On tour with The Acting Company 2009

Editor’s Note:  Kelley Curran returns to The Acting Company for her third national tour and off-Broadway run. During her first year, she appeared in Jane Eyre followed, last season, by Orson Welles’ adaptation Moby Dick Rehearsed based on Herman Melville’s novel and William Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  This is Kelley’s second year as contributor to the Actors’ Tour Journal. She will be joined by others from the Company and we look forward to bringing you several voices along the road.

The 2008-09 Journal begins at the renowned Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, where, together, we co-produce Shakespeare’s Henry V and begin our first joint national tour. Next stop will be Purdue University where we present Henry V as well as the World Premiere of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Spy, adapted for the stage by Jeffrey Hatcher. Kelley portrays Boy and Katherine in Henry V and Frances in The Spy.  She trained at Fordham University at Lincoln Center and studied at The Public Theater's Shakespeare Lab, BADA at Oxford and with noted voice coach, Elizabeth Smith.

Check back regularly and tour with Kelley and The Acting Company 2009.  

                 –Gerry Cornez, Acting Company Director of Communications

Tour log: December 8-February 1, 2009

Minneapolis, MN 

The journey begins again. After my Acting Company debut in the 2007 production of Jane Eyre, followed swiftly by last year's The Tempest and Moby Dick – Rehearsed, I've returned for my third season, and a particularly significant one: a co-production of Henry V with The Guthrie and the world premiere of The Spy by Jeffrey Hatcher.

This year's company is comprised of twelve actors hailing from all over the country including Acting Company alums, graduates of the Guthrie's B.F.A. Program and the Guthrie Experience. Although we're just meeting you now in February, we have been working together for three months. Rehearsals for The Spy began in New York in November and concluded there the first week of December, whereupon the company was flown out to Minneapolis to begin a residency at The Guthrie and the start of our work on Henry V.

Minneapolis welcomed us with open arms and frigid temperatures. Throughout an entire month of our two-month stay, the mercury rested well below zero and we quickly learned the benefits of strategic layering of clothes. But beyond the icy weather, what also became clear early on is that Minneapolis boasts one of the most active theater communities in the country. The Guthrie itself is an astounding institution. The building contains three theaters: The McGuire Proscenium Stage, the Wurtele Thrust Stage, and the Dowling Studio, where we performed our run of Henry. The theater was buzzing every day and night with activity, and always filled with patrons, students, actors, administrators, playwrights, designers. I even heard a rumor that The Guthrie theater season is, on average, better attended than Minnesota Twins games! Whether this is the case or not, it is an especially nourishing experience to work as an actor in a city that so supports and prizes theater as a vital part of public life, community, and culture.

Our time at The Guthrie was filled-full with rehearsals as the 12 of us were put to the task of creating Henry V's 56 characters in 5 weeks. We began previews in the Dowling Studio on Jan. 10^th, and opened the show on Jan. 14^th, to an audience of friends and familiar faces, including Margot Harley, our Producing Artistic Director, and several of our board members including Earl Weiner, our Chairman, who had flown all the way from New York to commemorate the event with us. It was a celebration of not only weeks of work, but of the alliance of two major forces in the American theater to create this first co-production and national tour.

Once we opened, brush-up rehearsals for The Spy began during the day, as we continued to perform Henry to full houses each night. As February fast approached, and our run at the Guthrie neared its end, we found ourselves a company already rich in our brief history together. We had rung in a new year and witnessed the inauguration of a new president. After three months and two plays, we are about to embark on a tour across America. Hope you can join us somewhere along the way!

 

West Lafayette, IN                February 2 - 9

After bidding a fond farewell to the Guthrie, we boarded our big, beautiful bus and headed toward the first stop on our journey – West Lafayette, Indiana, where the tour began with a week-long residency at Purdue University and performances at Loeb Playhouse. The company was hosted by Purdue Convocations, one of the oldest collegiate performing arts presenters in the nation. The community of Purdue and the Convocations’ staff were incredibly welcoming. Our presenters, Todd Wetzel, Stacey Mickelbart and Kathy Bruni, made us feel especially at home on campus.

