Your Questions Answered...

Ladies at our opening night in Minneapolis

Has it truly been nearly two months since I last blogged? I felt like I had made a promise to myself  - maybe even to my readers - that I'd blog more, and now I've gone and done the opposite. Or maybe I didn't make that promise. It's been so long, I can't even remember.


We've made it all the way to State College, Pennsylvania by way of Toronto, Detroit, Boston, Raleigh, Chicago, and Minneapolis. To sum it up briefly: Toronto was cooooold but we had a lot of fun; Detroit was much more friendly than we had expected; Boston was so cool to explore and had great food; Raleigh was nice and relaxing; Chicago was wonderful and I had my first real deep dish pizza there; and Minneapolis was confusing with it's skyway but gave us some of the best audiences yet! Now we're in the  home of Dan Gleason's alma mater. We opened to a pretty big but polite crowd on Tuesday, and last night we had a great, loud audience for closing. That's right, only two shows and now we're off to St. Louis!


To help me get the ball rolling, I asked people on twitter if there was anything they wanted to know, so here we go...


@cgtheatregeek - "What are your fav and least fav parts about being on the road all the time?"
   + I love being able to travel to so many places I've never been before, and I'm a big foodie so I love to see what the local favorites are! Least favorite part would maybe be living out of a suitcase and trying to keep it under 50 lbs. It's also tricky to eat well sometimes, depending on the area we're staying.


@whatsername43 - "favorite things about the tour and playing extraordinary girl :D"
   + The company I keep is one of my favorite things about tour. Cast, crew, everyone... all so cool. My favorite thing about playing Ex Girl is probably that once I "become" her, I get to take a little break backstage! The first half of my show is dance/sweat/sing/sweat more. It's nice to finally take a breather after I fly.


@alyson_leonard - "Have there been any big stand-out moments for you that have happened while on tour? What has been your favorite stop so far?"
   + There have been a couple not so great stand-out moments involving flying... I guess it can get weird  going from city to city, dealing with different power sources and new dressers. There was one time in maybe Boston (?) when Scott's mic fell off his head and I somehow got it back on to a degree, I felt like a hero :) And last week we had a huge fiasco... for anyone who saw the Sunday matinee on the 26th, just know that you didn't see, or hear for that matter, what the flight was intended to be.
   On that note, there have been lots of great stand-out moments as well! On our travel day out of Raleigh, all the girls decided to dress like "elegant ladies". We got some interesting looks at the airport. Being on TV for the new year's eve celebration in Canada as soooo much fun! Looking out over Chicago from the Willis Tower was really incredible. Lots of good moments so far.
   I've liked different thing about each city we've been to, but I'd say that so far Chicago may have been my favorite stop so far because...


@NikkiRandom1 - "how it was being in Chicago & what was your favorite thing being in Chicago for the 2 weeks?"
   + ...One, we were there for more than a week! I actually got to unpack my suitcase and have a whole free day. Also, my boyfriend was able to be there for a few days including Valentines day <3 and we got to explore together. And also, deep dish pizza!


@armedwithlysol - "...how do you feel about fangirl stalkers at your shows?"
   + Haha, I love talking to fans after the shows! 
@armedwithlysol - "Please also finally confirm the cast vote for best deep dish Chicago pizza. What's the best thing you ate on tour?"
   + I don't know about the whole cast, but I dined at Lou Malnati's and Pizzeria Due (because Pizzeria Uno was too packed) and I'd have to say that while Due was nice, The "Lou" at Lou Malnati's has my vote. Wow. Wow. Like, really.
@armedwithlysol - "Legit: How'd your pilot audition go? How do you find time to audition on the road? Also, how do you guys choose roomies?"
   + The audition went great! My manager in Los Angeles got me the audition, it was just lucky that they happened to have a big casting office in Chicago. Several other people from the cast auditioned for the project as well! 
   As for roommates, most of the cast opts to have their own room, but once in a while Krystina, Jillian and I will choose to room together for a little extra per diem. Sometimes it's every other city, it just kind of happens. 


