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Nov. 16th, 2010 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluecastleSo. The bus trip. Where to start? The beginning I suppose. I know it makes me sound like a nob to complain about having to get up before 8 a.m. But I am not a morning person. Hence, OMG EARLY. But I managed, and the momcar picked me up at the appointed hour of 7:55. Then over the mountain to rendezvous with a big red bus. One that I was delighted to discover came with a wifi connection. Mom was perhaps less so, as she had to tell her friends about how I come for dinner and spend my time with my nose in my gadget. Yeah, well, I come for dinner and she spends her time with her nose in the TV so really, how is that any different? Anyway.
This being a bus full of retired teachers, we took roll twice, the second time through the time tested, "John Brown?" "Here!" method. Then there was a bloodless coup when the tour leader wanted to put in a video for the trip down and only like one person voted for watching a movie, so yay hooray, peace and quiet. Granted "Sweet Home Alabama" and "The Devil Wears Prada" would have been innocuous choices, but tour leader lady (ok her name was Phyllis) kept talking up some Kevin Costner "drama" which didn't win her any favors I think.
It was a dark and rainy morning. Seriously. The first half of the trip is the most boring section of road, and when you add dreary weather, well, yuck. It got a lot more scenic when we got close to Harrisburg and spent a good bit of time driving along and near the river. It's such an interesting river full of little rock islands which eddy and ripple the water. And it was foggy out making everything grey, but with a tinge of fall color bleeding through. Very picturesque. Wanted to leap out and take a million pictures of the softly tinged world with the silver and white river in it. Pretty, for all that it was so grim.
Then after more driving, and the sudden chime of the computer lady GPS from the front of the bus, we drove through a lot of little roads that went through cornfields, and ended up at the Playhouse. Not that we could see much with all the rain. It was my first trip, so I could only stare at the map of the buildings/complex and imagine. The current owner hopped on the bus while we waited for the bus in front of us to finish unloading and gave us the penny tour. His family bought the place in 1944, but many of the buildings date from the 1800s. They started it as a resort soon thereafter, and in 1949, the put in the theater. It's been running ever since. It was an Equity house back then. Not sure about now.
But before we get to the entertainment, there was ALL THE FOOD EVER. OMG BUFFET. Turkey and ham on the carving stations, fish and shrimp -- with all the accompanying potatoes, rice, veggies ad infinitum. Salad stuff, a wonderful cheese board with the BEST Brie, and figs and dried apricots and other cheeses and salami things. Not to mention the cakes, pies, ice cream, and their oh so famous sticky buns for dessert. (and some kind of lame sugar free pre-packaged cookies. that could have been better for sure). So they showed us into our own private room, and set us loose to eat until we popped.
Oh, Santa shook our hands as we came in. I believe we missed out on some of the entertainment because we were not in the main room. But they did bring the kids who were in the show as little elves (is that redundant?) in to say HI and give us the Welcome, here's about the show, the restrooms are to the left, and there is no intermission speech. I saw the kids later scarfing cake... like what little theater munchkins need before going on state is a lot of sugar! LOL
Actually we got to talk to them, and I took their picture while they waited for one of their minders to retrieve their coats from the "EDR." Translated for us as the Employee Dining Room. Someday I want to work in a place with an employee dining room. Sounds like a good deal to me. Of course, given that our group was made up of ex teachers, they all wanted to know how the kids were getting out of school for a weeks long run of shows, but no one had the nerve to ask.
The same could not be said about the fact that there was a hearse parked out side of the restaurant/box-office/gift shop building. Those of you hanging around twitter when I got home heard all about this... but it turned out eventually that the hearse belonged to Santa and Mrs. Claus and they were driving it today instead of their special charter bus. WELL. Then there was a flurry of photo taking, and chatting and general amazement. One of the women in our group actually works at a funeral home and drives a hearse, so Santa pulled the hearse around so she could take a picture of him in the drivers seat with his hat on and everything. OH MY HOW WAS THIS MY DAY?
After Santa drove off we headed across the way to the theater and huddled on the porch to try and stay out of the rain. They were a bit late opening the doors, but eventually a FOH guy and three elves came out. The big one did the directional examine your tickets and tell you which door to go in, and the two little elves handed out programs. The theater itself was nothing outstanding. It was very nearly what my theater pals would call a bowling alley. Long and narrow house with the stage at the skinny end. They had a pretty extensive lighting rig though, hung right next to the wagon wheel ceiling fixtures! And the requisite red velvet curtain. Also, reasonably uncomfortable seats.
