Travel days are so exciting with this cast! We had a blast today traveling from Lincoln, Illinois to Green Bay, Wisconsin! What a drive, y’all! It was wild! This morning we woke up early and got downstairs in time for the continental breakfast at our lovely Holiday Inn - which was great to have a free meal! (Saving that Per Diem, y’all!) We then were loaded onto the bus and on the road again! This morning we were sleepy elves, and slept most of the morning. We stopped for lunch at a mall in Rockford, Illinois. It was a great place to stop, because people had the opportunity to do any shopping they might need, look for lunch in the food court, and just get some great leg stretching/walking time in, since we had been cramped up in a bus for so long. We found some less-than-optimal salads in the food court at one of the fast food places - it has been SO hard to find healthy eating on some of our stops! A healthy lifestyle is definitely a challenge but not impossible while on tour. We try to look for salads and healthy alternatives at every food stop. This food court just didn't supply many options, so that made it more challenging. Usually it is not too much of a problem. We then wandered around through different stores, loving how cute it was all decorated for Christmas! Somehow stumbled into a furry friend adoption shop in the center of the mall, where they had tons of baby puppies that were in little baby cribs, waiting for a new family to take them home! It was SO SWEET! We were so excited! We got to play with one of the puppies, and it was the sweetest. I had a little bit of trouble, as I am allergic, but I couldn't resist hugging the sweet furry baby. Once it was time to get back on the bus, we all hopped on and made it through the home stretch of this long day of travel. I was working on some AT&T posts, for my other job through AT&T, as well as checking up on some emails. Bus time is great work time and Samantha time :) Once we arrived to our Hampton Inn Hotel in Green Bay, where it was 35* I might add (cue shivering elf Samantha and laughing-at-Samantha elf Sara), we checked in and unloaded our stuff into our hotel rooms. Sara and I took a quick nap, because for some reason even though we just sat on a bus all day, the traveling was exhausting, and we were wiped. We then met up with some of our favorite people - Kyle, Rashaun, Jenny, and Mark - and went to a local Italian grill for dinner, where we tried some of Wisconsin’s famous cheese curds! It was so fun getting to try a local specialty, this fun Wisconsin cheese staple! We even talked our waiter into coming to see our show tomorrow night! We then played some board games/card games at the hotel, including our current favorites: salad bowl (also known as celebrities or fish bowl) and imagination (a pictionary sort of card game). (Those are our cast’s current two favorites to play on the road and in hotels!) Once it reached 9:30pm, we headed to the local Green Bay bowling alley, where we could have unlimited bowling for only $6! Can I get an Amen!?! We had SO much fun getting competitive on the games, and for the record, I lost terribly, haha. However, I would like to document that I did throw A STRIKE, thank you very much. The excited photos below document how excited I was at this moment of victory. Overall, however, I think I’ll stick to singing, acting, and dancing! We all had SUCH a blast laughing with each other, and enjoying spending time with one another. We have got some GREAT bowlers in this cast! We also convinced some of the women who were sitting in the bowling alley to bring their kids to our show tomorrow night! After bowling, we were pretty exhausted from the long day, and ordered an uber to head back to the hotel. Once we returned to the hotel, we had an awesome spontaneous surprise: A Papa John’s pizza delivery man was walking down our hall (all of us are on the second floor of this Hampton!) and said that the pizza had been cancelled, and wanted to know if we wanted it! It was SO exciting - so we then all chowed down on this pizza that he gave us for $5! It was so much fun. Now I am back in my hotel room, and can barely keep my little elf eyes open - it’s been a full day today! I’d better go wrap up in 548394301 blankets in this arctic tundra, and I will keep you updated on tomorrow’s activities! - Diaries of a Curly Toed Elf Afternoon Adventures on the Road!Wisconsin!Bowling!
