Week #10

It is hard to believe that it has been 10 weeks since we left Orange Park, FL and began our tour. I have been away from home for three months now and while I miss it terribly the time has passed quickly.

This week we have been making our way up the west coast of our great country with stops for performances at San Luis Obispo, CA, Stockton, CA, Redding CA, and Eugene, OR. California is a very diverse state geographically. We have been on the coast and beaches, in mountains, on plains filled with farms and all of it has been amazingly beautiful.

There was a natural let down after leaving the Kodak theatre but the enthusiasm of the audiences has more than made up for it. The audiences in Stockton, Redding, and Eugene were simply the best. They responded enthusiastically to everything we did and performing for them was an absolute joy.

On Tuesday while in San Luis Obispo a group of us drove up to visit the Hearst Castle, the home of William Randolph Hearst back in his day. It was built at about the time that "Annie" takes place so I viewed it as research for the role. It gave me great insight into the lavishness that these wealthiest of people lived in while the world around them feel apart during the depression and thousands were starving. I can only hope that we have learned our lesson and that our current economic troubles won't lead us down that same path. It is said that Hearst was spending $60,000 a day back in the early 1930's. Multiply that by 40 for inflation and that is what he would have been spending each day today!

Tomorrow we have a "Golden Day." This is a day off with no performance or travel! We don't get these often so most people are really looking forward to it. I imagine that I will simply relax and maybe see a movie or something.

We will have a busy week next week as we travel four out of seven days and begin to put a new person into the show to play Kate and understudy Annie. We also have a rehearsal scheduled on Thursday with Martin. It should be a very exciting week for everyone. Simply having someone new around will be exciting after living and working with the same forty faces for 3 months.