But it was only an 85 minute show, so no great suffering there. And it was about what you'd expect (or what I expected) from a home grown show, written by one of the owners, and featuring a cast of about half local school kids. There was, what, a cast of about a dozen actors. I am guessing that the grown up half were leftovers from the regular season of shows you've actually heard off! And individually they were quite good. In the acting, singing and dancing departments. Maybe not the best at singing together or with the harmonies, but I wasn't inclined to judge them all that harshly. Not when they were doing a show about how the elves at the North Pole had to band together because Santa's cholesterol (or something) was too high and his doctor was ordering him away to an island for his health. So what to do save Christmas? (Isn't that the plot of half of all Christmas movies???) Chuck in a bunch of familiar Christmas songs in the course of trying to solve their problem (the highlight was Elf Pepper doing his "Elfis" impression while singing Blue Christmas. It was cute, okay.)
But as with all good Christmas musicals, the day is saved (or the night, as it were) and then we got some super religious "Jesus is the real meaning of Christmas" which they sort of saved by a heartfelt rendition of The Little Drummer boy (which always makes me cry, damn you Rankin and Bass). And then smile, wave, bows, and off for hot chocolate and cookies in the snack bar. Smush together Elf and Dirty Dancing in your head (without most of the dancing bits) and that was my day. It was very earnest, and very twee, and very OTT, but hello regional dinner theater. Those kids were working their elf sneakers off.
So back onto the bus we go. And given a bottle of water, and some snacks for the trip home. This is what happens when teachers plan trips I think. The water hit the spot, and I did munch my fake oreos and chex mix. But I sort of am still full a good eleven hours after we had lunch! Ride home was dreary and dark, and lordy the bus seats just weren't comfy. But home we came, and now I am resting up from my day of theatrical adventures. A couple times during the show ... maybe they opened doors backstage or something, but I got enveloped in a lovely smell. A combination of saw dust and latex paint. Oh, it smells like home. Like theater. Twenty years ago I would happily have been one of those gypsys. But it wasn't to be, so I have to look at it from the other side now.
Hmmm. Think maybe it's time to find another show to do? I'm getting all nostalgic! I'm also totally counting these words towards my NaNo total. :)
FA LA LA LA LA!!!
This entry was originally posted at http://valancy-joy.dreamwidth.org/135806.html
This being a bus full of retired teachers, we took roll twice, the second time through the time tested, "John Brown?" "Here!" method. Then there was a bloodless coup when the tour leader wanted to put in a video for the trip down and only like one person voted for watching a movie, so yay hooray, peace and quiet. Granted "Sweet Home Alabama" and "The Devil Wears Prada" would have been innocuous choices, but tour leader lady (ok her name was Phyllis) kept talking up some Kevin Costner "drama" which didn't win her any favors I think.
It was a dark and rainy morning. Seriously. The first half of the trip is the most boring section of road, and when you add dreary weather, well, yuck. It got a lot more scenic when we got close to Harrisburg and spent a good bit of time driving along and near the river. It's such an interesting river full of little rock islands which eddy and ripple the water. And it was foggy out making everything grey, but with a tinge of fall color bleeding through. Very picturesque. Wanted to leap out and take a million pictures of the softly tinged world with the silver and white river in it. Pretty, for all that it was so grim.
Then after more driving, and the sudden chime of the computer lady GPS from the front of the bus, we drove through a lot of little roads that went through cornfields, and ended up at the Playhouse. Not that we could see much with all the rain. It was my first trip, so I could only stare at the map of the buildings/complex and imagine. The current owner hopped on the bus while we waited for the bus in front of us to finish unloading and gave us the penny tour. His family bought the place in 1944, but many of the buildings date from the 1800s. They started it as a resort soon thereafter, and in 1949, the put in the theater. It's been running ever since. It was an Equity house back then. Not sure about now.
But before we get to the entertainment, there was ALL THE FOOD EVER. OMG BUFFET. Turkey and ham on the carving stations, fish and shrimp -- with all the accompanying potatoes, rice, veggies ad infinitum. Salad stuff, a wonderful cheese board with the BEST Brie, and figs and dried apricots and other cheeses and salami things. Not to mention the cakes, pies, ice cream, and their oh so famous sticky buns for dessert. (and some kind of lame sugar free pre-packaged cookies. that could have been better for sure). So they showed us into our own private room, and set us loose to eat until we popped.