@IdiotOnTourFan - "So much has happened since your last post, would love to hear some highlights! What's a typical day like?"
   + A typical day... generally most of us sleep in, then get some food. Maybe a trip to the gym for the muscle twins (Vince and Dan), and maybe a little exploring, more eating, often a lot of relaxing. We get to the theatre an hour before showtime (plus 15 mins for whoever is doing flight call) to warm up and get ready, do the show, then have dinner and sometimes go out for drinks.


@evan71788 - "can we get a video please?"
   + As a matter of fact, I'm working on one now, I'll put it up as soon as it's done :)


Well that was fun! I love answering questions you guys have so keep 'em coming. And I mean it this time, I will try to blog more often!!

Techcersize

Ok kids, we are deep deep into tech rehearsals. We've been at it since the 15th and it looks like we'll finish the show before dinner tomorrow! Tech is always a tedious process, but every second is filled with something important. Being on the set now, we have to make sure all of our spacing works, tweak some staging, set the lights and sound, and of course practice flying. About that...

Yesterday was the first time we did Extraordinary Girl since way back in Charleston a month ago. I got to practice upside down girl on the first day but I really wasn't in the harness for that long. Yesterday on the other hand, I was in it for a while before dinner and for about 5 hours after dinner. I'd say I'm generally pretty tough but it got to the point where I almost wanted to cry. We had to practice taking the gurneys out for lobotomy and then run through the quickest change of my life all time into Extraordinary Girl. So here's the deal - I have to go from my army fatigues into my I-Dream-Of-Jeannie-esque costume (plus harness and burqa) and be ready to descend from the top of center stage in less than one minute. Luckily I have a team of dressers waiting in the wings to help me.

Remember those abs I wanted? They're getting there!

The actual sequence is going great though. Seems most if not all of our muscle memory has been retained. It really does feel awesome to be up there - somehow once the flying starts, I forget all about the pain I'm in. And fortunately we'll only have to be doing that once or twice a day for the shows. We started with the flying again today and we'll have a fly call every day for shows, but the hardest stuff is over. If we're lucky, we'll get a full run through in by the end of the day tomorrow!

It our very little bit of down time we've been discovering what Utica has to offer. Which is to say, we've been to Rite Aid a few times, and have made friends with the bartender at the hotel. There's a really great restaurant next to the gorgeous theater we're teching in, and that's about it! But we've been making our own fun. Tonight it was our music directors birthday so the company manager drove 25 miles to get vegan cupcakes and the cast and crew hung out in the hotel lobby. The bar and restaurant were closed but some people brought drinks and others brought more food. There was gambling (by way of a $3 buy-in dice game), eating, drinking, even some cross dressing, and tons of laughs. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to be spending my time with while away from home.

It's way past my bed time. I'll leave you with this cryptic bit of information: There are no blonde girls in the cast. Yet.

Since it seems that my fake tumblr has given up on me (they thought I was boring anyway), I decided it's time to blog again...

As expected, it's been another busy week. For some reason I decided to try to only eat raw for a week. I've always wanted to do a cleanse of some kind but I have a very hard time confining my diet. Not that I eat too much or eat bad things all the time, but I love food. I'm a foodie, I'll eat pretty much anything. A few years ago I tried to do the master cleanse and lasted 3 days. Or was it a day and a half? Since you can actually eat things and not just drink spicy lemon water with this raw thing, I thought I'd do better. Not quite. My castmate Jarran said that the third day would be the worst and he was so right.

Today, day three of raw, I had to get up early for a fitting before rehearsal. It was so hard to just get myself out of bed. By the time I got to rehearsal I felt like I needed a nap already. My legs wanted to give out during Jesus of Suburbia, and my back and shoulders were killing me since we learned the moves to Whatstername the day before. So - I had some turkey in my salad, and some bread on the side. It boosted my energy enough to get me through the rest of the day, that and a little after lunch nap. Maybe I'll get back on the wagon tomorrow, or maybe not. Truth be told, I didn't do a complete day. I had a few pieces of sushi on day two and a donut hole on day one. I play by my own rules.

