First day (now with photos!)

Greetings from scenic Dalhousie, New Brunswick. Day one of our whirlwind tour of Atlantic Canada has come to a successful close.

We left Moncton yesterday once Soundman (who doubles as Driver man) got our Great Big Fat SUV from the rental place. Getting all of our things, as well as a big pile o' sound equipment, while still leaving room for, like, you know, us, proved to be something of a challenge, despite the Great Big Fatness of our rental behemoth. However, we are the Tetris generation after all, and we eventually figured out how to arrange everything, ourselves included, in the truck, and we were off like a very heavy shot, bound for the depths of Acadia.
We got into St-Quentin around 7 last night, and stayed at the thoroughly charming Hotel Victoria. It was the start of a lifelong love-affair with old hotel signs (see below).

Our first day of performances got off to a slightly rocky start when technical difficulties caused both me and my roommate/castmate Marlon to oversleep just a bit. After a quick shower...one each, that is (with a hotel soap the size of a postage stamp!) and a semi-frantic packing job, we made our way into the frigid St-Quentin morning to load everything (all our bags, big pile o' sound equipment, etc) into Moby Truck and set off for our first school. There was no time for a leisurely morning coffee, but we didn't make the group late. That's what counts.

Monday morning, it turns out, is a pretty good time to hold a high-school assembly. The students were too sleepy to be overly rambunctious, but were really attentive and appreciative. After the play there's a post-show game kinda thing where we're interacting a lot with the students, which we were all a little apprehensive about -- especially for the French schools -- but they actually went pretty well. In any case, they didn't run us out of town when they heard our French, in fact the students at both schools today really seemed to appreciate our efforts and we got compliments from several students and teachers. Plus, both schools had really nice theatres, which makes the job just that much more fun. All in all, not a bad first day of shows. Not bad at all.

Tonight we're staying at Art's Motor Inn in Dalhousie, where we'll be doing the show in English in the morning and in French in the afternoon.

By the way: if you've never been to Edmundston, you should go, if only for the drive. Go in autumn. Take a loved one, and a camera.

I'm gonna be a walking tourist brochure for Atlantic Canada by the end of this thing.

(note: This post was written on Monday evening, but technical difficulties prevented it from being posted until Wednesday morning.)


shortly after arriving at the Hotel Victoria in St-Quentin.




...the next day, with Marlon, at Art's in Dalhousie. (Also pictured: Soundman's shadow.)