Oh, Santa shook our hands as we came in. I believe we missed out on some of the entertainment because we were not in the main room. But they did bring the kids who were in the show as little elves (is that redundant?) in to say HI and give us the Welcome, here's about the show, the restrooms are to the left, and there is no intermission speech. I saw the kids later scarfing cake... like what little theater munchkins need before going on state is a lot of sugar! LOL
Actually we got to talk to them, and I took their picture while they waited for one of their minders to retrieve their coats from the "EDR." Translated for us as the Employee Dining Room. Someday I want to work in a place with an employee dining room. Sounds like a good deal to me. Of course, given that our group was made up of ex teachers, they all wanted to know how the kids were getting out of school for a weeks long run of shows, but no one had the nerve to ask.
The same could not be said about the fact that there was a hearse parked out side of the restaurant/box-office/gift shop building. Those of you hanging around twitter when I got home heard all about this... but it turned out eventually that the hearse belonged to Santa and Mrs. Claus and they were driving it today instead of their special charter bus. WELL. Then there was a flurry of photo taking, and chatting and general amazement. One of the women in our group actually works at a funeral home and drives a hearse, so Santa pulled the hearse around so she could take a picture of him in the drivers seat with his hat on and everything. OH MY HOW WAS THIS MY DAY?
After Santa drove off we headed across the way to the theater and huddled on the porch to try and stay out of the rain. They were a bit late opening the doors, but eventually a FOH guy and three elves came out. The big one did the directional examine your tickets and tell you which door to go in, and the two little elves handed out programs. The theater itself was nothing outstanding. It was very nearly what my theater pals would call a bowling alley. Long and narrow house with the stage at the skinny end. They had a pretty extensive lighting rig though, hung right next to the wagon wheel ceiling fixtures! And the requisite red velvet curtain. Also, reasonably uncomfortable seats.
But it was only an 85 minute show, so no great suffering there. And it was about what you'd expect (or what I expected) from a home grown show, written by one of the owners, and featuring a cast of about half local school kids. There was, what, a cast of about a dozen actors. I am guessing that the grown up half were leftovers from the regular season of shows you've actually heard off! And individually they were quite good. In the acting, singing and dancing departments. Maybe not the best at singing together or with the harmonies, but I wasn't inclined to judge them all that harshly. Not when they were doing a show about how the elves at the North Pole had to band together because Santa's cholesterol (or something) was too high and his doctor was ordering him away to an island for his health. So what to do save Christmas? (Isn't that the plot of half of all Christmas movies???) Chuck in a bunch of familiar Christmas songs in the course of trying to solve their problem (the highlight was Elf Pepper doing his "Elfis" impression while singing Blue Christmas. It was cute, okay.)
But as with all good Christmas musicals, the day is saved (or the night, as it were) and then we got some super religious "Jesus is the real meaning of Christmas" which they sort of saved by a heartfelt rendition of The Little Drummer boy (which always makes me cry, damn you Rankin and Bass). And then smile, wave, bows, and off for hot chocolate and cookies in the snack bar. Smush together Elf and Dirty Dancing in your head (without most of the dancing bits) and that was my day. It was very earnest, and very twee, and very OTT, but hello regional dinner theater. Those kids were working their elf sneakers off.
So back onto the bus we go. And given a bottle of water, and some snacks for the trip home. This is what happens when teachers plan trips I think. The water hit the spot, and I did munch my fake oreos and chex mix. But I sort of am still full a good eleven hours after we had lunch! Ride home was dreary and dark, and lordy the bus seats just weren't comfy. But home we came, and now I am resting up from my day of theatrical adventures. A couple times during the show ... maybe they opened doors backstage or something, but I got enveloped in a lovely smell. A combination of saw dust and latex paint. Oh, it smells like home. Like theater. Twenty years ago I would happily have been one of those gypsys. But it wasn't to be, so I have to look at it from the other side now.
Hmmm. Think maybe it's time to find another show to do? I'm getting all nostalgic! I'm also totally counting these words towards my NaNo total. :)
FA LA LA LA LA!!!
This entry was originally posted at http://valancy-joy.dreamwidth.org/135806.html
