Show # 2

• Oh, that thing? Yeah, completely disassembles and fits in the back of the van.
  

Well, to put a positive spin on today, it was a learning experience.
We learned, for example, that we need a minimum of two and half hours to load in. We also learned that we need to be able to eyeball our spikes. And that we need a signal to communicate that the monitor is giving feedback. And that it takes at LEAST an hour to load out, but preferably an hour and a half. We also figured out that driving in the snow in these giant truck/van things is less than awesome.

How we learned these things is pretty obvious. Basically, we didn't have enough time to load in, worked 25 minutes into half-hour, had sound problems, spacing issues and
NO WINGS during the show and got correspondingly frazzled. The thing is, regardless of these things, it's still satisfying to be doing this. Those kids don't care, which almost makes it easy to think "ok, then we can cut a few corners here and there. So what if the spikes are off or the sound is cutting in and out." Except that's not ok - at the end of the day, if we really believe in what we are doing, we want to give these children the best possible experience. Not something that just makes the grade, but something that elevates it.

That being said, we're already improving the van pack. And we put the roof on the house (our set) up today, thereby bringing up the size of the house to a grand total of ca. 14 ft? 15 ft? I don't know, it's pretty high for a piece out of the back of a van. We also ate somewhere with SIGNIFICANTLY better food today (by which I mean, at least there was no hair in the fries. yesterday's lunch stop was PITIFUL and DISGUSTING. with capitol letters.) and followed our directions a little bit better. (how many actors does it take to read a map...)

It helps that we all get along, as a group, fairly cohesively. It would be a long four months if we didn't. It doesn't bear thinking about.

We are going to have to sit down as a group and figure out a rotation for drivers, because I can't just keep arbitrarily stepping up to drive all the time. I don't mind it, but I don't want to be one of the only three who do it. All seven of us should be driving. It'll get figured out, I have no doubt.
Anyway - all I am listening to these days is the Alison Krauss/Robert Plante collaboration and it rocks. I'm looking forward to zenning out to it in the car tomorrow. Tomorrow is just a travel day. We're driving to Maryland, spending the night and then performing on Thursday morning. Consequently, I may not check in until then.
Goodnight. I'll let you know how the drive goes.