Greetings!

For those of you who followed this throughout FOOTLOOSE, welcome back! For those of you new to this blog...welcome to tour!! Right now we're half way through rehearsals...meaning 1 week in. I'd been warned coming into this that it's the hardest show to learn and no one makes it through rehearsals without some tears or a minor meltdown. OK, I've had a few moments of wanting to pull out my hair. But the show is blocked, choreographed, mostly memorized...and with no tears. I'll take that as an accomplishment!

Our housing during rehearsal is pretty incredible. Through the whole tour we'll have our own rooms, but for these 2 weeks we have mini suites with full kitchens. It's been a big help in keeping my sanity. The cast is terrific. Just 5 of us plus a couple of Swings. I'm working with my favorite other KP (Karen Pappas) again. Jessica Taige plays my daughter, Signe. Jean Liuzzi is the matron of the kitchen...and Bill Christopher (aka. M*A*S*H*'s Father Mulcahy) is Pastor Gunderson. Very exciting group! We have 2 Swings travelling with us - Mikey and Emily, who also happens to be our Company Manager. I play Karin, sort of a singing/dancing Donna Reed and Signe's mom. Yup...another 40-year-old mom of a teenager...huh...do we see a theme?? We meet Bill tomorrow. I'm really excited...and a little petrified. He did the tour last year, so Mikey did rehearsals for him last week. He'll be with us this week to start running it. Wow...Father Mulcahy...takes a lot to make me star-struck, but I'm a little in awe of this man... We'll see how it goes!

The last week has been full of exhausting rehearsals (10-6 every day...and all the ladies are on, all the time) but we've found some time to play. My good friend Marija lives here in-between contracts and we spent a couple of nights together...including a tour of the new Guthrie Theater, the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden - http://garden.walkerart.org/artwork.wac - and some amazing Thai, Italian & ice cream. Last night Curt (our amazing producer/director) had us all over to his house for a BBQ and put out a spread of traditional Scandanavian food: Cream Style Herring, Pickled Herring, Lefse (potato flat break...kind of like a potato tortilla) with butter/cinnamon-sugar & Lingonberry Jam. It was actually, surprisingly, really good. And an amazing night. Today was our day off. All the ladies got hair cuts, then Jessica and I did up Mall of America, ending the night with Harry Potter.

It's been a whirl-wind already. One more week of rehearsals, then off to opening in Harrisburg, PA. The full tour schedule is now up. Let me know if it's playing near you. I love having friends in the audience!!

http://www.troupeamerica.com/current_CBLTour.html

Enjoy!