Taking the Waters!

Good morning! From a motel room in West Virginia.

Yesterday brought some rather special delights. We packed up and left Staunton, (after a lovely farewell from our host Brett, who gave us all miniature chinese food cartons with fortune cookies - pictured above) and began a short and beautiful drive through the Appalachian mountains, and the Shenandoah Valley -breathtaking views along the way. We stopped off at the historical Jefferson Springs (so named when Thomas Jefferson bathed there in the 1700s), and were transported back in time as boys and girls were separated to 'take the waters'. Natural sulphuric springs, that keep the water at a delicious 96 degrees. The pools are housed inside crumbling white wooden circular buildings, and once you plunge into the waters, the world's troubles and realities just slip away. Clothing optional, said the sign out front - we girls retained our modesty, but rumour has it that the boys went for the full authentic experience. 

Feeling thoroughly refreshed and relaxed, we drove 5 miles down the road to America's oldest hotel, the Homestead in Hot Springs (check it out on www.thehomestead.com) you must see this place to believe it - a totally perfect, manicured sprawling resort with golf courses, swimming pools and spas. I cheekily slipped in and asked, in a very polite English accent, if the members only luxury outdoor pool would be opened up to some travelling players passing through the area. Amazingly, the supervisor agreed, so within moments, we had laid out our towels, ordered cocktails and settled in around the pool in our new 5* surroundings. A great way to spend Craig's birthday! (He was also chuffed that we got to drive through Craigsville!)

On to a slightly less aesthetically pleasing motel to pass one sleep - in nearby Covington, an industrial Quarry town. Our motel backs onto the local prison, and over dinner in Applebys ('Family diner'), the group were busy scripting a horror movie that they planned to shoot last night. 

A little clip below of the amazing Jefferson springs!

Until soon...

Emma

Settling in to Staunton

Hello Bloggers! 

Photos: 

1) Taking to the streets to publicise the show

2) The back of Stuart Hall, our venue

3) The prize for the lucky winner of the water aerobics competition (also happenens to be the actor playing Antipholus in the Blackfriars' production of 'The Comedy of Errors')

4) + 5) High school students participating in a workshop led by myself, with some members of our company.

SO - as we start to pack our bags again, we reflect on this last stint. Slightly surreal in parts - alas, the Staunton Theatre Festival which we hoped to be part of didn't seem to quite materialise, so we were the only visiting company to survive. Quite small audiences, but - a wonderful community here, who have hosted us so generously. And the audience that did turn out absolutely loved getting involved in the pre-show games, and we had some lovely feedback. 

I enjoyed running workshops at the school - the students were incredibly polite: 'yes ma'm' , which threw me a little! 

On we go again, tomorrow is a day off, and Craig's birthday, so we will spend a day at Warm Springs Virginia, which promises to be a much needed spa relaxation in natural thermal waters. Horay! Quite excited to vacate the Howard Johnson hotel, and get back on the road again. 

Thanks to all our new friends in Staunton, and here's to more fun and adventure. Next stop, Roanoake!

High School Musical! - Making noise in Staunton, Virginia

photos: 

Top: The Main Drag - Staunton

2nd:  Enjoying the local ice cream

3rd: Paul and Adam arriving this morning with a huge hamper of breakfast and lunch courtesy of their lovely hosts!

4th:: The very enthusiastic Brett - our theatre manager!

5th:: The company nervously await at the bottom of the stairs before storming the Stuart Hall school assembly at 8am!

6th:: The company flop on the stage, after completing the tech rehearsal last night.

An early start this morning, as our troops bravely rose to make a surprise and noisy appearance before 350 school students at the 8am Stuart Hall School Assembly. Following the stern and formal daily announcements from the principal, Full Tilt stormed the aisles, towards the stage where they sang and publicised the show, which opens tonight. (See video clip below!)

We enjoyed an interesting day getting to know Staunton yesterday. We were invited into the rehearsal rooms at the famous Blackfriars Shakeaspeare Theatre, to watch their touring troupe rehearse 'The Comedy of Errors' - quite surreal to see another version whilst in production for the same show, but also fascinating watching an American cast working. I have to admit, I wouldn't be thrilled at the prospect of 20 actors filing into to my rehearsal, and these actors played up for our benefit - coming into the scene holding up the newspaper in which we appear, as a prop, and trying to make us giggle. The director is a British Director, Gerard Block who works at the Globe in London, and very much of the old school, a Shakespeare purist, and the rehearsals seemed to be all about the verse and the blocking (excuse the pun!). 

On from there to hit the main drag, Beverley Street, to sing and publicise - all met with great interest, and 'God Bless you for coming to our town!'. A stop for ice cream in the local parlour, and then on to Stuart Hall to rehearse, get in and tech the show. 

Fingers crossed that the good people of Staunton will turn out in droves, and will be open minded to this kind of modernised Shakespeare. We have had to tone down any sexual implication, and remove the scantily clad twins from the publicity image - so, let's see how the rest goes down! 

Bye Y'all - Emma x

Front Page News!

Full Tilt make the main story in Staunton's local press 'Go!'. Fingers crossed that this will generate huge audiences for our 4 performances, starting tomorrow! 

