To Thanksgiving and Beyond

Thanksgiving Day was a doozy. You may recall that I hurt my back so badly I didn't perform in the show for our Baton Rouge show (November 23). I awoke Thanksgiving morning with SUCH EXTREME PAIN. I don't remember it being this bad when I hurt my back the previous time. It took nearly 30 minutes to be able to stand upright without agony. I nearly threw up because the pain was so intense. I took it slowly, did my stretches, and did the best I could. The cast was very kind and I had help getting my bags to the bus (I couldn't even bend down and zip up my suitcase, much less pick it up and wheel it downstairs).

Aside from that, Thanksgiving itself was a doozy. We started in Baton Rouge. Traveled by bus to the airport in New Orleans (crossing the famous Lake Pontchatrain Causeway Bridge in the process, which I do not believe I've ever been on -- it's the longest over water bridge IN THE WORLD). Pretty cool.

From New Orleans we flew to Chicago O'Hare airport...where we'd been just the week before on a 4 hour layover on our way to Des Moines/Cedar Falls, Iowa. This time we'd be there for another 4.5 hours. On Thanksgiving Day.

This wasn't a surprise, we knew what our travel day would be like...so there's no reason to complain. We all headed to Chili's to have our Thanksgiving meal (paid for by the company); I had a cheeseburger. It was a nice time together.

Eventually we left Chicago and flew to Detroit and took a bus to Toledo, Ohio (a one hour trip). It doesn't matter what time we got to our hotel in Toledo that night -- I don't remember. It was a LONG LONG day.

And the next day we had 2 shows. We stayed in Toledo one more night, then left early the next day for South Bend, Indiana, a 2.5 hour trip. We went directly to the theater (rather than going to the hotel first) because we had another 2 show day.

We got up early the next morning and drove nearly 3 hours from South Bend to Indianapolis (just north of the city itself), and again headed directly to the theater for yet another 2 show day.

If you're counting at home (and I hope you're not), we've been to the airport 14 different times (11 different airports - Los Angeles, Houston IAH & Houston Hobby, Jackson, Chicago O'Hare, Des Moines, New Orleans, Detroit, Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Richmond) and had only 16 performances.

THIS IS WHY I AM GOING INSANE.

TOLEDO, OH

ABOVE:  What OTHER shows go to this same theater???????????????? (Phantom arrives on the 30th, five days after we were there.)

Before I even went INSIDE the theater I found these in the lobby -- these are 6 costumes from the show. WHAT!? I promise...I didn't steal anything. I thought about it, plotted out how to escape and everything, but it would have been SO obvious who took the stuff.

SOUTH BEND, IN

Is that place amazing, or what? By far my favorite theater so far this tour. Just gorgeous.

INDIANAPOLIS, IN

 After our long 2 show day (6 shows in 3 days), we drove about 20 minutes from the theater to our hotel in downtown Indianapolis -- where I had never been.

BUT ALSO WHICH HAPPENED to have a Giordano's pizza place ACROSS the street from our hotel. If you're not aware, Giordano's is a Chicago pizza joint that is famous for it's unbelievable deep-dish pizza. I have missed it terribly since leaving Chicago in May.

Though I loudly shared my love for this place with the entire cast, only 6 people joined me for dinner. The deep dish pizza takes 45 minutes to bake -- and by this point it was nearly 8 pm, and I hadn't had lunch (because I was saving space and energy and money for GIORDANO'S); but it was well worth the wait. It was glorious.

After dinner, a few of us wandered the city, specifically to see the Capitol Building, which was right across from our hotel.

I'm writing this from ... where am I? I'm in Newport News, Virginia. That's right. We got here today from Indianapolis. Tomorrow we have one performance -- hurray!

More coming soon!