The luxury of a week-long stay also allowed us to make alterations to technical elements of The Spy before its World Premiere: adjusting the lights, set and sound, to better suit our touring purposes. Company members conducted educational workshops with Purdue students both from the English Lit department and the M.F.A. Acting program. We also performed, for the first time, our one-hour educational version of Henry V, which we affectionately call Little Touch of Harry, a reference to a line from the play's Act IV Chorus speech. The focus of this show is to bring a pared down version of the play, illuminating text and story, to local students ranging from elementary to high school. This particular audience was an engaged crowd that spanned ages 8 –16. Our evening performances of both The Spy and Henry V played to full houses of over a thousand people. Jeffrey Hatcher, who wrote The Spy, flew to Indiana earlier in the week and continued to refine the text as we rehearsed and then stayed to celebrate our official opening.

As our Repertory Director, Ian Belknap, is a native of Indiana and self-proclaimed Hoosier, I thought he may want to add his thoughts to the Journal:

 

*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *       *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      Playing the Loeb Playhouse felt like a homecoming. I grew up in Fort Wayne, two hours from Purdue University.  The giant fly-house, an old Broadway style theatre is redolent of another time. I played it several times in the 1990's with a jazz band and choir. Even then, you could feel the history of the space so, indeed, it was wonderful to birth the World Première of The Spy in front of a thousand people at Loeb Playhouse. In addition to The Spy, we performed Henry V, A Little Touch of Harry and taught an array of classes at Purdue.  Teaching these classes highlighted my week. Seeing students, who looked like people I grew up with, made me feel at home and I felt like I was giving back to community that nourished me.  The Purdue staff enhanced our time. Their crew became fundamental as we “teched” The Spy, and the Convocations’ staff’s hospitality and organization eased us through the week. As we pulled away I thought as poet Christian Morgenstern deemed, "Home is not where you live, but where you are understood."    —Ian, Repertory Director *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *       *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *

It was an eventful and rewarding first week of tour! We drive south now to Missouri, for stops in Poplar Bluff and St. Louis.  —Kelley

Poplar Bluff, MO                 February 9 -11

Poplar Bluff is nestled in southeast Missouri known as the gateway to the Ozarks because of it's location between Memphis and St. Louis. Here we performed Henry V at the Tinnin Fine Arts Center Theater at Three Rivers Community College. Company member Rick Ford writes about this stop:

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After a wonderful week in West Lafayette, IN., we boarded the bus at 10:30 for the 6 1/2 hour trip to Poplar Bluff, where I had never been and looked forward to finding the ever elusive bluff.

Our bus driver, Winsted, took us on a beautiful country road headed south west to Missouri through Illinois. We had lunch at Niemberg's, a family restaurant with the hope that the menu would be a little more interesting than our other fast food choices. The question we sometimes pose our servers is," Where are we?" They always look at us a little funny but then we tell them we're with The Acting Company. They are usually pretty interested and some of the people have heard of us after 35 years of touring the country.

The Tinnin Fine Arts Center Theater is a beautiful facility that housed a 500 plus seat theater. The great thing about being an actor on this tour is to play the same play in different spaces. It's an invaluable experience for an actor because he has to adjust very quickly to not only the sound quality of the theater but to the backstage area as well. We also have additional crew members from the venue every night and that helps all the actors make their quick adjustments. At Poplar Bluff, we had a bunch of enthusiastic theatre majors. I went over my changes with them and they seemed fully able to handle the job.

We had our usual vocal warm to Andrew Wade, our vocal coach, on CD. We all lie down on the floor of the stage and go through the 15 minute warm up listening to Andrew's melodic voice being piped through the theater. It sounds as if he's right there with us lending a supportive hand. I feel this warm up grounds the company and gives us all a focal point that we are familiar with. Even though each space is different, our little world on the stage remains the same.

