Last Days in California

Well, we finally closed out our series of dates in Cali with San Luis Obispo (SLO)and Bakersfield. It was largely less than stellar. We stayed at this seriously ghettoooooooooo motel in Arroyo Grande called the Premier Inn and it was anything but. It was way far from food and 15 miles from the theatre! Our producers are always trying to save a buck. We were in SLO for three nights/2 shows. The theatre in SLO was fine. Very large stage and wingspace. Decent houses but nothing spectacular. We did have fun our first night in town. We were excited to see the Pacific Ocean so we headed down to Pismo Beach. We decided to treat ourselves since it was payday so we had an incredibly delicious dinner at a little Italian place called Giuseppe's and we spent more than a day's per diem each! It was awesome though. Then we went down and walked on the beach. It was chilly but we didn't care. After we went into this bar called Harry's where we drank and played pool and sang Karaoke. Zac and Chaz (Fagin and Bumble) did a kick ass "Proud Mary". It was hilarious! Rhiannon and Will also sang then we all sang...ready..."Who Will Buy?". Yes, they actually had Oliver! songs in the book and Zac put it in for us to sing. It was a HOT MESS!

Friday I hung out with my roomie Matt. We had a nice lunch, did some shopping and took it easy since we had en early call for sound check. See, we have sound check at every venue since you're dealing with different acoustics. So those days are always early calls.

Saturday we went to the beach and it seriously sucked. Literally as we pulled out of the motel a thick fog rolled in and left us with a cold, gray day at the beach so we cut it short and grabbed some lunch before heading back.

Sunday morning I did laundry and then we left for our one-off in Bakersfield. Oh Bakersfield...what can I say. We played the Rabobank Arena theatre space. Disney on Ice was across the hall in the arena and we played the concert space. The audience felt a mile away and even though there had to be 1,000 people it felt like we were rehearsing and no one was there they were so far away. This place is not good for theatre! I try hard not to have diva fits but I definitely had one here over a few things. I'll leave it at that and say I was glad it was only one night. The cast loaded up the bus to drive to a hotel in Barstow before leaving for a 16 hour bus ride Monday to Colorado Springs. I took a cab to the Hampton Inn in Bakersfield for a brief night's sleep before flying to Denver in the morning to meet up with Mike!

"Meet the Cast" features Ashley Wallace here in her Fagin's gang costume. Ashley is 23 and from New Jersey. She is our female swing and in the ensemble and was in this costume when she went on for Jen who took a few shows off to go to her brother's Bar Mitzvah in Jersey. Ashley did great! She is seriously the sweetest girl. She never complains, never curses and is nice to everyone. I had seen her many times at auditions and I wish now I'd gotten to know her sooner!

Next blog, Colorado Springs.