Providence, RI

Saturday, January 2nd

The Providence Performing Arts Center began life as a Loews movie palace in 1928. Like so many of the theatres we've played, the interior is the visual definition of "movie palace" and also like so many of the theatres we've played this one fell on hard times and was rescued from the wrecking ball by the community and repurposed to the presentation of live theatre. The stage house was renovated and enlarged in the mid-nineties, making the theatre just big enough to accommodate us. Out front, they seat nearly 3,100 people and we've been full every night with very appreciative audiences.

The Providence Performing Arts Center

The interior of the PPAC.

Obviously, the chandelier isn't original to the building, but I thought it was cool...

The PPAC's website offers a virtual tour of the building. This is the link to the front of house stuff. Here's the backstage portion of the tour: stage level and the basement level.

The week here flew by. Between rehearsing our new company members, shooting a raft of publicity photos and a note session with some of our creative staff, I really only had Thursday afternoon free. On Thursday, I voyaged over to Plymouth, Massachusetts with Piper, Julie and Nigel to see the spot where the Pilgrims allegedly first set foot in the New World in 1620. Plymouth Rock is a smallish granite boulder on the beach. There's a rather modest ornamental portico over the rock and that's really it. Nearly all of the touristy stuff to see and do in Plymouth was closed for the season (it took us an hour to find somewhere to buy a postcard). The town is cute, though, and we all had a good time snapping photos on the beach.

JV and Plymouth Rock - see how big it isn't?

The portico over Plymouth Rock and the bay beyond.

Of course, since Piper and I were together there was some Roadfood involved. On our way back from Plymouth, we stopped off at The Original New York System for weiners. All over Providence are places selling "new york system weiners", but they're mostly unrelated businesses selling a similar product. The place we went, however, claims to be the first - they opened in 1927. "What is the new york system?" you ask. It's a small, snappy, pink dog on a standard split roll. Then they slather it with spicy mustard, meat sauce, onions and a dash of celery salt. Since we ordered a bunch, the weiner chef lined them up on his arm to dress them. The weiners were delicious. I accompanied mine with another Rhode Island original: coffee milk. They make a coffee syrup and add it to milk much like we added Hershey's syrup to milk in Michigan. Many of you may know that I don't like milk, but the coffee milk tastes like a bottled cappuccino. All around tasty stuff.

Hot weiner humor - it was just too easy!

Our "weiner chef"

3 weiners "all the way"

Providence proved to be a roadfood bonanza! Between the theatre and our hotel, Haven Brothers Diner parks each night. I say parks because Haven Brother's Diner is inside a truck. The diner arrives outside City Hall at five each evening and stays until 3 AM on weeknights and 'til 4 on the weekends. It's standard short order fare inside the truck, but the "Murder Burger" (a double cheeseburger with sauteed onions, lettuce, tomato, bacon and mushrooms) is crazy good as are the chili-cheese fries and milkshakes. The coolest part is that there is seating inside the truck! The truck was custom built in the 1930's and is the latest in a string of lunch wagons that the "Haven Brothers" (the current owners, the Guistis, bought the enterprise in the 1980's) have parked on this spot since 1888.

The Haven Brothers Diner

Brad, Scott, Paula and Matt inside the truck

Murder Burger

Friday night, the show threw a party in honor of Jeff Dumas and Michael Sibbery. Both of these outstanding gentlemen will have their final performances (as Patsy and King Arthur, respectively) on Sunday. As is the case whenever the company picks up the tab, the Spamily lived it up. (The afterparty went on until 4 AM back at the hotel.)

JV & Jeff


LOL

I'm sorry that I didn't get to explore Providence more, it seems like a cool town. In addition to the State Capitol, the city is home to (among others) Brown University, Johnson & Wales University and the Rhode Island School of Design so there are plenty of young people out and about. I drove through the part of town that is home to Brown, but didn't get to stop and check out what looked like a great neighborhood. Johnson and Wales has a notable culinary program and many of the graduates stay close to the university, resulting in more restaurants with accredited chefs than anywhere else in the country. Their downtown redevelopment seems to being going well (I understand that as late as five years ago the walk from the hotel to the theatre got dicey at night) and it feels like a cool city.

The Rhode Island State Capitol

Part of their downtown redevelopment was to uncover the Providence River and create this park along both banks.

I've put together an album of my Providence pics on Snapfish...

A second album, devoted entirely to this evening's shot night is also online. After Sabre and her husband Denny presented the Spamily with Sake Bombs, Paula (as Patsy) and Julie (as King Arthur) hosted a Newly Wed-esque trivia game to bid farewell to Jeff & Michael. Each had to answer questions related to the other or the show in general, if they got the question right - they got choose a girl and win whatever prize was listed on their "briefcase", if they got the question wrong - they had 3 choices: 1) do a tequila shot 2) eat a slice of Spam or 3) remove an article of clothing. Highly entertaining (and mostly innocent).

Julie, Jeff, Paula & Michael prepare to play.

Jeff strugles with an answer.

Michael gets one wrong.

Everybody's a winner!

JV