The show was a huge hit with the audience. We got a standing ovation. The backstage crew did a wonderful job and the local crew were thrilled that they helped make our show a huge success.

The next day we returned to the same space for our one-hour Henry V for students. We had about 400 kids from different grades.  There are no sets, costuming, or lighting. We have just 12 chairs on the stage and we tell the story. After doing a full production the night before in the same theater, I found this experience fascinating. Our set had been long packed away in the truck and was moving on to the next venue. Now we really were just 12 actors on a bare stage telling a story. It's amazing how moved, touch and inspired these kids were by Shakespeare. I'll never forget the expressions on some of these kids’ faces when Matt (Henry V) went into the audience to speak directly to them. He would scruff their hair, poke them, smile and wink as their eyes grew as wide as saucers.

We had a Talk Back after the show where kids asked us questions about what they experienced. One teacher thanked us for coming to their community. She said that they once had touring groups come through all the time but because of the economy they have been priced out and she wanted to thank The Acting Company for bringing this high quality production to Poplar Bluff. The audience cheered after her comments. Oh, by the way, I never did find that bluff!   —Rick Ford, Company Member  

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St. Louis, MO                     February 11-15

We drove from Poplar Bluff for a stay in the lovely city of St. Louis, and performances at the Edison Theater of Washington University. Our visit began with some time off and a sampling of the local food, music and art scene: the Gateway Arch, the St. Louis Art Museum and BB's Jazz, Blues, & Soups. By happy coincidence, two Acting Company alums, Amy Landon and Chris Oden were in town working at the Repertory Theater of St. Louis. Both Amy and Chris toured with current company member Carie Kawa and me in the 2007 production of Jane Eyre, and Chris and I toured again in last season's Tempest and Moby Dick – Rehearsed. Chris had just finished a run of the David Harrower play, Blackbird, and Amy was about to begin previews of The Miracle Worker. A delightful perk of being on the road is the chance to meet up with old friends somewhere along your travels, especially other members of the acting community at theaters around the country. On our evening off in St. Louis, Steven Woolf, the artistic director of the Repertory Theater and one time Acting Company employee, invited our cast to the second preview of The Miracle Worker. Christian Conn, another Acting Company Alum was there teaching for us so there were 5 seasons of Acting Company alums in attendance for Amy's performance. It was a special evening, and a perfect example of, after 36 years, just how far-reaching the legacy of this company is and how rare a community it has inspired.

After a day of soaking up the city, we were back to work at the Edison Theater with a performance of Henry V followed the next evening by The Spy. The theater is a beautiful 600 seat house on the campus of Washington University, and our hosts at the venue, Charlie Robin and Bill Larson, made sure we felt entirely at home. This was the first venue in which post-show discussions with audience members were scheduled. The discussion after our performance of The Spy was a rigorous one. Several of our audience members were familiar with James Fenimore Cooper's novel, and were intrigued by the differences between the novel and Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation. They were curious about the process of making the leap from page-to-stage, and how we felt the period piece resonated with a contemporary audience. It was illuminating to hear the thoughts of audience members both familiar and unfamiliar with the novel.

Before we left St. Louis, we received an email from our old friend and Guthrie collaborator, Victor Zupanc, our composer on Henry V. Victor had recently visited the city and insisted that our trip would not be complete without an excursion to the City Museum, the creation of sculptor and entrepreneur Bill Cassily. It is an architectural wonder: a museum meets playground-maze of found-objects, as intriguing for adults as it is children. On our last night in town, following The Spy, we made a visit to this fantastical spot. Company member Samuel Taylor was so moved by the ingenuity of the space, I want to share his description of it with you:

