For The Love of Kermit

Today was our first day of rehearsal at St. James’ High School, which is a rural school about forty-five minutes from our motel. I saw the Mississippi River for the very first time when we crossed the Lulling Bridge. About twenty minutes into the drive Bill said, “See that? That there is sugar cane.” (Imagine an older southern gentleman saying this and you’ll understand why it has become a cast catch phrase.) Five minutes later Bill said, “That over there? That's just more suga caine..." Boy, did we pass a whole lot of sugar cane. The next big site to see was the levee. I thought back to all of those Pub Nites at Swat and recalled the lyrics “I brought my Chevy to the levee,” which I sang every Thursday night during senior year (without knowing exactly what a levee was). It is simply an artificially constructed wall used to regulate water levels. Now, I know.

When we arrived at St. James, home of the Wildcats, we unloaded the truck and learned how to assemble the sets. We have nine periactoids on wheels, so that we have three separate sets: King Arthur’s palace, the Evil Knight’s forest and The Lake of the Lake’s lair. The main props are King Arthur’s throne, some magic trick props, a small table, shields, swords, Excalibur, the Scabbard and several dummies who act as prisoners in the Evil Knight’s castle. Usually we will arrive at our performance two and a half hours before the first show is scheduled to start. The cast will assemble the set pieces while Cassandra and Josh set up the lights and sound equipment.

We spent the entire morning loading everything into the auditorium and ate lunch at the “One Stop Grub Shop” down the road. In the afternoon we had a read through of the script. After imagining these characters in my head, it was exciting to finally hear them. Zach’s Evil Knight is inspired by the French guard from Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail, which is absolutely hilarious. Craig practiced some of Merlin’s magic tricks for us and my absolute favorite is the “Zombie Ball” trick. I won’t give away his secrets here. I hope to record his magic act and share it here sometime!

We had a great dinner at Harbor Seafood and I had my very first po-boy! While ordering, I felt like a pro because I knew what it meant to have your po-boy “dressed.” (It comes with pickles, lettuce, tomato and mayo- thanks Jen and Melissa). The grilled catfish was spicy and delicious, but another item on the menu really caught my eye–“The Swamp Platter” which includes Fried Alligator, Fried Crawfish Tails, Fried Frog Legs, Turtle Soup, Crawfish Etouffee, and Cajun Alligator Sausage for only $17.50. For the love of Kermit why would I want to eat frog legs?! Although I was not brave enough to sample any of these southern specialties, we will see how I am feeling in a few weeks. Zach wants to try to turtle soup and I may be tempted to try it as well. Since we will be based in New Orleans, we have plenty of time to research the best place to try some authentic Cajun cuisine. Here I am eating my first po-boy:

I’m looking forward to meeting Henry, who works at the front desk, tomorrow evening. Bill told us that he will probably call us “The Movie People” and enjoys taking care of the theatre kids who pass through here. When I asked for Henry at the front desk, the woman immediately dialed him on the phone so we had a quick conversation. He sounds like a real character! He was thrilled just to hear my voice and said, “Well, this is just beautiful!”