Merced, CA

Well, it's been a tough week. I've tried to keep these blog entries up-beat, but to be honest, we are all really exhausted! Mentally, emotionally, physically... it's just a lot. And we just found out that Theatreworks added a show during our week off, so that had us all really bumming out this morning. Then the shows in Fresno were in a beautiful theatre that had NO HEAT! It was freezing -- weird, too, because it wasn't THAT cold outside, cloudy and in the 50's. But, it was a beautiful, old house with adequate stage-space and decent dressing rooms. Could have done without the piss-smell back stage right, but... what can you do.

The news about our added show in Truckee, CA did not go over well; there was great dismay, some throwing of things, storming off, followed by stress-eating (cookies and chips, mostly). The show was then infused with a kind of passion I haven't seen since our first shows back in January. A zest, an abandon, if you will, came over us, and we threw ourselves into the play; the kids were so very appreciative, (we were rock stars again, like in Vegas), and we made each other laugh so hard (sometimes before Laura had a chance to mute us/me), that by the end of the second show, it seemed as though we were all ...somehow... okay. Better, even.

Strange shit happens, out here on the road. Your life is not your own... you're told when/where to show up, there is a loss of controle that can sometimes be soul-crushing... but the one thing you do have control over is, ultimately, those damn kids. We can make 'em do whatever we want (like Tim, today, during his climactic "he's over there?" scene)... and what we really want, more than anything, is to make 'em scream. Make them scream and laugh and applaud like there's no tomorrow. Because WE know, even if most Americans are ignorant, that we're better than a movie. Theatre is just BETTER than TV and the internet and the X-Box... and maybe the only thing we're not quite better than is a kick-ass rock concert. And it's important, what we're doing... little "i", not capital "i"... but still, important.

At any rate, after the show we went searching for food in Fresno, and the tech guys at the theatre sent us to a little hip, downtown area. I'm not sure where everyone else went, but Patrick and I found this place we couldn't resist: Chicken Pie Shop. So, of course, we HAD to have the chicken pie (which was phenomenal)... and we also split an order of the special of the day, homemade Mac N Cheese. And it WAS ... as the Director says... "FANTASTIC"! Then Patrick wandered into a shop and emerged with ...what else? ...a small sling shot. We pelted the van for practice (don't worry -- they were very harmless bouncy balls, and did absolutely no harm to the vehicle) before he ambushed Paul, Greg and Laura as they walked by.

One bag of bouncy balls... $1.
Paul's reaction to an attack by a bouncy ball? Priceless.