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[The City Museum is] an unimaginable circumstaunflautica, a great act of explosive joyful resurrection. . . It's a superstructure created of rescued industrial items, things found in fields, defunct factories from the industrial rust belt, demolition projects. . . some of them donated, some just taken. A playground of flawless design and preposterous scope. That something so beautiful, senseless, and kind, recycled and reinvented, absurd, can even exist – that a man would make it his life's work to do such a thing, and that it should be financially viable (packed, in fact) – plants a kind of reckless hope.                                       —Samuel

 

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St. Louis was an inspiring stop for all of us. The final treat of the visit was most of our company members' introduction to, and my reunion with, our bus driver for the rest of the tour, Wes Wammer. Wes has been our fearless captain for the last two years, just as long as I have been with the company. He had been finishing up a music tour before taking over for the rest of our journey. Seeing him in St. Louis was like coming home again. And now, onward to Illinois. —Kelley

Glen Ellyn, IL           February 15-17

We headed north again to Glen Ellyn, Illinois for a performance of Henry V at the McAninch Art Center - a beautiful, large house on the College of DuPage. It was here that our staff rep director, Ian Belknap engaged in a rigorous pre-show discussion with over a hundred audience members who were well-versed in the play and its major themes. The subject of leadership was of particular interest; how that theme transcends the play's specific historical setting to resonate through time. Another hot topic was Henry's ambivalence as a character, and a leader, which was something that all of us debated during the course of our rehearsal process.  How could Henry mercilessly order the killing of hundreds of French prisoners, and two scenes later be wooing Princess Katherine with such charm and sincerity? One audience member suggested Henry—and how he allows his experience and the world around him to change him—gives all of us hope, that there is always the possibility to change.

Bob McClure's cousin, Sandi, was in attendance that evening, and this was the first Shakespeare play she'd ever seen. Always curious to know what newcomers think of the poetry and plot.  Bob said she was quoting lines from the play by the end of the night, and marveled at how contemporary the story felt to her.

The following day we were invited to meet Bob Mason, the casting director of the Chicago Shakespeare Festival, and take a tour of the theater – just an hour away from Glen Ellyn. It was a beautiful building with impressive yet intimate theaters, directly on the water at the edge of the city. It was a great chance to see one of the many creative institutions that makes up Chicago's renowned theater scene. Chris, Carie and I went to the Art Institute to see the Edvard Munch exhibit. While there, I was stopped by a man who was curious about my bag; naturally, it was the Acting Company logo bag that I've toted with me all across this wide country. He introduced himself as Richard Corley, and it turned out that he had been Associate Artistic Director of the Acting Company for six years, and had just had dinner with our Producing Artistic Director, Margot Harley, last month. As we were in one of the greatest theater cities in the country, the coincidence may not have been an astounding one, but it was a surprising, and delightful one nonetheless. It was like finding myself in St. Louis with so many alumni of the company. It's a community of artists that has stretched far and wide over so many years, and running into former members always feels like meeting a long-lost friend for the first time.

Harrisburg, PA                 February 18

We had a performance at the intimate and beautiful Rose Lehrman Center on the campus of the Harrisburg Area Community College. Our very own Matthew Amendt hails from Indiana, PA (near Pittsburgh), so his father and family friends made the drive to Harrisburg for the show – a performance of Henry V to a full house and a warm and generous audience. One of the greatest pleasures in touring the Midwest this year so far, is how many company members’ families have been able to catch a performance on the road – in Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania. More than the cast members on either of my last two seasons, many of this year's company members hail from the middle of the country and we've already had the pleasure to be visited by the McClures, the Grotelueschens, the Valicentis, the Belknaps, and now the Amendts. The opportunity to bring our work to the towns, cities, and states of our own family and friends is a perk unique to touring with a play, and it always aids in curing any bouts of homesickness that may arise while on the road.

