Puppet Up Toronto Tour Diary – Day 1 – To the Great White North
On the road! Writing this to your from the hotel room of our hotel in Toronto and I tell you, I’m super excited for this show. The energy amongst the cast is super high and I’m thinking if you live anywhere within the Toronto area…come see this show.
This morning some of us met at The Jim Henson Company lot to take a shuttle down to LAX. An idea struck me this morning…How cool is it (and how lucky am I) that I have a job where the tour begins and ends at The Jim Henson Company Lot? Pretty damn cool.
The trip to Toronto went smooth as silk. I’ve never flown on Air Canada before and I have to say, I like it. Had a great flight and their in flight entertainment is great. I spent the time watching MAN OF STEEL and WORLD WAR Z. It was a great way to pass the time.
Upon arriving in Toronto we met up with Julianna, our tireless, fantastic, amazing, wonderful tour manager. Seriously, I can’t sing her praises enough. This tour would fall apart if not for her. She lives in New York so it’s always fun to catch up.
We got to our hotel, checked in and then a bunch of us explored a little to get some dinner. We wound up at a pub called the Artful Dodger and, I’m not ashamed to say, I had a great Prime Rib dinner. It was fantastic and a great way to kick off the tour. Good food, good company, good times.
After the meal some of us went to the grocery store to get some supplies for the kitchens we have in the rooms. Then everyone just retired to their room to prep for tomorrow’s rehearsals.
So it’s late, and I’m going to sign off for tonight but stay tuned because these reports are going to be daily, and there’s going to be much better pictures. Promise.
It’s time to Puppet Up!
10 in 20 – Day 19 – The End
This morning, the scale read: 167.5lbs. Not only did I meat my goal, I got a head start on my next goal. The new official goal is 10 more pounds by Thanksgiving. Totally doable I think.
No food record today because it was a travel day and I decided that’d it’s be a day where I have ‘cheat meal’. A meal where I didn’t care about points. That was a big prime rib meal here tonight in Toronto. It was amazing. Tomorrow, back to watching everything I eat.
Thanks so much for following along on this journey. I’ll chime in time to time with updates on how I’m doing. I really appreciate all of you for cheering me along here and on Facebook and Twitter. It really means a lot.
You guys rock! YOU helped me achieve this.
10 in 20 – Day 18 – Penultimate
Here we are at the end of the last day. A day full of packing, stressing out about what was packed and what wasn’t packed and, oh yeah, a puppetry audition and a 30 minute kids show. Not too much pressure. Through it all I was really focused on eating right, as you will see below. Still a half pound over on the scale this morning. Good though. Maintaining. Current weight is 168.5lbs.
This one’s going to be a short one because I have much to much to pack. Sorry about that. Look for the final update tomorrow! Now, on to the food.
Cup of Minestrone Soup, Granville Salad w/ Chicken. No dressing – 17 WW Points
This is a bit of estimate going on here. The salad game with Olives (which I LOVE, but aren’t free of points) and Feta Cheese (which I would have preferred they didn’t put on but it wasn’t on the menu). The soup was fantastic. A good meal and very lovely company, too.
Apple slices – 1 WW Point
Dinner. Apple slices. Yum.
ACTIVITY – 30 Mins Running
See you tomorrow for the final day! Final post may not come until later because of travel, but I hope to write it out o the plan on the way to Toronto.
Puppet Up! Toronto – Tour Diary – Prelude
It is the night before!
The night before Henson Alternative’s Puppet Up Uncensored crew heads off to Canada for a string of shows at the Panasonic Theatre in Toronto, Canada. I’m a little more than excited. This is going to be a lot of fun. I thought that the tour I was on earlier this year couldn’t be topped. This might do it.
What I’m excited for most about this trip is the lack of travel. Now, do not get me wrong, I LOVE to travel. I love airports and busses and hotels and exploring new places. It’s all fantastic. But this will be a run of shows in one theatre for two weeks. I love the idea of going to the same place every day and just working on this show. Making each show better, tighter, exploring more.
These trips are always fun because I get to know my fellow castmates better and this time around there’s a few folks I haven’t been on tours with for a long time so it’ll be great to work with a completely new of improv. Really keeps me on my toes.
When we are on a tour like the one we were on earlier this year, each new venue has a million little adjustments to be made to get our show up. Our, amazing, tech crew rocks each venue to get it ready for our show which has a lot of moving pieces that need to be just right. With this run, after the first few shows, we’ll get in a groove and we’ll be able to just work on having fun.
The closest I’ve been able to get to this was the San Francisco run in 2011. That was 5 shows. This is 14. By the end of the show I feel I’ll really have it down. And this time around I’ll be performing some pieces that I haven’t performed before. This time around I get to play the ‘Big Tube’ or ‘Big Java’ in the Java piece. An honor and I’m really excited to take on that challenge.
We also have a brand new finale that we’ve been working on. It’s really unique and I’m excited for audiences to see it.
As before I’ll do my best to blog every day, so if you feel like it, stay right here and join me as the Puppet Up crew invades Toronto!
LET’S DO THIS!