Puppet Up Toronto Tour Diary – Day 16 – Home
Up early today. Well, earlier than in past days. Our van to the airport arrived and we bid farewell to our home for the past two weeks. Upon arrival at the airport we all dealt with the pleasures of air travel: Checking in, paying excess baggage fees, customs, security check. Once through everyone was a lot less stressed out. Brian and I had a nice breakfast/lunch. I had been starving because i hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before.
Soon we were boarded and winging our way back to Southern California. Did a lot of writing on the flight and checked out the rest of World War Z and watched most of Pacific Rim on the flight. After landing we hopped a shuttle back to where it all began, The Jim Henson lot. Goodbyes were said and I believe the general feeling was this was a really successful string of shows. Some tech bumps in the beginning, but soon it was smooth sailing. It was ALL fun.
Big thanks to our crew who do amazing things to make us look so good on stage. Juliana keeps us all on schedule, Greg gets us up and running, Brandon who got our video up and running and the local Toronto crew who kept us looking and sounding good the whole run.
Thanks to Dan Ring, our music man. Missed dancing with you as much on this tour Dan but always fun to hang out with you. Let’s compare laptops when we get them!
Big shout out to Amanda for being the besets puppet wrangler and here’s to finding a new friend! As I said before, always incredibly nice to meet someone who has that level of passion for puppetry. Thanks for all the kind words you said. Hope we meet up again soon, and I’m looking forward to seeing YOU perform sometime.
Thanks to Arnold of Westbeth Entertainment for believing in the show and always seeing to that we’re taken care of. Big thanks to Brian Henson, without whom, the show would not exist.
To my fellow puppeteer freaks, I love each and every one of you and am grateful for those laugh moments we shared…
Colleen – Our Squirrel scene will live on in the Puppet Up Hall of Fame
Ted – our pilot scene early in the run was great but you managed to pull off the most amazing puppet effect I’ve ever seen during that last Bond improv.
Peggy – Always a pleasure to be ‘out there with you.’ Loved our Flashback fun, each and every time. Never before have Kidney Stones made me laugh as hard.
Michael – Two words….List Them. Your non-sequitors during the Bedtime/Spooky story were always hilarious.
Brian – “We’ll deal with you later French Canadians” – You are an inspiring improviser to watch, so loose and free. You always kept me on my toes during the Bedtime/Spooky stories. You are a good friend. Appreciate all our talks. And thanks for introducing me to Indian Food.
Thanks to all the amazing Toronto audiences. Your suggestions, laughter and kindness will long be remembered by this Puppet Upper. I truly do hope we are back very soon.
Finally, to Patrick. Amazing director. Amazing teacher. Amazing friend. Thank you for letting Leslie Carrara-Rudolph talk you into taking a chance on me, a non-improviser, limited puppeteer, way back in 2007. These past 6 years (6 YEARS!!!) have been an incredibly journey and the most fun I’ve had….ever. Grateful for all I’ve done and hopeful there will be more/ Will gladly follow you into improv battle any day of the week.
It was an absolutely perfect trip.
Well, that’ll wrap it up for this tour. Thanks, so much, for following along with this tour diary. Feel free to stick around to see my mostly-irregular ramblings or we’ll see you back here next time there’s a tour I’m on. If you want to keep in touch with what I’m up to you can…
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Thank you, thank you, thank you and…
PUPPET UP!
You are a special man Grant Baciocco. It is a privilege to know you and a gift to “Be out there with you”. You are an incredible talent and HEE-larious to boot!!!!!!!!! 10 more weeks, I’m ready!
xo