Cross posted with the ATCO blog.
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So, it turns out I am notoriously bad for posting regularly. As in, this is my first post since I started this blog, and I am already three weeks into tour.Oops.
But, as the artistic regime often goes, I didn't exactly do acting-related work from January to March.
I did, however, take some dance classes from jill henis Gnoato at mixOLOGY Dancetheatre, which was great for trying to shape my lack of dance skills. (If someone knows a website for the company I can supply a link to, let me know!)
I also developed the idea that I would like to do a TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences) show for kids in the hospital. I don't know how that's going to pan out with a performance space in the hospital (REALLY don't want to interfere with the nurses/doctors working!) but I would LOVE to put on a show for those kids. Who needs entertaining more, really? Being sick sucks. Might as well enjoy yourself in the hell that is a hospital as much as possible.
I hate hospitals as well, so this endeavour is partially a ploy on my part to try and get over my phobia of them.
ANYWAY! On with the current tour:
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SuperPower! was written by Trevor Schmidt (Edmonton playwright/actor/director with Northern Lights Theatre) and Janice Flower (Edmonton musician, Aristic Director of St Albert's Children Theatre, and musical director for the Grant MacEwan Theatre Arts program). It was directed by Maralyn Ryan (Edmonton actor, director, and instructor).
It is a 45 minute musical that involves the Kid overcoming his fears with the help of Power Woman, a superhero-turned-meter-reader. She helps him identify dangers inside his home and empowers him with the knowledge to keep himself safe against villains such as Rocket Socket, P-Yeww, and Carmen Monoxide.
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The first ATCO Energy Theatre SuperPower! tour was in Northern Alberta. We did two weeks of rehearsals at the end of September and then a one month tour to Northern Alberta in October.
Destinations included Northernish towns of Rainbow Lake, High Level, La Crete, Whitecourt, Mayerthorpe, Swan Hills, mountain towns of Edson and Grande Cache, and Easterny mid-Albertan towns of Lloydminster and Vermillion. Those are all just off the top of my head; I know we went to much more than that.
The premise is this: we load in our SuperPower! Van at about 7:15 AM, arrive at a school at 8 AM, unload the van for an hour, do a show at 9:00 AM about natural gas and electricity safety, answer some questions, load everything back into the van, and then we were at our next school by 1:00 PM to do the same thing all over again. Done work by about 3:00 PM. Repeat the next day.
Here's our SuperPower! Van:
(It's really easy to tell the hotels which vehicle is ours, as you can see.)
Here's the original 2009 Fall touring cast:
Katie German as the Villains, Eric Wigston as the Kid, and myself, Alyssa Billingsley as Power Woman.
Missing is Dawn Friesen, our stage manager.
Here she is with all of us, plus pretty mountains in the background!
Occasionally we would have adventures that included running out of gas. This was on our way to Swan Hills, Alberta.
Safety first!
Sometimes I would discover fun school gym equipment! This is me warming up like a good actor....of course:
We got to cross a river on a ferry!
I'm on a boat! (I'm on a boat!)
And we saw beautiful Canadian countryside:
(There's a rainbow there; can you see it?!)
We went swimming:
And I was giddy with joy to have such a wonderful job.
The entire album can be found here.
My apologies for the large amounts of sweatpants and lululemon getup. Tour is pretty hectic, we spend a lot of time in a van and a lot of time changing costumes, so dressing up to look fancy schmancy in normal clothes is not exactly prioritized.
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You can check out the review to the left, under the ATCO picture, and again at the ATCO blog.
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That's the exposition, folks. Now, onto the current tour! (see next entry)
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