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IT’S OPENING NIGHT, WOOO HOOOO! Tonight we opened in the Jesse Auditorium in Columbia, Missouri. This beautiful space is on the center of The University Of Missouri (Mizzou)’s campus! We had a BLAST all day getting to explore all over downtown Columbia, and shopping in all of the little shops along their cute streets. We really enjoyed having the morning and afternoon off before our evening performance. This morning Sara and I slept in until around 11:30 (CRAZY, I KNOW) because we were just exhausted from the week - we had been in finals week, since we are still juniors at TCU. We are the only current students on this tour, and the youngest company members. We both had to complete all of our assignments/papers/tests/projects/finals a month and a half early in order to go on this tour! It took a LOT of work, but we were persistent and worked our butts off to make it all happen, and it is all paying off now. After we got up, we had a light breakfast from the snacks that we had packed for the tour, and packed up our room. We had to be checked out of our room by 1pm, and have all of our belongings loaded up onto the tour bus. The tour bus dropped us off at the Jesse Auditorium, and after we put our show supplies in our dressing rooms, we were free to roam around Columbia until we were called at 5:30. With this free range, we began roaming around Mizzou and downtown Columbia. Y’all, this town is PRECIOUS! It is so cool that the campus is so close to downtown. We loved walking around and seeing the beautiful red brick and columns that were peppered around Mizzou’s campus. We then took to the streets of downtown, where we landed in the cutest Doughnut Shop called Harold’s Doughnuts. It was fully decorated for Christmas, and had a gingerbread house running in the front of their store. When we arrived, the woman working behind the counter asked if we were with the Rudolph National Tour that was coming through town, and after we confirmed that indeed we were, she handed us two FULL boxes of free doughnuts! She was so excited that the tour had come to her doughnut shop that she gave us almost 3 dozen free doughnuts, and then proceeded to give us free coffee and their homemade lemon Meringue. It was the nicest thing! She was so excited to meet us, and we were so thankful for her kindness and hospitality. It was great! We then roamed until we found Canteen 44, am upscale taco restaurant that had been recommended by the woman who gave us the doughnuts. They had these “Dirty Nacho Fries” that were to die for, as well as delicious specialty tacos that were equally as delicious. We loved getting to have a great, tasty, filling meal before the show, and Canteen 44 was just the spot! After lunch, we roamed around some more, stopping by a local ice-cream shop, bookstore, vintage thrift store, perfume shoppe, Tshirt press, cookie bakery, and other miscellaneous stops. All of the shops were locally owned and operated, and had such a cute home-town touch. They were also all decorated for Christmas, which just made it all the more exciting. During our roaming, some of the cast members were discussing their running competition - “Fitmas”. Some of the cast members are having a competition to encourage each other to work out at least once a day, every day that we are on tour. It is a great thing that they are doing, because it is so hard to find time to work out while on tour. The constant eating out, always changing locations, and unsteady routine make it very hard for actors to find time to take care of their bodies and stay in shape on tour. This is one of the aspects of touring that not many people often consider! After our window shopping, we came back to the theatre and it was time to get ready for the show! We put on our stage makeup, wigs, and costumes, and ran a few dances to check spacing on this new stage. We also had a flight call - we have to rehearse the flight tracks in every new theatre to make sure that everything runs smoothly. With something as serious as flying in a show, every precaution must be met before each show to ensure the safety of the actors and technicians. Finally, it was time for the curtain to go up, and the show to start! IT WAS OFFICIALLY THE OPENING PERFORMANCE OF THE RUDOLPH TOUR 2016! WOO HOO! (Can you tell that I was a tad bit excited?) The show began at 6:30 and we were finished around 8:30. (It’s a pretty short show - it’s the exact same as the claymation Christmas Special that aired in the 60’s!) After the show, we had to be loaded onto the bus by 9pm. We only had half an hour after the show to get out of costumes, wigs and microphones and to be loaded onto the bus! It is sometimes a quick turn around after shows with touring, as we have to get to our next destination. Once the entire cast was loaded, we were off! Starting now, the crew will be traveling on a separate bus. This is because they arrive before the cast to set up the show, and stay after the cast to take down the show. The crew travels on a sleeper bus, complete with beds for each crew member, so that they can go straight to the next theatre after load-out to start loading into the next theatre. I have SO much respect for how hard they are all working on this tour! Tonight we drove from Columbia, Missouri, to Lincoln, Illinois. It took around 4 hours, and we are staying in a Holiday Inn tonight! We don't have any shows in Lincoln, but are more using this stop as just an overnight place to sleep before another travel day tomorrow. Tomorrow we will ride the bus all day to get to Green Bay, Wisconsin! Woo Hoo! Well, it’s been a long and exciting opening night, and I need to hit the hay before another long day of traveling tomorrow! We are sleeping like babies these days, as we are usually so tired from all of the shows and traveling. More updates to come tomorrow! - Diaries of a Curly Toed Elf Opening Night!Exploring all over Columbia!On to Illinois!Good Morning, North Pole! Today we woke up in Tulsa, Oklahoma (and it was FREEZING, I might add, so who know's HOW I'll be surviving North Dakota and Wisconsin!). We got a free breakfast at the hotel, which rocked to not have to spend any per diem on that meal! Today was a travel day, so we did not have a show today. We were on the bus all day, traveling to our next destination - Columbia, Missouri! The weather was cold and rainy, and we stopped at Subway for lunch along the way. We also had the opportunity over our lunch break to go to Walmart for other necessities that we may have forgotten to pack. We finally arrived in Columbia