With Nothing But a Slim Jim and a Chocolate Bar...
Posted by Billy Christopher Maupin
A great tour story from a Theatre IV veteran, currently appearing in Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter- Jacqueline O'Connor.
My second tour was 'Twas the Night Before Christmas - Fall/Winter 1988. A very talented cast and it was one of the first (if not the first) tour to go to Chicago. Each tour had a manager and ours was this woman named Eloise. She was a Theatre IV tour veteran and the natural choice to manage the rest of us newbies. One of our first stops was the wonderful city of Chicago. Eloise decided that we would take two days to get there. Stopping in the Ohio area first and then starting out in the AM for the last leg of our journey.
We woke up on the second day to discover that a HUGE snow storm had dropped several feet on us while we slept. Many of us thought it was not a good idea to get back on the Ohio Turnpike. We thought we should wait until they had a chance to clear the roads. But Eloise decided that we should risk it. So we got on the road (I should mention at this point that none of us had eaten breakfast). We drove about 10 mins and then came to a dead stop.
After about 20 minutess of no movement we finally turned on the radio only to hear that a tractor trailer had overturned on the highway and was blocking all 4 lanes of the turnpike. So there we sat...for over 5 hours! There was no way to back up. We had to turn off the engine and the van became instantly cold. We covered ourselves with the show costumes.
We had a Slim Jim and one chocolate bar and we split it with everyone. Of course, being the dramatic actors that we were, we decided to write a goodbye note to our director, John Glenn, telling him of our plight and assuring him that we tried hard to survive and do the show...and to please tell people this when they found our frozen bodies.
We did end up getting there and somehow the school knew we were stuck and rearranged their schedule so we could still do the show. So it all worked out. But I still get a chill when I think about Chicago!
-Jacquie O'Connor
A great tour story from a Theatre IV veteran, currently appearing in Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter- Jacqueline O'Connor.
My second tour was 'Twas the Night Before Christmas - Fall/Winter 1988. A very talented cast and it was one of the first (if not the first) tour to go to Chicago. Each tour had a manager and ours was this woman named Eloise. She was a Theatre IV tour veteran and the natural choice to manage the rest of us newbies. One of our first stops was the wonderful city of Chicago. Eloise decided that we would take two days to get there. Stopping in the Ohio area first and then starting out in the AM for the last leg of our journey.We woke up on the second day to discover that a HUGE snow storm had dropped several feet on us while we slept. Many of us thought it was not a good idea to get back on the Ohio Turnpike. We thought we should wait until they had a chance to clear the roads. But Eloise decided that we should risk it. So we got on the road (I should mention at this point that none of us had eaten breakfast). We drove about 10 mins and then came to a dead stop.
After about 20 minutess of no movement we finally turned on the radio only to hear that a tractor trailer had overturned on the highway and was blocking all 4 lanes of the turnpike. So there we sat...for over 5 hours! There was no way to back up. We had to turn off the engine and the van became instantly cold. We covered ourselves with the show costumes.
We had a Slim Jim and one chocolate bar and we split it with everyone. Of course, being the dramatic actors that we were, we decided to write a goodbye note to our director, John Glenn, telling him of our plight and assuring him that we tried hard to survive and do the show...and to please tell people this when they found our frozen bodies.
We did end up getting there and somehow the school knew we were stuck and rearranged their schedule so we could still do the show. So it all worked out. But I still get a chill when I think about Chicago!
-Jacquie O'Connor
Labels: J Glenn, J O'Connor, tour, Twas
posted by Billy Blogopher at
6:27 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home