Ready, Set, Go!

We opened in Lakeland spent the night there. In the morning, we traveled via bus to Orlando for a matinee which now seems a blur. After the matinee, we were off on sleeper bus to Ft. Lauderdale where we did a pre-Superbowl matinee. After that, we were on the sleeper bus for 465 miles or so to Tallahassee, FL and a day off.

I have never done this type of touring where I travel at night on a sleeper bus. Pamphlet B of the musician’s union prohibits night travel. Remind me to thank a musician sometime. If I were a cast member, I would remain sleeping on the bus once we arrived and then check in after that. But as Tour Manager, one of the duties is to get the stars escorted out of their bus and onto the elevator if they choose to get up. If they don’t choose to get up, I leave their room keys in the bus and their luggage in the bellmen’s closet.

I find it impossible to sleep very much on the bus. It is not because I can’t sleep on a bus. I can sleep standing up in a stream. But I do not wake up very easily unless there is light spilling in my sleeping chamber. The sleeping chamber on the bus is the closest thing to a coffin I have ever been in. It is not uncomfortable as coffins go, complete with air conditioning and DVD players. But if my job description says I have to be ready to jump out of the bus and be “on” for the stars, it does not lend itself to an easy sleep.

Tallahassee is the capitol of Florida and like the capitol of New York (Albany), it is overshadowed by many other Florida cities. I walked around today and enjoyed the hanging moss and balmy temperatures, even in the rain. I saw not one other company member and it was fun to pretend I was someone else doing something else.

The gym at the hotel is beyond anything I have ever seen at a hotel. I will get in a workout tomorrow before we check out at 3pm and head in for the sound check and another evening trip 133 miles to Jacksonville, FL. I don’t imagine anyone will sleep on such a short journey, so there will be lots of drinking and “fun” for all but one.

The person who had this job previously is now back in NYC and trying her best to do the job remotely with well meaning emails like: “What has happened so far today?” and “I would….” I realize this is her baby and she is just trying to show me what the group is used to from the Tour Manager. Still, I am glad I am not her child, even she is treating me as such. I once had a woman I was replacing on a tour tell me: “One of the things you are gonna want to do is make sure that all the soda machines on each floor are full. Because people really like soda.” In that instant, I knew why she was being replaced.