Elf on Tour: Stamford, CT
Firefly petunias went on preorder on Sunday night, so I was up WAY too late ordering them as gifts for my ENTIRE FAMILY haha.
After a super early breakfast, piled onto the charter bus at 7am and off we went.
For this trek we had to cross all of Pennsylvania (which, for my overseas friends, is a state that is 283 miles or 433 km wide!) It generally takes about 7 hours to drive longitudinally across the state.
For us it took close to 10 hours, partly because of traffic and partly because we did two rest stops that were about an hour each.
PA is my home state, and I have driven back and forth on I-80 hundreds of times.
I made sure to be looking at Maps to see my hometown of Bloomsburg as we passed it, because you can't see it from the highway.
Today was also Jameson's birthday!
I was annoyed not to be there to make him treats, take him to dinner, and see him open his presents :/ Adulting sucks sometimes. But his friend Lea made him a cake, lots of people shared goofy pictures of him, and he got gifts from his family and from me too of course! Here is the cake that Lea made, featuring the Muppets because of Jollywood:
His parents got him a Queen album collection, and I got him a custom-made "Altered Moments" Freddie Mercury!
I found the artist on facebook. She took a gymnastics Precious Moments figurine and changed it to look like Freddie wearing a silver sequin body suit. Here's her reference image and the original figurine:
Here's the finished doll! She placed each individual rhinestone by hand.
(with the album his parents got him)
Although he had to work, it seems like his friends went out of their way to show love and make the day special, and that was heartwarming to see :)
Meanwhile our lunch stop was at the Pocono outlets in Tannersville. I have lots of fond memories here; being from a small town there was not much shopping locally, so around the holidays my dad would take us for at least one day trip to the outlets. It was a luxury and a special experience, back then. Today I window shopped, and made sure to visit the Gertrude Hawk store as they're a local chocolatier. We used to sell their chocolate bars as fundraisers at school, and dad would always put their Smidgens or Teenie Boppers in our Easter baskets or Christmas stockings :) Today I just got a few truffles from the display case, for the memories.
We finally arrived in Stamford around 5pm, and I bolted out the door to a nearby Japanese grocery!
They had all of the usual candies and snacks you'd expect--Harbio stuff, weird Kit-Kat flavors, rice crackers, dried squid--but the real draw was the prepared food section, which sported a huge variety of traditional Japanese bento, dons, sushi, and sides/appetizers.
They also had sandos, onigiri, a prepackaged baked goods section, and a wall of high-quality matchas and imported teas. And it's right next to the theatre. Knowing that I will not be able to resist going back at least one more time, I limited my basic grocery shopping mostly to breakfast items. We're only here for the weekend anyway...why not enjoy some REAL Japanese food?
Tonight's dinner was this grilled eel bento with seasoned white rice, assorted pickled veggies, sweet glazed pumpkin cubes, a seaweed and/or dried mushroom salad, and slices of tamago. It was absolutely LOVELY.
I also got these "sweet wheat crackers with chestnut," and unfortunately they were pretty gross haha. They had a bizarre fishy aftertaste which I hadn't expected at all. Their texture was also weird and grainy, like rehydrated beans. Solid nope!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Would have liked to sleep all day on Friday, but having been on a bus for 10 hours yesterday I knew I should get out a bit.
This hotel does not have a microwave or free coffee, so here are my familiar travel companions: a collapsible silicone hot water kettle, an Aeropress, and an Itaki steam cooker! Made myself some lovely oatmeal with yogurt and berries, and coffee :)
A little time to chill and then I took myself for a walk to get local bagels (blueberry, pumpernickel, wheat) and to pick up a pizza from Colony Grill because my friend Bill INSISTED.
Colony Grill, established 1935 by Irish immigrants, has been serving this same style of pizza through both World Wars and up through present day. They're a chain now, but this location in Stamford is The Original. I wasn't inside for long but it was a lovely old bar decorated with headshots of service professionals who have eaten there over the years.
What makes this pizza special is the ultra-thin crust and the way the cheese is thinly spread and caramelized. Also, the "hot oil" is a MUST. I got light cheese (because lactose intolerance) and hot oil on half. The texture was incredible, crispy and lightly charred with chewy, browned cheese and savory sauce. The hot oil was amazing.
Luckily these pizzas are quite small and light, so I ended up eating 3 of 6 pieces and saving the rest for later.
If you're ever in Stamford, take my friend Bill's advice and get you a pizza from Colony!
After that I relaxed, hydrated, and did some online Christmas shopping. I've been very stressed lately with Certain Things going on. My next job isn't until Monday, and I am grateful to be able to recuperate a bit.
