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Friday, October 21, 2011

South Pacific Tour has begun... blogging on Beantown!

Our first few weeks on tour are great because we have a really easy schedule, filled with week-long sitdowns. The first two weeks, for instance, were spent in Boston and the Baltimore! I was so excited to spend some time in two cities I have visited, but am not really familiar with. It proved to be a fun kick-off couple of weeks, for sure.
Boston was so exciting. We stayed a little out of downtown, unfortunately, but had week-long passes on the train there to get around, which proved to be super useful. In boston we played the Boston Opera House, one of the most amazing buildings I've ever seen. It was cool to see how many amazing shows had played there and Boston is known for having pretty excellent, smart, and theatre-wise audiences. Because of that it was thrilling to have such full houses and responsive crowds to the show. Our opening night was so exciting! Running up and over that sand dune has to be one of the best entrances to a show I've ever had. It is exciting each and every time and that night, in particular, it was such an energy boost to hear the audience give us sailors great entrance applause! Ha ha! This week was also spent with the show just getting to know our tracks better and better.
In Boston, we made sure to take advantage of being in a wonderful, historic, seaside town! I ate so much seafood it was ridiculous! We spent one of our first days following around our cast-mate, Jess, who went to school in Boston. She took us all over town and helped get our bearings before we had dinner on the water and I discovered the glory of Mike's Pastry in the North End of Boston. This place is famous for their RIDICULOUS cannolis and I would be lying if I said over the course of the week I ate less than 4 of these amazing treats. SO GOOD!!! Boston has so much great food, though. We just stuffed ourselves silly. In that week we had great meals at Quincy Market, Legal Sea Food, Thinking Cup Coffee right by Boston Common, etc. Just so much great food!
I was really happy to have friends to see in Boston also. My great friend of many years is a star in Beantown theatre circles. Kami Smith is always such a great friend to catch up with because she is always the same, wonderful person I have known forever. She is a consistent, hard working actor and loves life. I also love that she is a Southern girl at heart. Ha ha! Anyway- we were able to meet up for dinner and she came to see my show between work, rehearsals, and performances of her own show, which was such a treat! Love ya, Kami! I also had the pleasure of catching up with some people from Ogunquit Playhouse this summer! My son in "Music Man" was played by Colby Stack and he and his family came to see the show and took me out for a great Chinese dinner! I couldn't believe that they came to see me and Colby and his little sister sat through such a long show. They are such great people and I'm so thankful to have them as great new friends.
Another day a bunch of the cast made sure to do the Freedom Trail, which takes tourists in Boston to all the major historic sites in town. It is always cool to stop and recognize the human experience that must have been taking place so many years ago to lead us to where we are now and see the footprint of our courageous forefathers. I also had a great time discovering Cambridge quite a bit one day. We walked around Harvard for a long time and found some good food before wandering by the Charles River. The group I was with headed out to rest and spend time in town before the show, but I was so happy to walk around that I spent the whole day meandering on foot from Harvard, all through Cambridge by MIT, etc. until I walked over the bridge and in to downtown for the show that night. I find it's always important to find time to spend alone and check in with yourself on the road. It's the closest thing to going home that I have found. Just being alone, praying, listening to music that calms you and takes you to a comforting place is irreplaceable therapy as a vagabond traveler. Besides, that day I had possibly the greatest ice cream I've ever had. If you are ever in the Boston area you MUST experience Toscanini's Ice Cream. I had such a hard time choosing what I wanted, but was NOT disappointed. The list of flavors is out of this world and changes all the time as the ice cream is created on-site in their "lab." My flavor of the day was something they were calling B3- brown sugar, browned butter, and brownie. I died. You have to go there. The flavors... oh my heck.
The last couple days in Boston were spent making sure we experienced every last bit of shopping on Newbury Street and had brunch at the Paramount, etc. What a great city! We headed out of town, though, to fly (eventually, as our flight was delayed multiple times) to Baltimore, MD.

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