
03/25/2024 - 03/31/2024
"We'll do it live! F*ck it!"
Bill O'Reilly
This week, we made our way back to the North East, making stops along the way in West Virginia, New York proper, and ended this stretch of the tour in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Praise be to the Theatre Gods that our shows in Binghamton were close enough to New Jersey that the lovely Heidi was able to see the show last Tuesday! Heidi was able to meet the cast and crew after the show, finally putting some faces to names, and I was grateful for the fine-as-hell arm candy. She was also kind enough to run up my Fallout decks that I had pre-ordered a few months back (which were delivered two weeks early, the day I flew to Miami). We took our free afternoon Wednesday to get Blaze Pizza for lunch, and we found time to check out Jupiter Games, a game store within driving distance of our hotel. They were nearing completion on a remodel on their main selling floor, but their playspace in the basement was magnificent. Heidi was unfortunately pressed for time to get back to Jersey, so we didn't have time to play, but I was happy to hang out with her for just a few hours. We have plans to playtest all of the decks once I'm back home, and I'm sure you're all eager to hear how they perform.
We had an unprecedented problem during our first Worcester show, where Jo March's primary microphone would cut in and out during the performance. We learned later that the mic's frequency was connecting to a local radio station and not doing its intended job of carrying Hannah's voice to the audience. The next day we seemed to have solved the problem, and started the show Saturday as normally. I'm the first one out on stage after the overture, and it took me all of four seconds for me to realize that my mic wasn't working... at all. Now, I'm a trained actor, so I rolled with it and projected to the rafters no problem. I continue, sure that we'll fix my mic once I'm offstage, but I see in the corner of my eye that none of our lights are popping on either. Next, I see our ASM in the wing waving frantically at us to clear stage, when our SM's voice makes the dreaded "holding due to technical difficulties" announcement overhead. Left alone on stage, I took an unceremonious bow, and hustled off.
The cast and crew are gathered onstage once the main curtain was brought down, just kinda basking in the insanity of the false start. My mic was tended to, and after about six minutes, we were ready to start again. The last few measures of the overture are played, the curtain goes back up, and I'm standing at center awaiting my cue to start. I gotta tell you, when that curtain went up, the applause hit me like I was Springsteen in 1976. You know how some people go to a NASCAR race secretly hoping for a crash? I couldn't breeze past the misstep like it was nothing, so I ad libbed "Hello again," and they lost their minds. We then went along with the show as normal, and the funny thing is that the error up top and having to earn back the trust of the audience had grounded me like never before. I was humbled as a performer, and the audience was on our side from the very start; I was their guy, and they gave us everything they had. It ended up being one of our very best shows.
Between our two Saturday shows, I was also able to coordinate an early dinner with my Aunt Cheryl and her two friends Judy and Julie. She lives less than an hour away from Worcester and managed to come see the show with, I'm told, six more of her friends. It was so lovely getting to catch up with Cheryl after not seeing her for over a decade, and I was all smiles hearing everyone's reviews after the show. I have groupies!

Later today, we're all heading back home for our last layoff before the end of the tour. We have a shorter time away, ten days instead of two weeks, but we'll be sure to make the most of it. Most of us'll be driving into Penn Station instead of flying into JFK, so that'll be less of a stress for all of us. It'll be business as usual while I'm away: singing through the show to keep it fresh, recording some songs for the site, reading a few plays, and most importantly hanging out with Heidi and Atticus. You also may have noticed, but we finally got ahold of our production photos, courtesy of Josh Murphy with Chosen Creations. You can check them all out on the Gallery page, and hopefully there will be more to come.
And scene.
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