus. It's actually much nicer than I expected, about 600 seats and surprisingly, a fair amount of space. And from their program they get some pretty good shows coming thru there. We still had to do a pared down version of the show but it went very well.

We spent a couple days there and I have to say the scenery is so different than what I'm used to, being a New Englander. Outside of town where our hotel was you can walk up into the hills behind and view the town and the surroundings. Wow...cactus, scrub brush, tumbleweeds...makes you want to start singing "Happy Trails." Well, I got about halfway through my walk when it suddenly occured to me...ummm...rattlesnakes live here. You know those western movies where the guy is lost in the desert and just happens to step in the wrong place. So, needless to say I walked gingerly (and with eyes focused on the ground)back to the hotel. Turns out I had nothing to worry about, guess they're pretty sluggish this time of year.

Next stop was Queek Creek and another theater located on a high-school campus. And here's where things got a little interesting. Well, first of all, the crew had to get the show in Wickenburg packed up, drive to Queen Creek (about two hours away) load in at 6 in the morning to be ready for a 2 o'clock matinee and a 7:30 evening show...all on two hours of sleep. Wow...can't say enough good tthings about our crew, they are A-MAZING! Well, the interesting part started with the fact that the theater is grossly underpowered for a show like this so when that happens they bring in these gas powered generators...well, when they went to drive a metal rod into the earth to ground the system they accidently broke the water main...so...the theater is expecting about 600 people to show up at a place with no running water. Yipes! Thankfully they got it fixed in time. So, the next thing, we get through the first act, and funny, I should have guessed it when I heard all the young kids in the audience whose parents were trying to keep quiet by constantly giving them candy to unwrap the whole time. Mark, our stage manager, comes back and says the presenter is all upset because we were not doing the "PG rated" version of the show for the "family" audience and he'd had several complaints. (There is language and sexual references in the show that we take out for "family" audiences) Soooo, after profusly apologizing for the misunderstanding things continued without a hitch. And the nice thing was they fed us chinese food between shows. Yes!

Well, it's off to San Diego for a couple days off. Sweet! Don't think I'll be doing anything exciting while we're there, just relaxing. So, no trips to Sea World or the Zoo for me. But if there is interestings goings on I'll be sure to let you know.

Be back soon!

Glenn