Philadelphia Surprises

If you watched the news on Thursday of last week you would have thought that Philadelphia was buried under a foot of snow.  The reality was they had less than an inch while we there.

We performed at the Merriem Theatre which is home to the University of the Arts here and where one of my former students now attends.  The theatre has a long history and it was a lot of fun to do the show here, although it did present some unique challenges due to its limited backstage space.  But we did the full show before sold out audiences all weekend.

Saturday afternoon, Thomas Meehan, who wrote the book or script for "Annie" came to see the show.  It was a surprise to all of us in the cast to find out that he and his family had driven in from New York City to see the show.  He had his granddaughter with him and she was adorable.  He had nothing but good things to say about the show and made us all feel very good about the work we do.

Today is Monday and we have just finished our performance in Charlottesville, Virginia.  We performed at the University of Virginia here in the arena.  Performing in arenas is always a challenge as they are designed for that purpose and we often do get to use all of our sets.  It shouldn't effect our performance but I find that it doesn't take much these days to throw a kink into things.  While my show wasn't "bad" I didn't feel good about my performance afterward.  I will work doubly hard tomorrow and for the next two weeks to make sure that doesn't happen again.

I did a Meet-n-Greet before the show for some of their patrons.  While I didn't do a lot due to time constraints and other issues I did get a free University of Virginia T-shirt for my troubles which was nice.

Tomorrow we drive to Ashland, KY for another one-nighter.  This week will be long as we have three one night stays, a stop over and then a long weekend in New Haven, CT.  I will get to see Alayna in New Haven which I am looking forward to more than you can know.

The weather here was fabulous today!  The sun was out and it had to close to 50 degrees.  I spent the afternoon walking and enjoying a rare day where you could actually enjoy being outside.  Did I hear they are expecting another winter storm in the North East this weekend?  I HOPE NOT.   I will not miss the snow and cold of tour when I get home.  Give me a desert any day.