Meet me in St. Louis.... Louis...

A lot has happened the last week, so I'm going to try to write about the things that have happened in the order in which they happened. After our show in Nebraska, we faced a ten hour drive so we could get to St. Louis in time for our show the next morning. We were driving until after midnight, and then we got the chance to grab about five or six hours of sleep before we had to get up and drive over to our high school performance. It was a very hard load-in. We had to use an elevator to go up one floor to the stage, and then when we took a look at the lighting options, we realized pretty quickly that the student running the board wasn't going to be able to do what we needed. So as we did the show, the light changes were a little shaky and abrupt, and we've learned an important lesson about how to work with non-professional groups. The frustrating part was that by the time we realized there would be a problem, it was too late to set our own lights up and fix the problem. That was a good thing to learn. I was also a little frustrated because members of the company were questioning my technical decisions about the space after I had made them. I like the idea of discussion and free conversation, but in this case it led to problems down the road. Everyone is always talking about how "they have no experience doing this tech..." or "we're only actors...." or "why should we be doing this...," and yet they don't follow my directions when I have had the experience. Actors...
After the show, we headed off to Jackson, TN, getting lost on our way out of the city, crossing into Illinois, back into Missouri, and then on the right road to Tennessee, passing by the St. Louis arch twice. (I've included a picture.) It was pretty cold when we got to Jackson, and then I won a game of Settlers of Catan that we played passing the time for the night. After the show in Jackson, we'll get to drive to Nashville, TN for the weekend. I'm looking forward to heading back to Nashville, but I think it's going to be strange to be in the city with a different group of people.