Theatre at Lime Kiln of Lexington, VA

A view From the stage. 

So, our first venue on the long leg of our first half of our contract, and it was an experience, indeed!

The Lime Kiln is a beautiful outdoor performance property, with three permanent venues and a one-point, big-top tent.

The primary space (The Lime Kiln itself) is a wonder of living and preserved history.  Like all memorable theatres, Lime Kiln owes its history as much to happenstance as intent..  A post civil war entrepreneur's failed get rich quick scheme left a ramshackle ruin of excavation, natural beauty and aged architecture.  This left available a foundation on which these gifted patrons of the arts have built

A view Of the Stage.  (See what I did there?)

a space that inspires a whimsical nostalgia perfect for the tone and style that they specialize in.  Perhaps you'd like to enjoy Shakespeare under the stars, with a beer in your hand and a burger on your plate?  If that doesn't suite your fancy, can we offer you a staged story of 'Stonewall' Jackson's life?
Did we mention it was a musical?

Anyway, I mention the Lime Kiln itself to give you a sense of the tragedy of our stay that we were unable to use the space.

This season's steady rain and misting of the Appalachian/Blue Ridge ranges made a mud pit of the pictured venue and settled us into the aforementioned tent-space.

So, let us put on for you a show on a stage that is, after the addition of our travel 'Discovery Space' (a piece of Original Staging Conditions artifice that gives any audience anywhere the feeling that they're watching a show at the Staunton Blackfriars) about seven feet deep and three times that wide.  Alright folks, hold on tight and let's hope you like it.

And they did.

As a part of the performance end of things, I'm inclined to be overtly and always hyper critical of every piece of professional and personal minutia that goes into any show (one that I'm in or one that I'm watching).  You call it snobbery, i call it investment in the work.

Anyway.

I was distressed by allot of our performance.  Our crowded stage-space was mirrored in miniature by the backstage.  For my own part, i couldn't wait to get my-pantaloon-ed posterior onstage just so i could have some room to breathe.  Blocking felt clunky and i was ever and always aware of what sort of wear and tear i might be putting on my costume.  My costume made out of very expensive, very delicate fabric.  So too are all of our costumes, but it's my blog so we're sticking to first person.

So there we are, having a seat-of-our-pants kinda show and come the middle of the second act (My quiet, meditative time where i get to sit cross legged on the fairy bower surrounded by noise makers and ring/slap/rattle/and whistle my way to nirvana) i have a realization: They are a Great crowd.

Laughing at the sight gags; laughing at the prat falls and physical bits; Laughing at the rhetoric!  What a crowd.

And that's the important bit.  We put on a silly play for the peoples, and the peoples loved it.

And we love them back.

In summary: Go to the Lime Kiln because  It's gorgeous and worth as much attention as any regional theatre I've seen; Do the best you can but don't let your attention to minutia take you out of the joy of the Play; come see our shows because they're funny.

Fin.

...Lime Kiln

Briarley Bed and Breakfast

More images of the soft spoken luxury of this charming family business.
Here see images of the Good Friends suite

A view from our evening's lodgings.

Look at it!

Travels with Billy

Abusive misuses of classic Steinbeck memoirs notwithstanding, I am being offered an opportunity here I'd never really expected, one I would love to talk to you about: I am a travelling performer.

I arrived in mid-July with no expectations.
That is a lie.  I expected genius, i expected fervor and passion beyond compare, i expected immediate professional accolades from every possible angle.  I also expected to have started this damn blog by now, but that's not to be fixed.

What else can you expect from a gig you put so much stock in?  We do what we love for money, but we do it mostly because we love it.  LOVE.  And i love it so much the more because i'm new (liquify that 'u' sound for me, wont you?) to it.  Bright eyed and fuzzy-tailed, i'm here to Build the foundation to a lifetime career.  I hope.

Anyway.  Two months and change and we've mounted three travelling productions; worked up a catalogue of workshops; and mapped out a tour route that looks something like the charted path and pattern of a Duncan Yo-Yo that forgot to take it's medication.

Now, load a dozen enthusiastically dynamic personalities into two passenger vans and one cargo van and get to driving.

And so we have done, and shall continue to do.

we will move from town to town, hotel room to b&b, theatre to auditorium to community center and back again.  The rolling green and brown of Virginia countryside will give way to the more industrial sprawl of suburban Baltimore and Bethesda and then up and around again.  Vermont to Sarasota, Austin to All-Over the Bloody place.

The longest stay we'll see will be something around a week and then we shall to the road again, churning asphalt under our dozen spinning brains conveyed by our dozen spinning wheels.

We will share with each other what we might fail to share with anyone: our best and our worst.  The sobering reminder that 'this is just a job; i love it but it is still just my job' will serve us at our best and completely evade us at our worst.  we will play the gypsy by day and live the Play by night.

All the while the odometer ticks and grinds us further and farther away from ground 0; from where we started and all this was but a dream and fruitless vision.  The reality of our going and coming, the return for the holiday season and the neo-exodus to the road again will be every bit the catalyst of inspiration as it might be a nail in the coffin in the fantasy of what this world is; are we to live on, loving the work and the fight and the toil, or will we walk away jaded of our passion and looking to a cubicle and a 401k?

Tomorrow we start the longest stint of absence from our borrowed beds and homes here in Staunton, VA.  6 weeks later we're here again and more work to be done.

Check in again and see where we go, who we meet, what we do, and (melodramatically of all) who we are.