Sunday, October 11, 1998
Our day together started at 9:40am. Joe came to pick me up in the touring van and we drove to TOJ to do one last run-through of the “Brer Rabbit” part of the show. I was still shaky on some of the lines. Then it was off to Beaverton to set up for our first performance together. It was, as Joe says, trial by fire. The stage was too low for us to fit on. We have a 10 foot ceiling height, so we had to set up on the floor in front. But because we knew they were sold-out we tried to crunch as much as possible by having parts of the set on the floor, and parts on the stage. This created interesting staging concerns. We could no longer go behind the tree.
But things went okay. Since it was a public show, instead of doing our usual demo and Q&A, we just showed the audience puppets up close and answered questions individually. This lets the parents get out with the problem children. And it’s nice for us to have a closer contact with our audience.
Then it was time to pack up the van and head out. It takes us about an hour to set up, and an hour to take down. Everything goes in this van. We also have luggage and the bench seat too. So you can tell that it collapes pretty well.
Now we are on the road to Tacoma, WA. Jodi will be with us today and tomorrow. He and I have a meeting tomorrow with the man who is writing the script for Secret of Singbonga, a tale of India. Tonight we are having Canadian Thanksgiving with our friends, Aaron and MaryClaire.
