Subway Thoughts...

I'm sitting here looking at a poster for a college that says, "Education for the real world" and I thought "hmm, that's not exactly what I got."  But then, my education was in the arts which is not necessarily the "real world" but does help us to interpret, understand, escape, celebrate & cope with the real world. Which in at least my opinion is equally important.   :)

SURPRISE!!

Hello Friends!
I bet you thought we dropped off the face of the earth! OK fair enough, we kind of did. BUT, I think we can safely say that we're back on the face of the earth (in other words we're back in NY and things have calmed down finally!)

There are a few reasons why this gap of posting happened.
1. Journaling of any kind on a regular basis is not a strong suit of mine but one that I'm always striving to get better at. Believe it or not, two entries within one year is not terrible for me but it doesn't do much for continuity so I'm gonna work on that.
2. Technology sometimes hates me. I actually had several more entries written that I had worked on backstage or on the bus (and thus offline) but then could not for the life of me get them to upload to the actual blog site. I will see if I can somehow transfer them with NEW technology!
3. Tour life is bananas.

It is embarrassing but there it is, so here is my heartfelt apology for sort of leaving you out of what I promised to include you on and here also, is my earnest attempt to include you in the future!

Alright then, to catch you up..........
would actually take another year. :)

Only about a gazillion things have happened since my last entry (apx. a year and half ago!) I'm thinking I will try and do some special entries later to explain a bit more about tour life but I'm feeling that this blog needs to morph a little to take on the new shape of our lives. For now, the name still feels appropriate. :) OK so let's get you up to date. Here's your lightening speed update. Ready?

Aug 26- We left tour. Flew back to NYC & stayed with friends in Jersey for a bit. (also Guster was born un-beknownst to us yet)
Sept 2- Chris turned 33!
Sept ?- We moved into a sublet (weird)
Sept 13- Chris made his Broadway Debut in Mamma Mia! What?! YES!!!
Oct 1- Rachel turned 30! WHOA.  We also got the keys to our new apartment! Yay!
Oct 23- We brought home the newest member of our family- Guster Myers!
Oct 30- Hurricane Sandy whipped though
Nov 22- We hosted thanksgiving for 10 people!! It was the first holiday we've celebrated with both families at the same time and it was a success!
Dec 11 & 12- We gave ourselves the Christmas presents of Radio City Spectacular AND The Nutcracker!
Dec 25- We had a lovely little Christmas in NY with Mom, Dad & Gram.
Jan- We got down to business. Chris was plugging along in the show and Rachel started audition madness. We both struggled through a bunch of sickness and injuries. Also, Rachel started choreographing for the JCC Manhattan youth theatre program.
Jan 29- Saw Newsies! Fun!
Feb- More auditioning more Bway-ing. Rachel got cast in a "Musicals Tonight!" show Strike up the Band. Very short contract but lots of fun! In other new, we learn that Guster had a problem with his liver that required medication, diet change and possibly surgery. Very scary.
Feb 12- Saw Once. Gorgeous!
Mar 12 Strike up the Band opened. Rachel's parents came the following week to see her in it and finally see Chris on Bway! :)
Mar 28- Saw Kinky Boots! LOVED it!
Apr 2- Guster went into surgery for his liver shunt and does amazingly well! The road to recovery begins.
Apr. 13- Ken and Kitty came to visit us and experience NYC for the FIRST TIME! Great visit!
Apr. 14- Hairspray, The show that Rachel has been choreographing for the JCC opens and is a success! Phew! (there was cause for concern trust me!)
Apr. 15. Gus gets his stitches out and is awesome!
Apr. 22 & 23- Chris AND Rachel both got to perform in the Easter Bonnet Competition! It is one of the many big BC/EFA fundraisers and will be further explained at a later date.
May 11- Sandy (Mama Myers not the storm) came for a nice visit.
May 17- Alice in Wonderland, the other JCC show Rachel choreographed opened.
May 19- Saw Nice Work if You Can Get It. Pleasant surprise!
May 25- A quick visit from Mom and Dad MacIsaac (we're very popular this spring!)
June 2- Saddest Yard Sale in history. :) In other news, Rachel finally took a break from auditioning. Very burnt out and no summer prospects means time to change gears.
June 9-16- VACATION on Cape Cod! Awesome! (It rained every day and we still loved it!)
June 23- Saw Broadway Bares for the first time ever! The only way to describe it is A Spectacle!!! Wow!
And here we are in JULY! Holy Cow! I'm back to some minimal auditioning but also taking some new classes to broaden my horizons and Chris is doing great at the Mia. Obviously some other stuff happened in the last 10 months but those are the highlights that were listed on our calendar. I mention all the shows we saw because we made a goal this year of seeing one Broadway show a month. We've learned that it's an important piece of keeping ourselves inspired to be in this crazy business.
Well, I feel good about being able to move on from here and report on more current events as they come rather than constantly trying to catch up! More (and more interesting) stories will be coming your way shortly!
Thanks for reading and stay tuned...

