Diary of a flying pig: Danish Tour 11/9

Denmark Closing!

I woke yesterday morning to a strange Danish man poking his head into my room and saying something in a frantic voice. Luckily, he did so exactly at the time I had supposed to be down at the truck! Maybe I was dreaming when I set my alarm clock for 7:00PM. In 90 seconds, I threw on my clothes, packed my bag, and raced down the stairs to meet Andrew and Niels, still wondering what the frantic Danish man had said. We hopped into the truck and went to catch the ferry. IN the truck I learned that there had been some sort of miscommunication with the theatre housing, and the Danish guy was informing me that we all needed to be out by 8AM! I'm glad I was gone by the time he confronted Lars, Malene, and Pia- all of whom thoroughly treasure their beauty sleep... The three of us techs enjoyed an easy ferry ride, complete with a 50 kroner breakfast buffet- jeez do they know how to eat over here. Maybe the Danes have hollow limbs...

Randers Egnsteater is a beautiful new facility, about an hour south of Aalborg. Another ground-level load-in, we had the set up and ready in about 3 hours. (I even made a short movie of us raising the entire grid apparatus, but I'm afraid only a few people will find it as exciting as I do.) The actors arrived around 1pm, we did a few finishing touches, and then left, giving Constable Tristram reign over the stage to work his lighting magic. We wandered around town, caught up on emails, drank lots of coffee from the theatre's high-tech coffee maker, ate some of the delicious curry soup and cheese the theatre provided for us, and napped until showtime. Our final performance went great- really receptive audience, which included Jean Paul Cook- a former Dell'Arte company member and school director- and went off without a hitch, with the exception of one of the trees crashing offstage in the storm sequence, narrowly missing me, Malene, Oliver's accordian, and a lighting tree... AFterwards, it was another talkback, a 90 minute strike, a meticulous repack for America, some champagne, and at 12:30am we were headed back to Aalborg, our final performance simply another great event at the end of what was a spectacular tour.

LESSONS FOR THE DAY
Lars and Matt are very speculative people- just ask them what they think a doorknob might cost.
It's best not to talk with anyone else about the parts of the show that almost make you laugh.
Matt, Oliver, and I think the preacher speech should always be in Danish. Our favorite parts are when Lars says the Danish tongue twister, talks about the head of the draft board saying "Cujo," and the speech ending with the words "goose eye".

3 days 'til launch-
PIG