Houston, TX

Houston, TX

Tuesday, May 22nd

It's a rough day to be a Spamalot stage hand. The load-out in Louisville got started around 9 PM. The crew was then on the 6:30 AM flight from Louisville to Houston. They crashed out at the hotels in Houston for a couple of hours. The spotting call here in Houston began at 6 PM on Monday night. The whole crew was called at 10 PM to begin the official load-in. When I arrived at 8 PM this morning (Tuesday), the load-in appeared to be on track. Hopefully, they will have a couple of hours this afternoon to crash out before show call. All of this was necessitated by the long haul (1100 miles) from Louisville to Houston and the refusal of the presenters to compromise on the Sunday evening / Tuesday evening show schedule.

The good news is that the theatres on both ends of these moves are spacious. Plenty of room for the show to layout the way it's designed to. The Hobby Center is another great big, modern performing arts center. We're in the Sarofim Hall. It was built as an indoor home for Houston's Theatre Under the Stars (formerly housed in an amphitheatre), so the ceiling in the room has fiber optic stars that shimmer during the show (with an occasional shooting star tracing across the ceiling). It's a really pretty room (especially for a modern performing arts center).

The exterior of the Hobby Center.

Sarofim Hall - the stars are the blue circle at the top of the photo.

Sarofim Hall from the stage.

The good news continues: we're here for four weeks! That means 3 days off in Houston! Sheila Marie and Casey will be here over the Memorial Day weekend. Looking forward to day off with my wife - a rarity. We'll have to see how Houston celebrates... I checked into the Residence Inn last night and happily buried my suitcases in the back of the closet. Tomorrow, I'll go real grocery shopping (lately my groceries have come from the CVS) and prepare some of my own food! Hooray for fresh vegetables It's the little things...


I've stolen a few more photos:

Francesca calling the show.

Our office in Louisville was a converted dressing room, so the bathroom/shower was open to the rest of the room. Our lobby board box made a lovely cover for the urinal...

Spam Management with Colonel Sanders. Creepy.

JV