Catching Up! A.K.A. Our December was CRAZY!

Hey Everybody!!

Soooo....stuff has happened.  Lots of stuff.  However, none of that stuff included blog entries.  So, let's catch up a bit.  December was pretty packed for us.  We finished off the 2011 touring schedule with two quadruple weeks (four cities in one week) and a crazy week in Columbus in Ohio in which we had 3 girls out for most of the week, Rachel was on for 7 of 8 shows, Chris had to teach two new people and we threw in a benefit concert and a Christmas Party to top it all off!!  (Whew!) 

Every Holiday Season Broadway shows and tours across America raise money for Broadway Cares, Equity Fights Aids as well as the Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative.  This year our tour rasied over $600,000!  However, the concert occurred after the Broadway Cares season had ended so the money we rasied at the benefit went to The Huckleberry House, a place for teenagers escaping abusive homes in Columbus.  The Benefit Concert was a lot work, but also alot of fun.  It was a holiday concert, but we all tried to put new twists on classic carols.  Rachel and I performed a jazzy medley of Winter Wonderland/Let it Snow that was originally recorded by Bette Midler and Johnny Mathis.  Rachel and two other ladies joined Paul DeBoy in channeling Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters singing the timeless holiday song, Mele Kalikimaka!  AND we were both ELVES in an all-elf, original mash-up of Chain Gang and Shout!  We really had a blast and raised almost $2000! 

As we previously mentioned December brought on a lot of shake ups in the cast. Not only did we have quite a few people in and out with sickness and vacations we also had 3 people put in their notice in addition to 1 member who was already scheduled to leave by Christmas. What this meant logistically for us (and especially Chris) was a LOT of rehearsing! The 1st replacement arrived our last week before Christmas in Columbus and so Chris began teaching him the show during the day and reviewing with him at night during the show. We also had a unique situation where two girls were out for the week who both happen to cover the same lead role (leaving us without a back-up were she to get sick) and so they ended up flying out a girl who had covered the track a year ago! While this was a wonderful treat for us who love her (and her gorgeous baby boy) she hadn't done the show for a year so she also needed rehearsal to re-learn the track "Just in case"!! AHH! Little did we know that this week was only a taste of what was to come in January!

As if we didn't have enough going on, Rachel thought it would be fun and festive if we did a Secret Santa type gift exchange to celebrate the Holiday season and maybe make a new friend. We called it "Secret Holiday Friend" to be all inclusive and make up little "get to know you" sheets for everyone to fill out. It was a nice treat for a lot of people to get little surprises throughout those crazy quadruple weeks and there were lots of hugs at the reveal party which made us smile. :)

So, we know we only caught you up to the point where we left tour to go home to visit our families and celebrate Christmas and New Years, but we will be back...soon....much sooner than last time.

Love,
The Crazy Myers! :)

Swing Life!

