Wednesday, June 12, 2013

6/10/13-6/11/13: Easton, PA

When it rains - it pours folks.

The Addams Plague is upon us.  Blair, our Alice, has been out of the show almost a week and half now with laryngitis (well 3 days at a wedding and the rest with no voice) and last night Jen, our Wednesday, couldn't get through sound check without her voice giving out.

On top of that - Easton is one of those special venues that we don't quite fit into...Sooooo, we ended up with a 2 understudy (3 female ancestor) no curtain, scrim or balcony show which included some last minute re-blocking for the finale during the breaks where people weren't on in Act Two.  Never a dull moment...  Luckily Jen was feeling well enough to come back for our 2nd show - and just in time too.  I'm starting to feel a little ooky myself - super congested and a sore throat.  Ah tourlife...

But - what I thought was gonna be a 'stay in hotel' city turned out to be pretty cool.  It seems that Easton is the home of C. F. Martin and Co Guitars - and they offer free tours of the manufacturing facility.  So a group of cast and band members took the hotel shuttle over to take the tour.  It was incredibly interesting.  All the guitars made in the factory are already pre-sold and made to order.  Unless someone uber famous decides to drop in and have one custom built, which apparently happens from time to time.  Each of the guitars are basically made by hand - only assisted by machinery and robotics in a few steps.  Each one also passes through about 300 pair of hands before its finished!  They do lots of custom work like inlaying mother of pearl or precious metals into the base or the neck - which takes hours of time to cut out the designs by hand - cut out the indentations for the designs to sit in the wood of the guitar and then sand them down to make it seamless.  Everyone there seems very passionate about the work they do - and even made us some Addams Family customized souvenirs from the wood they cut out of the sound holes of the guitar.  If I ever pick up guitar - I know where I'm gonna go to buy one...



0 comments: