Tour: Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

In spite of this post's dubious title, this entry is an ode to one of the best years of my life: the year I went on tour.

Remember my recent New York post about accepting a job that took me out of the city and travelling? (You don't? Thanks for paying close attention, jacknob.) This was the gig. I don't make a ton of great decisions, but taking this job was amongst the best I have ever made.

This tour is pretty much the greatest job/longest running con in America. Young-ish actors (we were all 21-24 years old at the time) prepare 2 classical plays. They also learn to give workshops in theatre-related topics that will be geared towards audiences in grade school through college. Then we were given pretty generous paychecks, a shitty old car, van and giant truck, costumes, props and some out-of-date maps (this was before GPS! Technology is still so new!) and sent on our merry way. It was like:
Please don't fuck this up!
Have a nice time!
Don't crash the truck!
See you in three months!
And we were off....

Ok, wait, it's never that easy. First, you have to know that there were 12 of us. 8 boys, and 4 girls. On the very first day we sussed out the important information that you're going to need to know about people you will be with 24/7 for a year:
*How old we were
*Who was single
(Hey, we were all young, relatively nice looking, and suddenly "working actors." That nonsense goes to your head.)
(This will make sense as the story progresses)

Second, you have to know that we were performing 2 EPIC TRAGEDIES (no comedies or joyful plays for us) including a particularly unfortunate translation of the Oedipus plays. But I think that play, in its badness, became one of the things that bonded the 12 of us together. And the fact is we bonded TIGHT.

I could write an entire book about that year. And maybe some day I will (I'll need help remembering, I'm sure there are nights *cough*New Orleans*cough that I'll have tried to block out). But for now, let me sum it up the best I can. It's nice to have too many wonderful things to write about.

Onstage, we really did work hard. For many of the audiences we performed for, it was their first play, their first exposure to classical literature. That's a big responsibility, and one we took seriously. Most of the time, anyways. There were a few shows (not many, I promise!) where we really enjoyed trying to destroy each other onstage. It was "keeping it fun." When the only shows you peform are tragedies where everyone is dead by curtain, I don't think it's unreasonable to enjoy yourself a bit.

My best "gotcha, sucka" moment came during Oedipus, where my character Ismene (whom I referred to as "The Other Sister" in homage to that abysmal Juliet Lewis film in which she plays sheltered, mentally disabled girl) has been abandoned by everyone she knows. Her parents and brothers are dead. And now her sister Antigone has all but sentenced herself to death by defying Creon and his orders! What is Ismene to do?!? Well, instead of delivering my actual line, a sobering statement about pondering my fate and being truly alone, I kind of threw my head back, Muppet-style and wailed "WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME!!!??" The actors preparing for the next scene stood in the wing, trying to keep it together. I remember smiling at them as they went on, trying not to openly laugh at my poor sad-sack interpretation of Ismene for this performance. What. A. Mess.

Mikey did me one better. As the character of "Messenger" he was tasked with delivering very very long monologues of the action going on off-stage, including the multiple times characters kill themselves and/or each other. It was ridiculous. And the rest of us just stood there and reacted, trying out our different "horrified" reactions. As a great actor once told me....make faces, not choices.*

*This is the worst advice ever.

So Mikey comes out onstage, and begins to deliver the monologue in which he describes Oedipus blinding himself. But the words aren't right. He's starting to sneak in lyrics to 80s ballads we had been listening to in the car! Sneaky bastard! As we all caught on, you could see people starting to quake beneath their tunics, unable to stifle the laughter. It was when he got the climax of the speech that we lost it:

"And then Oedipus raised the stakes above his eyes and cried out
'You're the reason in my life! You're the inspiration!'"
(clearly cribbing lyrics from Chicago's classic "You're the Inspiration")

All we could do was face upstage so people couldn't see us laughing. One girl had to leave the stage, she was laughing so hard she would eventually throw up ("an expensive steak dinner!" she would later say sadly.)

Off-stage...life was limitless. There's so much. Driving stories. Speeding tickets. Hotel shenanigans. Tub time. Air conditioners. And the places we went. From the smallest of towns to big cities and open skies. God, we were incredibly lucky to see so much of America. I feel like I did so much learning and growing up as we travelled. I never would have seen Mount Rushmore if not for tour! Or gone snowboarding with monks! We did hurricanes (both the weather and the drink) and got the truck stuck in the mud multiple times in Ohio. We broke fingers. We had sicknesses. We chipped in for birthday presents. Most everyone got stupid drunk a few times. We supported each other through deaths in the family, births of nephews, weddings and break-ups. We huddled to watch Lost, or Arrested Development. At some point, I think we managed to stay with (or at least meet) most everyone's family. It was the most special experience. We even came up with slogans for tour. Favorites I can remember (and I know I'm forgetting some seriously fucking funny ones) included:
"Tour: Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time"
"Tour: B-More, Chi-Town, and 45 Minutes Outside of the Louie"
"Tour: No Babies. No Scabies."
"Tour: He Touched Me First."
"Tour: The Year of Paper Baseball"

And the list goes on.

To this day, seven years after wrapping up, there is only one person I have lost touch with. That is incredible! It just doesn't happen. I walked away from that tour with 10 new brothers and sisters, for whom I would do pretty much anything. We were a family on the road...and some of us became officially family after! Two of our cast members fell in love, and two years ago became husband and wife. It was SO AWESOME. I can't even begin. Their love withstood tour AND grad school. That's how you know you'll go the distance. If you can survive that, you'll be ok through anything. The wedding was truly a happy and beautiful day for us all, as we reunited for the day, seated together at the troublesome table. It filled my heart to be seated again amongst my other family, to see us all with our beautiful significant others and happy faces. The family of tour has grown (many are married! Ash had a baby!) and we live all over the country, but the bond is still there. It is held together like our rickety-ass stage was, with C-clamps, shims, glue and love.