We are now at the end of week 5. We’re just past the halfway point to Christmas break and I’m (Rachel) just past halfway point in learning my tracks. I feel that I’m JUST now starting to get into the “swing of things” so to speak. For me, a huge part of settling into my job as swing has been just trying to figure out my system. Having been a long time since my last swing job it has taken me a while to remember (or maybe reinvent) what works best for me to track someone but to a certain extent you don’t get much choice in the matter. You can either watch from the house or from the wings, take as many notes as possible, ask lots of questions and confer with the other swings but when it comes down to it, at some point you just get thrown on and hope for the best! See, swings never get what we call a “put-in” rehearsal which is exactly what it sounds like- a chance to be put into the track you’re covering and get to physically go through the motions of whatever that person does on stage. Instead, they just trust that we swings are sharp enough to notice every detail possible and then the first chance we get to try out a track is in a real show with full audience (and full pressure). This means there is no stopping, no slowing down, no time to double check or really even think about what you’re supposed to do next and certainly no chance to go back and fix it if you were wrong!! One thing I’m learning is that no matter how many times you’ve watched or how good your notes are, things always feel different on stage and there will be things you didn’t quite catch or didn’t even know to look for! Besides all that and the stress of not wanting to be in anyone’s way, there is the minor detail that thousands of people are watching you!!! This is all just part of the adjustment I need to accept-You’re on! Keep your eyes open and make it work! The fact is, I will probably not actually EVER feel as prepared as I’d like to (definitely not for a first swing on and most likely not for months to come)! Even if you’ve already been on for someone before, there is always room for surprises. We are getting into winter now and people’s immune systems are starting to break down. Of course, they try and fight it and sometimes the decision to call out sick comes at the very last minute! Therefore, you may have figured out, the word gets to us at the last minute that we are on and whatever else you had planned to do that night gets pushed aside. This weekend we had our first taste of that type of situation. The other female swing (Tera-Lee) and I had scheduled “swing-outs” to check off our next tracks. I was scheduled to be Carole on Saturday so that I could move on to finish tracking Hannah and be ready to swing her off early next week and Tera-Lee was supposed to be Thomasina on Sunday. However, our plans went awry when Merrill called out sick Friday night and I was the one to go on for her since Tera-Lee hadn’t tracked her yet (which also meant I couldn’t do my final check on Carole stuff). Then, we heard by the end of the night that our lead was feeling sick so I spent the next day reviewing the track of the girl that covers her. When I got to the theatre everyone was fine and I was back on schedule as Carole and had to switch my brain again. Meanwhile, Hannah called out for Sunday so Tera-Lee had to put off her Thomasina debut and I had to put off tracking Hannah. I’m not sure if that makes any sense to an outsider but it was almost as confusing as it sounds! The point is that you have to be ready for whatever is asked of you because that’s what swings are for. It’s the scariest part in the beginning but it’s also what becomes the exciting part of the job later on. For a swing, life never gets dull & repetative, your job is different from one week to the next and always keeps you on your toes! J

Now that I (Chris) have a year of swing experience on this particular tour, I can say it does get easier.  I remember early on thinking that I will never learn all of it and will never feel comfortable.  And while that is probably true for some tracks, there are others that you eventually learn every tiny detail of, and they live in your body.  It usually happens when someone goes on vacation for a week and you get to do the same track 4 or 5 times in a row.  You might screw something up the first show, but then you have several more chances to really nail it and eventually you get to relax and really enjoy doing the show.  After that, every time you come back to that track, it feels like home.  Even still, there are moments in every track (they may be different for each) that you have to stay focused or things can go really wrong, really fast.  I’m reminded of a story about Troy (other male swing).  He was on in “Voulez Vous”, the finale of Act I.  This is one of the most complicated numbers, especially for a swing. First, everyone enters and dances in a circle.  Next, you have traffic to find your 1^st dance partner where each couple has a different dance combination.  Then, you have traffic to find your 2^nd dance partner where luckily all couples have the same choreography. After this, you have more traffic to your 3^rd dance partner and another different combination for each couple.  Finally, you find your place in either the inner or outer circle and depending on what side of the stage you are on and which circle you are in the combo starts with either the right or left foot and splits in different directions half way through. Ugh!  So, Troy had made it through the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd couples and then suddenly forgot “who he was” and had no idea where he was supposed to be in the circles.  Usually when this happens, it’s a split second of sheer panic and then you see a face or an opening and jump to your spot at the last second.  However, in this particular moment every cast member is headed in a hundred directions and Troy found himself center stage, arms in the air, shouting for help!  Luckily, Christopher (who understudies 2 roles and knows the feeling) grabbed his fellow cast-mate and just dragged him along for the ride!  The greatest thing about this swing nightmare, is that it lasted 2 seconds and the audience had no idea any of it happened!

