2/11/13-2/13/13: Utica, NY

Our first split week begins - now it truly feels like tour...

A 'split week' is when you spend half the week in one city then travel to another for the other half.  Technically this isn't a true split week - since we have a one day stop in State College, PA on the way from Utica to Scranton - but its close enough.  When I was touring with Curious George Live! a few years back, we did mostly split weeks.  So that feels like the norm to me when it comes to tour life.  The only way you could tell the day of the week was from your Travel Day - which was always a Monday or Thursday.  Its an interesting way to live (lol).

Speaking of Curious George, our stop in that show was the last time I was in Utica.  It was memorable because one of our cast members grew up here - and his family owned a restaurant in town that catered us a fantastic Italian diner after one of our shows. Oddly enough, one of our cast members in this show is also from here - but restaurantless.

We didn't get to see alot of the town itself - since we were staying downtown and didn't have access to cars.  But from what we saw, the crowning jewel of the city is definitely the theatre that we performed in - The Stanley.  It has been going through some renovations and is truly one of the most gorgeous building's I've ever been in.  The lobby is incredibly - and includes a replica of the staircase in Titanic (where Kate Winslet meets Leo for dinner and at the end of the film when they all die ((spoiler alert))).  But the theatre itself is also breathtaking.  Its obvious that the city is incredibly proud of the venue - and not only that but they seem to really appreciate theatre in general.  Our audiences here were utterly delightful. All in all making Utica a fun stop - despite the lack of adventures to be had exploring the town itself.


With not much going on outside the hotel, it gave me a chance to break out my board games.  I had a good solid game of Arkham Horror with some of the cast and crew.  Arkham is probably one of my favorite games of all time.  Its based on the writings of HP Lovecraft (who's works inspired most of the horror genre that we know today) and is nothing less than epic.  Basically you control an character in the city of Arkham, Mass. who is trying to stop the end of world via an Ancient God waking up under the Earth. Its a 'cooperative' game - meaning that all the players work together against the board to stop the Apocalypse.  You all win or you all loose - and the board does a great job making sure you will most likely lose.  Most characters in Lovecraft stories either go insane or die horribly - and the game reflects that.  I also got a few fun rounds in of Level 7 [Escape] - this one is a scifi based survival horror game ala Resident Evil - except instead of Zombies...you're escaping from Aliens.  Its billed as a 'semi-cooperative game', meaning that the players can chose to work together as you all are trying to get the hell out of Dodge - but sometimes its more beneficial to sacrifice one of your buddies to get yourself to the elevator...In my opinion, not a bad way to spend a rainy/snowy day at the hotel.  In fact, I travel with an entire suitcase of games (board and card - as they've become my new hobby) - which hopefully doesn't become a pain in the butt when we have our first flying travel day next week...