We've hit Virginia!

Hey Bloggers,

Great to hear that many are enjoying these blogs and following our journey. 

No photos on this one as yet, just an update that, we (happily) made a swift exit from Hagerstown, where we saw all of the inside of the motel before back on the road again. 200 miles South, through the state of West Virginia and then down again into Central Virginia, and here we are. As we piled out of the cars and into a restaurant for lunch, we were greeted with a stack of newspapers, featuring us on the front pages! Off to a good start. We have caught the edges of the Floridian storms, and been drenched with rain all day, which, if anything, makes us feel more at home! 

Virginia seems immediately different - the architecture is more akin to British red brick housing, and there are some beautiful, white, grand regency style buildings housing the Universities and Colleges. We arrived to one of these buildings - Stuart Hall, which is home to a boarding and day school for 6-12 year olds, and a lovely theatre space which will be our home for the next five days. 

Slight headache as we tried to organise the team into host houses, spread far and wide across the town, and 

Staunton is famous for its Blackfriars Playhouse, an authentic elizabethan playhouse, modeled on the Globe Theatre in London, and it forms the core of the annual Shakespeare Festival that we will be part of; check out 

www.americanshakespearecenter.com  

And so we all dispersed to our various homes, and shall re-group tomorrow, to make some noise downtown and make sure we raise our profile and generate enough audience for our four shows. First show on Friday night, so tomorrow is a rehearsal and planning day. 

No pictures today - my camera battery died

New York City - some pics

This will be a sleepy post, as I write this following a long slog drive from New York City, all the way through Pennsylvania, and to our pit-stop overnight destination a funny little town called Hagerstown, Maryland. Its 10pm and 2 out of four cars have now checked into another anonymous looking motel, and ordered fajitas from the place next door. In the background, the whoops and cheers of the televised Democratic Convention in Denver - Michelle Obama has just caused a stir with her new hairstyle - these events are produced by broadway professionals, never seen anything quite so theatrical! 

SO - what a whirlwind since the last post in Waterville. We have since left our mark in Bath, Maine - a beautiful and rather quaint town on the East Coast, where we were hosted by a very close and eager community (most of whom had visited their counterpart Bath, UK). Another long drive from New Hampshire, we arrived in Bath and created our playing space in an old disused church, come community centre(er) - it looked more like a masonic lodge than a church. 

Our show was received with such enthusiasm. The whole community turned out, with supper packs, picnics and rugs, and an absolute commitment to playing in our identity fair. We had a chorus of Dolly Partons competing in Mr and Mrs Ephesisos competition, and the winner, (happily in role as Henry VIII) led the crowd in a rendition of 'I'm 'Enery the 8th I am...' to mark his success. The pre-show event finished on a mass Zorba dance (see photo above), and we then had to try and cram in more chairs to accommodate the growing audience. The show went down really well - the cast did brilliantly well to adapt to quite an intimate space, and (dare I say) a significantly older audience. We were all generously hosted, and when re-united the next day to pack up and leave we all had amazing stories to share about breakfast treats, trips to the beach, sleeping next to ashes of dogs no longer with us, staying in a house where the bathrooms were doorless, and admiring an original Andy Warhol over blueberry muffins. 

It's so wonderful to stay at people's homes when touring - it's really where you get the true story and flavour of the place. Very interesting watching the politics change from state to state for example. And the smokers in the group were amazed that as we drove through Pennsylvania to find a diner where everyone smoked inside - smoking ban hasn't reached them yet! 

On the move again, we set off to spend our free day in the BIG APPLE. We arrived at our hotel in Stamord Conneticut at midnight after a very long drive (9 hours), and were delighted to find an indoor pool which we were allowed to use if we were silent. So within 5 minutes of arrival, we were in swimsuits jumping in, playing silent swimming pool games and bringing in Paul's 21st birthday! A few hours later, and not much sleep, we were all on the train to New York City - a 40 minute ride in from Stamford. 

It was so wonderful seeing everyone's face as we emerged at Grand Central Station - especially those who hadn't been to New York before. Everyone broke off to do different things - go up to the top of the empire state building, shop, go down to visit Ground Zero - and we met up again for lunch at a great retro diner in Union Square, opposite NY University. Everyone was busy sharing their purchases, stories and photos (of dogs wearing sunglasses for example). 

I saw a fantastic an off-broadway musical - 'Title of Play' about 4 nobodys in New York trying to get their musical onto Broadway. The whole show is about them creating the show that we are watching - Will and Grace style, the best of tight American comedy and finesse. Loved it. Lots of the crew went to see 'Spring Awakening' which seemed to be met with mixed reviews...

And to finish off a very full day, we all met up at a cabaret bar called 'Don't Tell Mama' just off 42nd Street, and within minutes, we had taken over the place, belting out the show tunes and sending up Emma Filby to sing with the pianist, which brought the house down. By 1 am I was escorting 18 very tired and overwhelmed people back onto the train and home. 

Next stop - Virginia! 

We are all missing home and our loved ones, and send love to anyone reading this (as I presume that you are connected to us in some way and care about our travels!)

Cheerio!

Emma xx (and here's a little video clip of our pre-show in Bath, Maine)