THE PRAIRE IS OPEN!

It seemed to have taken a real-time journey out west, but we finally got this puppy open! There was much celebration in the small town of Milburn. They shut down Main Street, set up bails of hay, and the party spilled out onto the street.

As always, the opening night crowd was fantastic. It is full of friends and family, and of course a critic here and there. You can really feel that almost everyone really wants the show to be good and everyone to do well. Luckily, since many of us (myself included) have lived with this show for over a year now it wasn't as crazy as our first opening in Minneapolis. Though we probably had just as many changes, there was something comforting about knowing who our characters were and having lived in those lives for a little while before. I had a lot of fun, though I was DOG tired.

Two dear friends of mine got to come and celebrate at the party afterwards. Although, it is hard to hangout with friends and family because there are so many important people that want to give congrats or take a picture or even introduce themselves for the first time. If you remember back to the first rehearsal description when I wrote about the 100s of people in the room that were a part of this show....well, they all came to that after party and wanted to say hello :) But "networking" included, it was a very nice party.

DAY BEFORE THE SHOW, Y'ALL

So, it is the night before we open. We have just finished another full week of rehearsals on top of a regular show week. But we will keep the energy up as high as we can for the opening night show. In fact, opening can be very exciting, so I don't think it will be a problem. Many friends and family members will be in the crowd tomorrow night, so it is always a generous audience. We will probably get applause and laughs in places we have never gotten :) But, we have had some really great responses already. All I know is that people really seem to be enjoying the story, some pleasantly surprised, some ecstatic...and if there are any others, they drove off before they got to tell us :)

Ok.....

Cards for the cast and creative team: check

Outfit pressed and ready for tomorrow: check

New lines and blocking memorized: I hope so!

Good night sleep: checking that right....now.....

If YOU BUILD IT....

Well, the people came and went.....and they seem to like it so far! :) The show definitely feels different than our run last summer, but in a good way. It is wonderful to see all the little girls in the audience dressed up in their prairie dresses and bonnets. They are SO CUTE! And most of their mothers grew up watching the show, so they are extremely excited to see Melissa Gilbert. It really is amazing how far her influence has reached. The TV show and books have touched upon something pure and innocent that pervades humanity. It seems there are only wonderful memories attached to the Little House name.

There was a fella here yesterday that has been a primary school teacher for years and always has his class read "Farmer Boy", the book about Almanzo. Naturally, I thought that was quite astute of him :) I wonder what I would have thought of the book if I had read it at a young age. One set of parents said they came because their son got tickets as a birthday present from his girlfriend and he recommended it to them. I asked him how old his son was....29! I love it! See, even dudes can enjoy this show, hah!

Labor Day

We didn't get the day off (it's a US holiday today), but they did give us a BBQ on our dinner break. I suppose it's the next best thing, right? It really is beautiful out here in this part of New Jersey. I hope some of my NY friends are able to come out and see the show. It's a pretty easy commute.

Tomorrow is our second 1o out of 12 (1o out of 12 hours) day. We will probably get a run of the show in by the evening. We BETTER, because our first audience is on Thursday. Gideeyup!

LONG WINTER

It's COLD in the dressing rooms!....ok, maybe not that cold. But we've got to act like it on stage. We're in the second day of tech out in New Jersey. While the weather is SO beautiful outside, inside we are dressed for a 9 month blizzard! As you can tell from the picture, my "cold acting" is brilliant...haha...ha...ehem....well, i hope it is :)

It's going to be difficult acting like it's freezing on stage when we are on tour in an open air arena...and it's 100 degress. We will be sweating as the snow falls!

I'm sharing a dressing room with Tony, our swing. Unfortunately, he's so busy that he won't be in here much....so it gets a bit lonely. Hmmm, I may have spoken too soon. As I type, our Tony is going on as one of the 14 year old boys. It's fun when grown men play kids! Anyway, even if I'm playing a principal, I usually like to share with the boys. It makes for much better memories and laughs! It will be different in every city anyway.

A Day to imPRESS!

The picture above is Laura & Almanzo (Kara Lindsay & Me). Can you tell which is which? :)

On our last day of rehearsal in NYC, we invited the press to watch us perform a couple of our musical numbers and then we gathered for photos and interviews in the next room. Days like this make a lot of people nervous :) But it is a great opportunity to advertise your show and hopefully give people an idea of all the work we've been doing. Prairie has had a fairly long journey to get to this point, and we've put a lot of sweat into it's making. So we hope people enjoy the end product!

Press day can fool you...at least for a second...into thinking that you are a movie star! :) You walk down the line of cameras and they all shout, "look this way" "over here" "one more"...(flash flash flash)..."one more this way" (flash).....and then it's over and they all move on. ha! We get a little extra attention as a show because Melissa Gilbert is attached. It's pretty cool to watch her in these situations, because she's fairly used to the attention and press. In a sense, it really is part of her job. While we get glimpses of the flashing bulbs in the "theater world" during opening nights, press events, fundraisers....it truly pales in comparison to Hollywood. I may prefer it that way....hehehe.

If you want to see more pictures from the press event, check out this link http://broadwayworld.com/article/Photo_Coverage_LITTLE_HOUSE_ON_THE_PRAIRIE_THE_MUSICAL_Meets_The_Press_20090903