Show # 34

Oh, Ocala!
Our venue was a former-high-school-turned-community-college with all the charm and ambiance of a prison. Everything was gray, shades of gray, granite, tombstone, depressing gray. The bathrooms? Gray. The lobby? Gray. The exterior of the building? Gray, with a darker gray stripe running around the entire building, as if it highlight the additional gray slate roofing and gray parking lot structure. Even the plants were drab. In contrast, however, the interior of the auditorium we performed in was a (not much better) mustard yellow. The wood looked more like plastic or linoleum than wood, but the stage was big enough for the entire set. Which was, incidentally, the only splash of colour in the entire surrounding area. It was quite the contrast to our Tampa experience...

Anyway, the show went off without too many hitches. We were all a little affected by the heat and humidity and, not for the first time, I think more than one of us phoned it in a little. I feel sort of guilty saying that, but it's difficult to throw in 100% when you wake up after 6 hours of sleep in high humidity, load in our (let's face it) gigantic set and then run through the 47 minute marathon that is our show. In extremely warm costumes. Particularly with the knowledge of the impending load-out before we can break for lunch. It's times like that that make it difficult to commit all of your energy to the 47 minutes of show time. You want to conserve some for the break-down and drive. Whine, whine, whine, I know, I know, I know. At the end of the day, I am very lucky to be doing this. Still...

From the prison, we drove to lunch at a Panera and then hit the road back to Port Richey, where we are now. The hotel itself is decent, the area has enough businesses and restaurants that we won't get bored during out stay here and the beach is just a short drive away. On the agenda while we're here? Definitely some jet-skiing. Perhaps some para-sailing, if it can be fit in to the schedule.

But now, as promised, some pictures from our glorious day at the beach when we built sand-castles, flew a kite and had a general grand ole time!