Anyhow. I finally have clothes for the show! I had tried on my fatigues and Ex. Girl stuff but nothing else. I am in love with everything they gave me today, especially what I'm wearing for Holiday. Can I just say... I'm not in love with the red jump suit for upside down girl. I think I'm the only one, but with my flying harness underneath and all that red... meh. I do like that there are words written upside down on the back though. I bet that looks pretty cool at the start of the show.

We were told that for our final run through in the city this Monday we would be able to invite people but with all the people involved on the production side coming, and the people they invited, as well as people from the original cast, we're already at capacity. They were nice enough to allow us to invite a friend or two to Saturday's rehearsal. My temporary roommate has never seen the show and wouldn't be able to see it in any of the cities we're playing, so I'm glad she'll at least be able to see our rough draft.

We really do have a good show, and it will soon be great. We're leaving - at 7:30 am - on Wednesday to take a bus up to Utica. There we'll get costumes, full sets, and flying rigs!! I'm most excited about the latter. We did have a static rig put in last week so we could practice hanging upside down, but it was very short lived. So I can't wait to get the real deal. It's kind of funny in rehearsal when Scott and I have to walk around on the floor pretending that we're in the air, especially the parts when he almost falls or I shoot up into the air.

Since it's been over a week from my last post, here's a little treat. This is what may happen on a typical lunch break...

Week One: Done

Greetings from the Charleston airport! We had a very successful week of rehearsals. It's amazing what we were able to learn and become comfortable with in only three and a half days.

Day two of flying was... painful. We learned a lot and it went great, but man oh man I cannot describe the pain I was in. If you follow me on twitter you can see a picture of the bruises on my arm from banging it against the wire. And that's by far not the worst of the bruises. But we got through it and over the next few days put the whole thing together. The associate choreographer was there to give us details for the rest of the number and we ran it over and over again. It looks really beautiful.

Yesterday the girls practiced what we're doing for the very opening of the show. All we do is hang upside down. I didn't think there's be anything to it, but it's a lot more frightening than you'd think. We're hanging about 40-50 ft above the stage for two and a half minutes. Not only that but for the tour, we'll have the potential to slowly spin around up there. I'm ok (as ok as I can be) when looking at the set or into the wings, but when I see the whole audience and the ceiling is closer to me than the floor, it's pretty crazy. Then we have to do a couple of back flips while descending and then run around and dance like crazy. That's gonna take some getting used to.

Our last day of rehearsal a half an hour later and were finished by around 2:00. That gave us a some time to explore a little bit of Charleston. We walked down to the old slave markets, which is now occupied by various vendors selling jewelry, candles, food, and lots of woven baskets. After a great lunch we headed back to the hotel to catch the shuttle to the airport.

This is where it gets fun... there were six of us scheduled to fly directly to LaGuardia at 7:10, getting in a little after 9. Our boarding time, 6:40, goes by. Then it's 7:15. Then 7:30. No one knows why we haven't boarded yet. They finally tell us that they have a maintenance issue and they don't know how serious it is but they'll let us know as soon as they know. We come to find out that there's an air valve or something in need of repair and there's no mechanic on site, so they have to call someone in. Who do you just call up to fix an airplane? I guess they didn't know either, because whoever showed up couldn't fix it so the flight was cancelled. Instead of lining up at the counter to change our flights we immediately got on the phone and got new flights in the morning. I think I got one of the last seats available because I'm in first class on my connecting flight, and two other people had to get another flight because the one I was on was full by the time they got through. So this will be my first time ever flying first class! I hope the flight from DC to NY will be long enough to enjoy it.