We only had sound check and one show in the evening. The pit is cramped, but the one in upcoming Red Bank, NJ is supposedly even worse so this is good practice for that. The theatre, like most theatres, is beautiful.
Everything went just fine, and despite being a small audience the crowd was the most enthusiastic one we've had yet. I looked out and saw a sea of Elf hats and Christmas sweaters, and there were loads of kids in attendance. During intermission so many crowded the edge of the pit that most of the guys went and hid under the stage overhang haha. I was in a decent mood so decided to interact, and asked if anyone had questions:
"What are all those?" (the HEDGE of woodwind instruments)
"What are those bottles?" (the trumpet mutes)
"How can you hear each other?" (I showed them the Aviom and describe a bit of how it works)
"What do YOU play?" (showed trombone and made slidey noises)
"Why's the drummer in a box?" (LOL, explained that the drummer is very loud and if he weren't in a box you wouldn't be able to hear what the actors are saying)
Over the weekend we have four shows, I hope the crowds will stay enthusiastic :)
------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, breakfast and messing with a personal project, then walking to the Japanese grocery again for takoyaki.
Ate them for lunch and they were lovely despite being cold.
The first show was fine, though we had audio issues throughout.
The second show was also fine, audio issues were better and it seemed to fly by quickly.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, I did not WANT to be up early but also wanted to get laundry out of my face and early is the best time to do that, because no one else on tour will be up and the washers are likely to be free.
I packed such minimal clothing this time that I need to do laundry once a week, which is one of the many catch-22s of saving weight in one's luggage. Emailed some family that I haven't been in touch with, packed gradually for bus travel tomorrow, reviewed corrections to my transcription work recently made by a proofreader. On one case I did pretty lousy, on the other I did surprisingly well. Will be interested to see how many corrections are needed on the recent Punjabi case that I did.
There were two shows today, one at 12:30 and one at 6pm.
First show was fine, very noisy as there were lots of kids in the audience.
Second show was fine too, also noisy because someone in the cast had guests who were screaming and cheering for them! I hope that felt nice :) Our understudy for Buddy was also in for the first time and did a great job, especially since it was last minute.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Monday: Travel to NJ. It's a short bus ride so we are leaving late and also stopping at some shopping plaza to kill time (hotels generally don't have rooms ready until after 3pm.) I'll hit a grocery and start a new transcription project.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: Transcription, transcription, transcription, and a show on each day.
After a super early breakfast, piled onto the charter bus at 7am and off we went.
For this trek we had to cross all of Pennsylvania (which, for my overseas friends, is a state that is 283 miles or 433 km wide!) It generally takes about 7 hours to drive longitudinally across the state.
For us it took close to 10 hours, partly because of traffic and partly because we did two rest stops that were about an hour each.
PA is my home state, and I have driven back and forth on I-80 hundreds of times.
I made sure to be looking at Maps to see my hometown of Bloomsburg as we passed it, because you can't see it from the highway.
Today was also Jameson's birthday!
I was annoyed not to be there to make him treats, take him to dinner, and see him open his presents :/ Adulting sucks sometimes. But his friend Lea made him a cake, lots of people shared goofy pictures of him, and he got gifts from his family and from me too of course! Here is the cake that Lea made, featuring the Muppets because of Jollywood:
His parents got him a Queen album collection, and I got him a custom-made "Altered Moments" Freddie Mercury!
I found the artist on facebook. She took a gymnastics Precious Moments figurine and changed it to look like Freddie wearing a silver sequin body suit. Here's her reference image and the original figurine:
Here's the finished doll! She placed each individual rhinestone by hand.
(with the album his parents got him)
Although he had to work, it seems like his friends went out of their way to show love and make the day special, and that was heartwarming to see :)
Meanwhile our lunch stop was at the Pocono outlets in Tannersville. I have lots of fond memories here; being from a small town there was not much shopping locally, so around the holidays my dad would take us for at least one day trip to the outlets. It was a luxury and a special experience, back then. Today I window shopped, and made sure to visit the Gertrude Hawk store as they're a local chocolatier. We used to sell their chocolate bars as fundraisers at school, and dad would always put their Smidgens or Teenie Boppers in our Easter baskets or Christmas stockings :) Today I just got a few truffles from the display case, for the memories.
We finally arrived in Stamford around 5pm, and I bolted out the door to a nearby Japanese grocery!
They had all of the usual candies and snacks you'd expect--Harbio stuff, weird Kit-Kat flavors, rice crackers, dried squid--but the real draw was the prepared food section, which sported a huge variety of traditional Japanese bento, dons, sushi, and sides/appetizers.
