Previously, on This Theatre Life...

Happy, happy October!

Here's a beeline brush through our stops...

Logan, UT

We love Logan! Anyone who has been there and remembers it will be smiling. We played the beautiful Ellen Eccles theatre, which converts to an opera festival in the summer. What an incredible drive. I wish the Rep could continue a tradition of holding a national tour in the autumn. As we meandered over winding roads around mountains, massive bluffs and valleys and sparkling blue rivers against bright yellow birch trees...I filled with a completely different energy than I have in summer.

The town welcomed us warmly. The crew was laid back, fun, witty and friendly. I love venues where we click immediately and it's like working with old friends. We get a lot of those crews "out West" because we just get each other. So despite the 3.2 alcohol percentage..it's still a good time.

I visited some haunts - the Blue Bird cafe for icecream, the Persian Peacock boutique for some *aheM* fun feminine unmentionables, and Cafe Ibis for funky and delicious coffee. Also went hiking up in the Cache national forest to the glorious Wind Caves. Pictures on Facebook! All in all an amazing stop...

Park City, UT

Honestly the highlight of Park City for me was finding the candy shop where my sister worked when she lived in the town several years ago. I bought some of her favorite treats and sent them off...

The theatre was housed in the local highschool, but it was a huge, professional-grade operation. More awe-inspiring scenery.. hillsides splashed in red and gold against stark gray rock. What a perfect time of year to be driving through the country. It was still Indian Summer, then we drove on to...

Aspen, CO

The second of our glamorous tourist-town stops. Our welcome in Park City had been quiet but intent. It was very odd for the actors to play to a disturbingly quiet, "polite" audience. In Aspen, however, not only were we housed in a beautiful chalet with a swimming pool hot tub, sauna, steam room and free hot breakfast - all a thirty second walk from cutesy Down Town... the welcome was warm.

A local writer's organization sponsored the show as part of their Big Read celebration, and so the response was grand. I had been expecting something more like Avon, CO...a small crowd, polite golf-clap type responses. But not so in sunny Aspen. They laughed, they wept...hands shot right up at the post-show discussion and the writers asked such fun questions as "Do you ever Dream about the show?"

Finally, I write from.... Fort Collins, CO!

Again, anyone who's been here will know how much the company anticipated this stop. With something for everyone (food, shopping, coffee, breweries..wine, music..), it's practically like a working vacation. We had a great first performance, and two relatively successful school shows on Wednesday morning.

The weather has been amazing. Tuesday we were all still wearing shorts, sundresses and tank tops. Wednesday after the noon show, dark clouds and a cool front blew in, scattering leaves and hats and hairdos all over town. It never quit blowing and today, the First of October, I feel it is officially autumn. So with a burgeoning feeling of content happiness, I offer good wishes from Fort Collins, and this vision from a much better wordsmith than I...Here's to good harvests in all your endeavors.

October by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst

Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the all.