ARRRGH


Travel Clusterf*(k

Of course Mondays are my busiest afternoon, with all the after-school kid-ferrying. Because of how late we got home, by the time I got #2-Son's bath run and saw that #1 and Daughter had dinner on its way and got a portable supper thrown together for myself and got on the road, I had the bare minimum 40 minutes needed to make it to mid-town for rehearsals. Even though it was misting and foggy, I made good time and pulled off of the interstate replacement for "the highway that is best" right when I should have done. And came to a dead freakin' standstill.

Knowing that Avenue Q had closed Sunday at the big theater across the street from our rehearsal hall, I assumed it was a basketball game at Private Hometown University. Alas, the traffic did not thin as I pulled slowly through the campus.

Twenty minutes after turning off the interstate, as I finally inched my way past Big Theater I discovered the pre-teen world's latest idols, the Jonas Brothers, were in concert and had sold out their show. The wet streets were crawling with under-dressed 13-year-olds huddled together against the drizzle and definitely not looking both ways before crossing the street, along with their parents who quite obviously did not make it into mid-town much and were clueless as to how the streets run. And for the first time since we started rehearsals, even though two or three Broadway shows have come through Big Theater, I was closely questioned by the parking lot attendant about my assertion that I was working in the church that serves as our rehearsal hall.

Director knew what time the concert let out, but since we'd all had such trouble getting to rehearsal on time, even working as hard as we could we did not get done until right after they did. Luckily I've made an escape from Big Theater after a show a time or two and knew how to avoid the majority of the mess, although not being able to use my normal-but-now-closed-for-construction interstate highway limited my options quite a bit. I made it home in 50 minutes instead of the usual 40, but definitely far more stressed than that 10 minutes would warrant.

And to top off the wonderful evening, Rehearsal Church is old enough it uses radiant heat and the boiler was broken. Big signs on the doors directed their choir practice to another church. We had no such option and rehearsed in coats, scarves, and gloves. The two male leads, who do quite a bit physically, warmed up enough to shed their outer wear. The rest of us were not so lucky.

I'd go to the bother of finding an alternate route into mid-town to avoid such nonsense in the future, but Big Theater's calendar shows them completely dark for the rest of the week, and we're only at Rehearsal Church through Friday. After that we move into our theater space, which should be a whole 'nother joyous experience since it is on one of the alternate routes for the closed interstate highway.

Posted: Tue - February 26, 2008 at 07:37 AM   Home         | | View Technorati reactions

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