They also had sandos, onigiri, a prepackaged baked goods section, and a wall of high-quality matchas and imported teas. And it's right next to the theatre. Knowing that I will not be able to resist going back at least one more time, I limited my basic grocery shopping mostly to breakfast items. We're only here for the weekend anyway...why not enjoy some REAL Japanese food?
Tonight's dinner was this grilled eel bento with seasoned white rice, assorted pickled veggies, sweet glazed pumpkin cubes, a seaweed and/or dried mushroom salad, and slices of tamago. It was absolutely LOVELY.
I also got these "sweet wheat crackers with chestnut," and unfortunately they were pretty gross haha. They had a bizarre fishy aftertaste which I hadn't expected at all. Their texture was also weird and grainy, like rehydrated beans. Solid nope!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Would have liked to sleep all day on Friday, but having been on a bus for 10 hours yesterday I knew I should get out a bit.
This hotel does not have a microwave or free coffee, so here are my familiar travel companions: a collapsible silicone hot water kettle, an Aeropress, and an Itaki steam cooker! Made myself some lovely oatmeal with yogurt and berries, and coffee :)
A little time to chill and then I took myself for a walk to get local bagels (blueberry, pumpernickel, wheat) and to pick up a pizza from Colony Grill because my friend Bill INSISTED.
Colony Grill, established 1935 by Irish immigrants, has been serving this same style of pizza through both World Wars and up through present day. They're a chain now, but this location in Stamford is The Original. I wasn't inside for long but it was a lovely old bar decorated with headshots of service professionals who have eaten there over the years.
What makes this pizza special is the ultra-thin crust and the way the cheese is thinly spread and caramelized. Also, the "hot oil" is a MUST. I got light cheese (because lactose intolerance) and hot oil on half. The texture was incredible, crispy and lightly charred with chewy, browned cheese and savory sauce. The hot oil was amazing.
Luckily these pizzas are quite small and light, so I ended up eating 3 of 6 pieces and saving the rest for later.
If you're ever in Stamford, take my friend Bill's advice and get you a pizza from Colony!
After that I relaxed, hydrated, and did some online Christmas shopping. I've been very stressed lately with Certain Things going on. My next job isn't until Monday, and I am grateful to be able to recuperate a bit.
We only had sound check and one show in the evening. The pit is cramped, but the one in upcoming Red Bank, NJ is supposedly even worse so this is good practice for that. The theatre, like most theatres, is beautiful.
Everything went just fine, and despite being a small audience the crowd was the most enthusiastic one we've had yet. I looked out and saw a sea of Elf hats and Christmas sweaters, and there were loads of kids in attendance. During intermission so many crowded the edge of the pit that most of the guys went and hid under the stage overhang haha. I was in a decent mood so decided to interact, and asked if anyone had questions:
"What are all those?" (the HEDGE of woodwind instruments)
"What are those bottles?" (the trumpet mutes)
"How can you hear each other?" (I showed them the Aviom and describe a bit of how it works)
"What do YOU play?" (showed trombone and made slidey noises)
"Why's the drummer in a box?" (LOL, explained that the drummer is very loud and if he weren't in a box you wouldn't be able to hear what the actors are saying)
Over the weekend we have four shows, I hope the crowds will stay enthusiastic :)
------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, breakfast and messing with a personal project, then walking to the Japanese grocery again for takoyaki.
Ate them for lunch and they were lovely despite being cold.
The first show was fine, though we had audio issues throughout.
The second show was also fine, audio issues were better and it seemed to fly by quickly.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, I did not WANT to be up early but also wanted to get laundry out of my face and early is the best time to do that, because no one else on tour will be up and the washers are likely to be free.
I packed such minimal clothing this time that I need to do laundry once a week, which is one of the many catch-22s of saving weight in one's luggage. Emailed some family that I haven't been in touch with, packed gradually for bus travel tomorrow, reviewed corrections to my transcription work recently made by a proofreader. On one case I did pretty lousy, on the other I did surprisingly well. Will be interested to see how many corrections are needed on the recent Punjabi case that I did.
There were two shows today, one at 12:30 and one at 6pm.
First show was fine, very noisy as there were lots of kids in the audience.
Second show was fine too, also noisy because someone in the cast had guests who were screaming and cheering for them! I hope that felt nice :) Our understudy for Buddy was also in for the first time and did a great job, especially since it was last minute.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Monday: Travel to NJ. It's a short bus ride so we are leaving late and also stopping at some shopping plaza to kill time (hotels generally don't have rooms ready until after 3pm.) I'll hit a grocery and start a new transcription project.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: Transcription, transcription, transcription, and a show on each day.