around 4:30 to our hotel: the Stony Creek Hotel in Columbia, MO. This hotel is SO cool, and has such a woodsy/cabin vibe to it. We all love the woodwork and stone used to decorate this hotel. It has such a warm and welcoming feel, and even had an indoor pool/hot tub that the cast definitely enjoyed visiting later in the evening! After settling in and exploring a bit around this beautiful hotel, we took ubers to downtown Columbia. There went to grab some dinner at Shakespeare's Pizza, just of Mizzou's campus. (Mizzou = University of Missouri) The pizza was DELICIOUS and hit the spot! After pizza, we took an uber back to our hotel where an old friend, Shelby, came to visit! It is so great getting to travel all over the US and see old friends that are from all over. Shelby is a TCU Theatre alum, and is now living and working in NYC. She was home for Thanksgiving, and it was great to get shown around Columbia by a Columbia native! She drove us to all of her favorite spots, including Andy's Frozen Custard for some delicious shakes. We had such a blast seeing the trees all decorated for Christmas around town - specifically a famous tree that has every individual branch and twig covered in Christmas lights. It was so exciting to get a tour of a city that I had never been to before, and get to explore. After our fun outing and sightseeing, we came back to the hotel and went swimming with the cast in the hotel's hot tub and indoor heated pool, it was so, so nice. We also had our first laundry experience at the hotel, and figured out that adventure with quarters, lack of detergent, and the hotel's machines. It made for many laughs. Well, I'm off to hit the hay before we have opening night here in Columbia, Missouri tomorrow night! - Diaries of a Curly Toed Elf On the Road Again...Stony Creek Lodge HotelSightseeing around ColumbiaToday is the day! Today is the day that we left Texas, and we have officially embarked on the adventure of the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer National Tour! It’s the day we’ve all been waiting for - departure day! WOO HOO! This morning we got up and had final dress rehearsal from 10am - 2pm, and we ran through all of the last minute fixes we needed to work on. Sara and I also brought two Rudolph books for the cast to sign, so that we would have a fun memoir of this National Tour cast. Usually casts would have something to sign around closing night, but since we were trying to eliminate all that we had to pack, we decided to bring the books today to our final rehearsal. We also also had production photos taken during this final dress rehearsal's performance. Our director and choreographer do not travel with us, so this was the last opportunity to get their fixes, notes, and corrections before we set off! We did an official final dress rehearsal, received notes as to what we could fix, and ran through specific scenes and songs to make sure that they were polished and ready. We also ran through the flight patterns multiple times, to make sure that both the actors and the technicians were feeling comfortable with the equipment and the flight patterns. After rehearsal, my best friend Sara and I came home (we room together in our house just off TCU’s campus, so it is super convenient that we both booked this tour and are both Elves!) and finished up some last minute packing. Packing for this tour has been tricky - we are going to 22 cities in 29 days, never returning to DFW, and those cities range from North Dakota to South Florida - so we needed a wide range of clothing. We also were only allowed one suitcase and two carry ons, and as a chronic over-packer, it was definitely time to condense! We also wanted some downtime to rest, so after having some thanksgiving leftovers, we watched a few Friends episodes to rest up before the non-stop adventures of tour life. It was officially time to load the bus at 7pm! We were beyond excited. Our friend (and other roommate) Rhett drove us to the parking lot of the theatre - the Will Rogers Auditorium in Fort Worth. This theatre is where we had been having our tech and dress rehearsals, and rehearsing our show before we set out. The crew had been doing load-out for the entire set, costumes, flight rails, curtains, props, and anything else tech-wise that the show requires. The crew had been working from 2 - 7pm since we had left, making sure that the equipment bus was completely loaded, and not a single elf ear or curly shoe had been left behind. There was a huge tour bus waiting for us, complete with tables, beds, a kitchen, bathroom, and 5 TV’s on board! It was HUGE and so exciting. The cast and crew will start off traveling on the same bus, but after our first show in Columbia, Missouri, the crew will be on another bus. The crew will always travel ahead and behind the cast, as they have to load in/set up the show before we get there, and then load out/take down the entire show after we finish. I have SO much respect for the crew and all of the hard work they do. Their long hours are tiresome, and they will not stay in hotels as much as we will, and their bus is full of beds. Their bus is a sleeper bus, while the cast bus is more of a traveling coach, with all sorts of traveling options. We all loaded our suitcases underneath in the suitcase area, and climbed aboard. Everyone was bouncing with energy and so eager to get going, we were all so excited. We drove for 5 hours to get to Tulsa, Oklahoma. We only stopped once at a gas station/burger king, and it was fun to get late night french fries and chicken fries with the cast and crew. When we arrived in Tulsa, we stayed overnight in the Clarion hotel, which was very nice and accommodating to our large touring party! The rest was so well needed, but I could barely sleep because I was so excited! I am rooming with Sara throughout the tour, which is super nice. Everyone in the cast and crew has one roommate, and we are always given rooms with two double beds with two company members per hotel room in every city we go to. But I’d better go to bed now, and dream of candy canes and gingerbread! I’ll check back in tomorrow to tell more traveling tales! - Diaries of A Curly Toed Elf Final Dress Rehearsal!Load out! And we're off!Clarion Hotel in Tulsa, OklahomaEven though it is always Christmas here at the North Pole, today we are celebrating Thanksgiving! I am consistently thankful for these tour friends, who also happen to be current students / alumni of Texas Christian University's BFA Theatre Program! We have 5 current/past Horned Frogs on the Rudolph National Tour! How exciting!