Houghton, NY       February 19

Nearly two years after my first visit to the small community of Houghton, NY, I found myself back in The Houghton College Chapel Auditorium for a performance of The Spy. This venue was the first stop on this year's tour where I had previously performed—alongside Carie in 2007's Jane Eyre. It's amazing how one's mind recalls with such clarity the previous experience and the feelings the space evokes. Houghton College is a Christian College nestled in the Alleghenies, in a town of only about 2000 people. Before our performance began, the audience was led in a prayer, a ritual unique to this one venue on our tour . It was a prayer to bless and thank the actors and the storytellers, to help the performance go smoothly, to allow us to create magic, reflect life, and allow the audience to open their hearts and minds to it. No matter one's religious beliefs, it was a kind and beautiful sentiment that, on some level, could speak to everyone in the room. It was delightful to perform for such a warm, responsive audience, and to switch from Henry to The Spy.

After the show, Rick Ford led us in search for vittles and spirits—and we met some lovely locals at a restaurant in town. The next morning, we drove past it and on their sign was written “Thanks to The Acting Company and Rick Ford for a great time!” We were thrilled to have left as memorable an impression on the community of Houghton as it had on us. It is not a place one would easily forget.

Hampton, VA         February 20-22

The American Theater of Hampton, Virginia is one that I'm very familiar with as we've visited the space on both my previous tours. But even more familiar than I am with the venue, is company member Freddy Arsenault. Freddy grew up in Hampton and it was in the American Theater that he was introduced to The Acting Company as a high school audience member. I imagine it's quite a homecoming to arrive back in town as a member of the theater company that you watched perform so many years ago.

The American Theater is the smallest space we play on tour; a beautiful, intimate house, and an even more intimate stage. Our set for Henry V was too large to fit the dimensions of the theater, so with a little extra rehearsal led by Ian Belknap, we were able to creatively re-stage elements of the show that require the use of the set.  We did so with different elements: the lights, the given space, the story and ourselves. After a few hours we created a version of our Henry V unique to the American Theater and its patrons. Dealing with such obstacles on the road certainly keeps us on our toes as performers.

Now we're on to an early homecoming in New York and a two-week run of Henry V at the famed New Victory Theater, which we have all eagerly anticipated.
 

New York, NY            February 23-March 8

It had been nearly three months since I'd seen the New York City skyline but, after a six hour drive from Virginia, our bus pulled up to the corner of 44^th and 9^th and, suddenly, we were home at The Acting Company. The only day that rivals the excitement of the day you embark on tour is the day you arrive back home--bringing the show that you've created to the community where you live. 

Here we were about to begin a two week run of Henry V at the New Victory, a beautifully restored theater in the heart of Times Square; an intimate, yet elaborate 499 seat house.  Our rehearsal in the theater the first afternoon back, was a joyful reunion with our director, Davis McCallum, and our voice and text consultant. Andrew Wade. We revisited and re-investigated the text, the sounds, and the actions of the story.

At one point during the rehearsal, Andrew had us scatter throughout the theater – the balconies, the orchestra, the stage – and had all the lights turned off. There, in the dark, we began reciting the text of a chorus speech from Henry, the words rang throughout the theater from all different directions, reaching each other and resonating in the dark. It was like hearing the words for the first time. We rediscovered the story we had been telling and turned the New Victory into our new home for Henry.

Our run began with student matinees—the New Victory serves as New York City's theater for children and families.  Never have I performed to a more diverse age range of audience members: children, parents, teenagers, senior citizens, and, among them, friends, families, and colleagues. To feel the play resonate in the same moment for people of such different experiences and different levels of understanding, was a delightful discovery for me as an actor, and an incredible testament to Shakespeare's stories.

Our opening night was celebrated by dinner at Chez Josephine with The Acting Company Board and Patrons, Margot, Davis and Joe Dowling, the Artistic Director of the Guthrie who came from Minneapolis to support us.

