Dropt from the zenith like a falling star

Having played 6 weeks at what we all consider to be the cathedral of children's theatre there was always going to be a certain amount of come down on this next leg of the tour. However, nothing could quite prepare us for the scale of the fall, and how far we might tumble. If we were the economy the markets would have crashed, the bail outs failed and the financial systems in tatters.

Our week in Pittsburgh comprises of several gigs in schools on the outskirts of the city as part of the family series, before we play the main theatre at the weekend. That much is fine, I quite enjoy playing schools, but what we have here are a set of shows that don't quite know what they are. We're not performing in the day for kids, we're in the evening, but regular theatre goers aren't coming, more parents of kids at the school. This gives the whole evening a sort of amateur, school play feel. A feeling only added to by the fact that the in house crew are a gaggle of 13/14 year olds from the school who, with the best will in the world, don't have a clue.

The show itself was alright, but scattered with the constant entering and exiting of audience, organisers, children, babies, janitors and the slight bewilderment of all wondering what had brought us all here in the first place. The feeling of the day was best summed up by the janitor who assumed, as we put the set up, that we were the latest school show and exclaimed "thank God, they've been rehearsing that show for months!". The thing was nobody knew what to expect, audience, actors, organisers, and the fact this was all being done a 20 minute drive from Pittsburgh's sate of the art theatre just added to the bizarreness.

Other cities' family series place the show at the theatre and bus the kids and groups in, here it seems the reverse is true, with the effect being it all just feels a bit half assed. Still we got given a nice dinner, and it allowed me to reminisce of my rural touring days. I daresay there is more chaos to come as this tour continues to surprise as we have played one of the world's leading children's theatres and a school lecture theatre in the space of a week. Its nothing if not interesting.

Oh, and in keeping with the US tour policy of not allowing any publicity image to actually contain pictures of the current cast (that would just be daft) the publicity photo for here has been dredged from The Gruffalo archives and even we're not sure who the girl in it is. Answers on a post card (PS. My costume looks much better than that one)


Alan