Staten Island 1

We drove out in the rain at 6:30 am today from Inwood in Manhattan, where the vans were, to Staten Island in... the rain. Fortunately, I did not drive the van in the weather condition. I was too nervous. Bethany, who plays 'Grandma' drove the passenger van, and was great. Once we got there, the driveway that led to the loading entrance was blocked by a dumpster! So, the set van was placed on the grass beside it, and we had to lift everything to the pavement behind the dumpster that we could roll... it was exhausting. Then, most of us started building and realized that our SM and another actor weren't in the theater... they were working on getting the truck out of the mud... it was raining really hard and the van was stuck in mud at both ends of the car. In comes Andrew, who plays 'Max,' telling us we all have to come out and push the van out of the mud... so there we are in the rain, first day of performances, an hour and a half from showtime without the set built yet, 6 actors, Danny or kick-ass SM, and two amazing men who work for the theater who hired us for the day, pushing (more like trying to push) a Sprinter out of the mud in the pouring rain. I got into the car and was the one to push the gas in a rocking motion and then floor it when we were clear. However, it did not work... and we had to call a towing company to get the van out. :/

Eventually, we got the set up and everything was ready. We worked into our half hour, but everything was up, looked great, and we had this beautiful theater to perform in for loads of little children!

We performed for the kids- and it was suuch a blast! It's soo funny to hear the reactions of kids in an audience. Their responses are outrageous! They laughed all the frickin' time and there was this buzz, like a literal noise, that was constant throughout the show. It was so funny! And kids love everything- it's fun to perform for them 'cause they love whatever the hell you do pretty much!
We did a second show 45 minutes later, and this crowd was pretty much the same. However, during the 'Tarantula' scene, which is where 'Max' reads a book about a tarantula and a tarantula comes to life behind him (us other actors backstage), the second show kids screamed and seemed actually frightened, whereas the first show's kids laughed at it. Silly...

The theater that hired us to come there brought us food and drinks, which was so sweet, and they were incredibly wonderful and helpful. We're going back to do 2 more shows there tomorrow, so we got to leave the set and not break it down. Our strike was just to put the props away, lock up, and drive back to the city. We got stuck in quite a bit of traffic, which was odd because it was 2 pm, but we eventually made it back.

I went food shopping at Fairway Market- bought delicious Sweet Potato and Fig Ravioli, and made a delicious creamy cheese sauce to add to it. It was amazing:


Needless to say, it was an interesting first day of performances.