The weeks in New York went by all too quickly. Henry was received with great warmth by New York audiences. The press was wonderfully generous and our shows were quickly filled to capacity. My own family was able to come down from upstate to see the show for the first time. With Henry V being, perhaps, my father's all-time-favorite play and with my desire to always impress my 14-year old brother, the pressure was on.  Happily, they were as excited to see the show as I was to introduce them to this year's company and our work. We closed just as we opened, with a celebration; this time at the home of our friend and board member, Louanna Carlin. It was a perfect way to end a joyful run of Henry and wonderful time back home in New York.

It's hard to believe that we head out on the road again but we now depart on a flight to New Orleans and a tour of the Southwest.

Baton Rouge, LA      March 16

After a smooth flight from New York we celebrated the start of our second leg of the tour with dinner in New Orlean's French Quarter before driving on to Baton Rouge. After two years on the road, New Orleans is one of the few places I had yet to see, so I was eager to wander the city, if only for a few hours. The architecture of the 19^th century homes, banks, and buildings in the French Quarter is truly beautiful. Jazz and bluegrass music echoed down every alley way. On recommendations from friends and locals we headed to Coop's where we indulged in an authentic taste of Louisiana cuisine: jambalaya, po'boys, gumbo, and all things crayfish. We traveled on to Baton Rouge for a performance of Henry V the next day at the Magnolia Performing Arts Pavilion. It's an intimate theater, so we played to a full house and a very warm audience that night. The stay in Baton Rouge was brief, but it was a great introduction to the second leg of the tour!

We have a few long drives ahead of us through Texas and New Mexico before we reach the mountain town of Telluride, CO.

Telluride, CO             March 19

Telluride is a beautiful town nestled high (9,000 feet high!) up in the Rocky Mountains and is a very long way from Louisiana. It took us two whole days just to drive across the great state of Texas and, before we reached Colorado, we made a stop overnight in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Albuquerque is the hometown of cast mate Samuel Taylor. Samuel was so excited to arrive home and to show us the best of the city. I have come to learn that the20best way to experience all a town has to offer is with a local.  There's just no substitute for a native guide. Samuel introduced us to his parents, Susanna and Brian, who treated us to an authentic taste of New Mexican cuisine at Sadie's restaurant. It was delicious and educational as Samuel taught me the difference between red and green chile, blue corn versus flour tortillas, and introduced me to an after-dinner delight called the sopapilla--foods I had rarely, if ever, been exposed to growing up in upstate New York.

The next morning we bid a fond farewell to Albuquerque, and headed on our winding way through the Rocky Mountains towards Telluride. Up until this point, I had only driven past the Rockies, not through them, and didn't quite understand the scope of the mountains until I was right in the middle of them. Wes drove us 12,000 feet up and miles and miles through the range, until we arrived in Telluride. Telluride is a skiing community that grew out of a mining town. It's small, but with lots of history. We performed Henry V that night at the Michael D. Palm Theater. Another beautiful, intimate space, but with one particularly unique feature: oxygen tanks backstage, for the actors and cr ew, in case we become light-headed due to the high altitude. Though none of us rewuired oxygen, we absolutely feel the difference in the quality of the air.  Fighting the battle of Agincort was a little more exhausting than usual; it was a pretty unique performing experience.

We left Telluride the next morning, to head back south through New Mexico for Las Cruces, and the warm weather.

Las Cruces, NM       March 21

It was a warm and sunny 80 degrees when we rolled into Las Cruces, the kind of weather we had been longing for since our days in freezing cold Minneapolis. We had a performance of Henry V at the Hershel Zohn Theater on the campus of New Mexico State University. It was a great night.  Much of the local crew was comprised of theater students from the University. The theater was intimate, a few hundred seats, but it was packed to the brim with a warm, generous, responsive audience. I came to find out later that many of the audience members were also theater majors at NMSU, and for some of them, our play was the very first professional theatrical production they had ever attended. It was incredible to discover and to hear that they enjoyed it so much. I always hope that in our performances, on university campuses especially, inspire the next generation of performers and patrons of classical work in America. It felt that that was what was happening in Las Cruces that night!