That's all for now - we had a dress rehearsal tonight from 6-10, and now my belly is full, heart is happy! Ta-ta for now, and more updates to come! - Diaries of a Curly Toed Elf Today was another full day in the North Pole, and another full day of tech for the cast and crew of the National Tour of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer! Today we started adding in some of the costumes, and some of the prosthetics. It was not a full dress rehearsal, but we had the opportunity to run through some of the dance numbers with our dresses/wigs/hats/curly-toed shoes, to get a feel for how they move and impact our choreography. It was quite exciting. The shoes definitely proved to be a challenge - it is more difficult than one would imagine to dance with an extra 4 inches on the tips of your toes, curling up and about! The shoes are interesting - the costume designer designed them in such a way that they feel so natural, yet also feel so unnatural at the same time. Essentially they are a pair of black Keds sneakers, with a padded, almost fake-leather type of material. The "elf" part of the shoes velcro onto the Keds, so it feels as if we are just dancing in our tennis shoes! However, it does feel unnatural to have 4 extra inches in front of your toes, therefore being something that takes a little bit of time to get used to.
We also had a great time trying on the ears. We connect the latex prosthetic ear to the tips of our own ears with Spirit Gum, which is a kind of glue that can adhere to human skin and won't damage your skin when ripped off. However, that's not to say it doesn't hurt, because it definitely does! Sprit Gum is less severe than using superglue, or any other household glue, which would be harmful to human skin. It also sticks to your skin for awhile, even after removing the pointy-ear tips, and the only thing that really removes the residue is rubbing alcohol. Today was also our first full run-through of the show - or stumble-through, if you will. A stumble-through means that we will stop and start throughout the run, as necessary, to work on transitioning from scene to scene and making sure every piece fits together smoothly and seamlessly. We are finally putting together all of the pieces of the puzzle, and every scene/song that we had been rehearsing for the past 3 days. It is crazy putting up a show in 6 days of rehearsal! We only have rehearsals Sunday - Saturday for one week only, so everyone has to be on top of their game/very aware of what is going on to make sure that we are able to get this show up and running smoothly by the time we open on Monday in Columbia, Missouri. Diaries of a Curly Toed Elf signing off for tonight, more updates to come tomorrow! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we have rehearsal all evening, so I will be sure to keep updating how the great Turkey Day went at the North Pole! - Diaries of a Curly Toed Elf Hello!
Welcome to my blog, Diaries of a Curly Toed Elf! I am so excited to share my journey with you as I adventure all across the United States with the National Tour of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (RRR16). Here you'll find photos, stories, and smiles from our travels with the show! This week we began our process for the tour - we only have 6 rehearsals before we open - WOAH! It is a crazy fast process, and everyone has to be super on top of their game, as well as ready for any changes that might come our way. We were all emailed the script, score, and archival video from last year's tour so that we could be prepared to sing, dance, and run through the show on the first day of tech. We were expected to come to the first rehearsal completely off book. Thankfully, I have toured with this production in last year's National Tour (RRR15), and so I was already familiar with the run of the show and all that the elf track would entail. We are currently rehearsing at the Will Rodger's Auditorium in Fort Worth, Texas. We are using their space for our tech rehearsals until Saturday, November 26th, 2016, when we ship out to Oklahoma, then Missouri. So far this week, I have been able to get a jump start on our ZFX flight rehearsals, and have been having a ball being flown all over the stage! I also have included a photo of my best friend on the tour, Sara Kreski, and I, in our brand new Rudolph paraphernalia. Sara is also a junior at TCU in our Theatre Department, and we have been best friends for two years. As you can probably imagine, we were THRILLED when we both booked this National Tour together. Sara is also playing one of the elves. Thanks so much for following this journey, I hope you enjoy your glimpse into tour life as an elf! xoxo Diaries of a Curly Toed Elf |
AuthorHi! I'm Samantha, an elf traveling across America to bring Christmas Cheer. ArchivesCategories |