We were put up in a hotel near the airport, and got dinner - paid for by the AI production company. We also get an extra day of per diem for today, which is really nice of production. It's the stage manager's birthday today, I missed my sister's going away party, and a cast member's wife's birthday was yesterday and he missed it. We did make the best of our situation though. We even had a little jam session with another guy on our cancelled flight. He had a ukulele and one of our guys had a guitar, so we sang Good Riddance while waiting for the hotel shuttle.

Now we're back at the airport again. Luckily for me, that means an extra check in on Yelp and Foursquare. I'll be heading straight to my sister's place when I get in, and if all goes to plan we'll go directly to The Meatball Shop from there. Right, Sarah? Right??

Eight Shows A Week, Here I come

That's gonna be me! Hopefully I'll have abs like that too...

Last time I wrote I said that I'd talk about my classes at UCB next time, and now that it's next time, here we go!

My sister introduced me to the Upright Citizens Brigade years ago by way of their short lived television show. She'd been involved in Improv for a long time and when she moved to New York about six years ago, she started taking classes right away and has been involved with UCB ever since. I've been wanting to take classes there for years now, and since I did my taxes really thoroughly this year and got a big refund, I could afford it!

Everything about my class was fantastic. Our teacher, Johnny Meeks, was really great and supportive and fun, as were the other people in the class. And it wasn't just a bunch of comedy actors - there were several writers, a voiceover actor, a girl who wanted to get into hosting, and even a couple people who had moved to LA not a month beforehand. Over the eight weeks that the class took place, we all became really good friends. We'd go see shows with each other nearly every Monday right after class, have dinner, see more shows. It was awesome. The class structure itself was pretty fantastic too, it taught us a pretty much fail proof formula that made it less scary to jump up on stage armed with only your experiences and wit. We had a nearly packed house for the grad show and it went better than any of us could have expected for a 101 show.

And now, what you've been waiting for.... I've been offered the role of Extraordinary Girl in the 1st national tour of American Idiot!!! Yes, the news came later than we had anticipated. After that first week of waiting, when they had predicted that casting would be done, I asked my manager if she had heard anything and she said no. "Thinking that ship has sailed, but still hopeful" I believe were her exact words.

Before I left for the callback in New York, I took my good friend Jeff out for a birthday dinner. I have a necklace that looks like a little envelope with a brass note inside, and at some point it fell out and was lost forever. When I realized this, Jeff decided to write 'American Idiot' on a little piece of napkin to put inside the envelope necklace. That became my lucky charm, as I wore it every day in NY and almost every day since I got back. So even though we hadn't heard by the time we thought we would, I wasn't going to uncross my fingers until either we got word or I saw a cast announcement.

This past Monday I was at work and missed a call from my manager. I got a text from her saying "Call me ASAP" and got a little worried, but then listened to the voicemail she left and in her chipper tone she said "Hey Nicci it's Amanda, it's pretty important so call me back when you can". When I got a chance, the first thing she mentioned was Glee - I was supposed to put myself on tape for casting but it had totally slipped my mind. Since the deadline was coming up, I thought that was the important thing she was talking about but (not that glee isn't important!) then she said "And... the people at American Idiot offered you the role of Extraordinary Girl!" uhhh.... What?! I think I asked if she was kidding but duh, why would she kid about that. I had to step outside for a minute so I could jump up and down and laugh and celebrate. For me, July 11 2011 will go down in history.

We're still in the process of working out the terms of the contract, and I guess nothing's officially official until that contract is signed, but this is it guys. The biggest thing that has happened in my acting career thus far. The only details I have right now are that the first rehearsal is November 21st in New York, and we open in Toronto on December 28th. Unfortunately, my sister will be leaving NY to come to LA that exact same week! I'm hoping I can get out there maybe a week beforehand so I can hang out with her and re-assimilate. I'm a little terrified of the cold - after 7 years in Los Angeles, a New York winter is definitely going to be a shock to the system. Word on the street is that there's an hour of boot camp or conditioning before each rehearsal because it's such a physically demanding show, so at least that will keep me warm!

Here's the dates and cities that have been announced so far... Hope to see you out there somewhere! - http://americanidiotthemusical.com/tickets.php