We drive up to Santa Fe tomorrow, for a long-awaited performance of The Spy.

Santa Fe, NM        March 22

Santa Fe is a beautiful city rich in art, history, and culture, high in the mountains of New Mexico. If you read last year's tour journal, you'll know that I've been here before. Last year we were scheduled to perform Moby Dick – Rehearsed at the beautiful Lensic Theater, a vaudeville house, dating back before the 1930s that has been restored and renovated by the people of Santa Fe. But as fate would have it, last year, a half hour before the curtain, a power-outage struck the city of Santa Fe, including the Lensic Theater. After an hour and a half of waiting with bated breath for the lights to come on, we had to call the show and send home the 500 people that were packed like sardines in the lobby, waiting to see the play. It was a sad night for all of us as we were eager to perform on the beautiful, old stage. This year, I returned with fingers crossed that the lights would stay on for a performance of The Spy. After wandering the local galleries, shops, churches, and museums, we made it to the theater for a brief brush-up rehearsal of The Spy. This time, the lights stayed on and I finally got to perform in Santa Fe. Samuel Taylor's parents drove up from Albuquerque for the show an d afterwards we all toasted to the power staying on.

We had a New Mexican breakfast brunch the next morning at the famous Cafe Pasqual's before heading out on our drive towards Phoenix and the beginning of our residency with the Arizona Theatre Company.

 

Phoenix-Tucson, AZ        March 24-April 5

Our arrival in Phoenix marked the start of our residency with the Arizona Theatre Company, and two weeks of warm temperatures, sunny skies, and performances of Henry V! The Arizona Theatre Company has two resident theatres in which they perform their season, The Herberger Center in the heart of downtown Phoenix and the Temple of Music and Art about two hours south in Tucson. They are vastly different spaces aesthetically – The Herberger a more recently constructed, modern space, and the Temple theatre dating back to the vaudeville era; a space rich in history. Both are fantastic theatres to play with wonderful crews and generous audiences. Our student matinées in both cities were performed to some of our best student audiences yet. Many of the students at one performance had read the play and seen both the Olivier and Branaugh film versions of the story. Still, they were quite surprised by the things that came to life in our portrayal.

Beyond the opportunity to work with such a wonderful theater company and the luxury of a sit-down for 20 more than one or two nights, we had lots of adventures in and around Phoenix and Tucson: rock climbing, spring training baseball games, a day trip to hike the breathtaking Red Rocks of Sedona, AZ. A personal highlight was the chance to spend time with the cast of the ATC's production of Somebody/Nobody, a world premiere Jane Martin play that was running simultaneous to our Henry V in Tucson, while we were in Phoenix. My friend, Jeremy Holm was in it and as luck would have it, he and the cast ended their run at The Temple theatre just in time to travel north and catch our final matinée of Henry at the Herberger. After the show our casts met and mingled over barbecue and spent the evening swapping stories, sharing our experiences of each of the different theaters, and tips on what adventures and cuisine to seek out in Arizona. Even halfway across the country it made me feel a little more at home.

We also enjoyed a taste of home, when, about a week later in Tucson where Bob McClure's aunt and uncle Greg and Marge Pearce and their son Matt, invited us to their horse ranch nestled in the hills just outside the city. Nearly the whole cast and crew made it up to the lovely home of the Pearces on our night off. On meeting their beautiful horses, Georgia and I got a live lesson in enriching the performance of the horse characters we play briefly during Act II of Henry. It was a lovely night, spent in great company, and a welcome change of pace from city surroundings. Tucson, Phoenix, and our residency at ATC is a hard part of the tour to say goodbye to. But I cannot complain as it has hardly felt like work. We now have a week off from the tour and, for me, a trip back home to New York before picking up again in Starkville, MS.

 

  —Kelley

 

 

Thanks for taking this tour with us!

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To read last year's Tour Journal, January - May, 2008

Click HERE