We woke up at 7:00 a.m. to get on the road to Addison, TX, our first destination! Unfortunately it was a severely windy day, and RVs are hard to handle in the wind. It was a very bumpy ride and all of us got a case of motion sickness (hours later, when the RV's were stationary we still felt like we were moving...) However, we still managed to enjoy the drive, due mostly to the fact that we met a lot of random people along the way. The girls met a woman at a Texas pit stop, who after learning that we were on a tour with our theatre group, replied, "You two must be a couple of rich ladies."
And once we arrived at the RV park, the manager insisted on driving the girls 100 feet in his golf cart to show us our spots for the weekend.
Our windy ride did guide us to the perfect place to start our tour. Our RV excitedly pulled up to The Water Tower Theatre in Addison, Texas just in time to catch the second day of The Out of The Loop Fringe Festival. Our company has been truly inspired by Mike Daisey's work for the past year, so we were beyond excited to finally be able to see the master story teller in person. We drove to Addison to see his production of "How Theatre Failed America" and to participate in the round table discussion on Monday, but we knew we were in for a treat since he is performing his Great Men of Genius monologue series this weekend. Last night was Bertold Brecht. And let me tell you, it was a riveting performance. Mike Daisey IS the master storyteller! His personal stories were woven together with the life of Brecht and this made for an incredibly moving and powerful night of theatre. If Mike Daisey is ever in the vicinity of your town, get there fast. You don't ever want to miss the opportunity to see this genius live in the performance.
Our company is very moved by Mike's ideas and beliefs about the current state of theatre in America. Check out his infamous article Empty Spaces. We knew that we desperateley needed to speak to him on our travels, so you can imagine how blown away all of us were when he and his talented director and wife Jean-Michele Gregory asked us out for dinner after the show! We headed to Kenny's Woodgrill where we ended up passionately philosophizing about theatre for 3 hours! The entire evening was unbelievable. We learned so much! Mike and Jean-Michele clued us in to more people we needed to talk to along our travels and they also decided that we need to somehow get our RV's to Juneau, Alaska to visit the bears, the glaciers, and The Perserverence Theatre Company!!!! Let's make it happen!
We look forward to more adventures with Mike and Jean-Michele as The Out of The Loop Festival continues. Tomorrow Nite on stage: Ken Davenport's "My First Time" and Mike Daisey's "Nikola Tesla". We can't wait!
This post made me so happy! Glad your journey is off to such a fantastic beginning. Just a taste of what's to come! Love you all, thinking of you often, and can't wait to hear more about it...and maybe even see you!!!
ReplyDeleteXOXO
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