So, as you can see “Swing-life” can be quite an adventure and we haven’t even talked about the travel part of it yet! (next week) And speaking of how busy our lives are, this ended up taking us a week to write so at this point we’ve completed week 6 and are on to the next city and next adventure! Can’t wait to see what it brings and to share it with you!!

-Rachel & Chris J

On stage for sound check at the Fox Theatre, Atlanta

First Post- Welcome to Our Lives!

Dear World, J

We have embarked on a new adventure! Chris and Rachel are making their way across North America with the National Touring Company of Mamma Mia! Such adventures, while quite exciting, do present certain challenges- namely staying in touch with friends and family. This, along with the unique nature of our situation led us to an idea, “Why not join the information age and start a blog to let people know where we are, what we’re doing, and any interesting stories we have to share along the way?” Sooo… TA-DA! Here we are!

It’s hard to choose where to begin this story so we’ve decided to start with NOW and catch up when we have the opportunities. We are NOW in our 4^th week on the road with Mamma Mia and are currently on a bus that taking us to Canada! We are coming from New Philadelphia, OH and heading to Hamilton, ON. This is definitely one of the longest bus rides (8 hrs!) we will be taking during the tour but not our only visit to Canada (apparently they love their ABBA!) Most of the time if we’re traveling this far it will be a flight but if it’s only a couple hours we will bus. There are certainly pros and cons to both like worrying about baggage, or worrying about potty breaks but we try to make the best of either situation.

This past Sunday, we were in Atlanta and we had our first chance to perform onstage together in Mamma Mia!  It was the end of the third week and already we had what we call, an “all skate” for the swings.  This is when for one reason or another all four swings are in the show at the same time!  This happened because we had two cast members out sick, one on a personal day and one on vacation. How exciting for us! The only time we really got to meet onstage was as dance partners in the closing number of Act I, “Voulez Vous”. Sounds like a nice husband and wife moment to share doesn’t it? Well, Chris was on as a “dad cover” and therefore “Patches” in this particular number. The “Patches”persona, is not a scripted character but rather has to do with the costume Chris was given to wear in this track. It is an amazing collection of pieces. We start off with the denim, bell-bottom jeans that are sprayed gold all over and have silver flames running down the outside of the legs. Did we mention they are so tight, they’re basically painted on?  Next, is the lovely crop-top (yes) in denim and tulle patchwork (thus- Patches). Finish it off with silver, high-top converse and a shark-tooth necklace and it’s time to dance! Clearly, it’s not a choice, “Patches” was born this way.  Anyhow, it was a ton of fun and a dream come true to dance together on a Broadway tour.

Perhaps, you’re wondering what a swing is and what the difference is between that and an understudy or a stand-by.  Well, let us tell you.  A stand-by is someone who is not usually in the show, but is at the theatre and ready to go on at a moment’s notice if the star of the show can’t perform (we don’t have any of those).  An understudy is usually someone who is in the ensemble of show, whose job is to also learn one or two principle roles in case that person is out for any reason.  A swing is someone who doesn’t have a set role in the show, but has to know several different ensemble “tracks” (one person’s show from start to finish) and is ready to go on when an ensemble is out for any reason.  We are both swings.  Rachel covers all 7 female ensemble tracks and Chris covers all 7 male ensemble tracks, plus understudies one role. 

Well now it’s time for us to head to the theatre! We hope you enjoyed this first little slice of our lives and we’ll keep working on filling you in. Soon to come- a tour schedule, pictures, and more stories!!! Stay tuned!

Love,

The Traveling Myers’ J