Fair Weather Work

As much as I'd like to think I could have been a very brave young woman in the chilly Big Apple, the beauty of this contract is that I didn't have to find out! The temperatures are mild, the pay is comfortable, and I go back to the city when it's done with a brief winter to endure. The vitals on my Arizonan adventure are a little delayed, but starting the 3rd week of performances, here they are.

The Show: My Fair Lady, according to wikipedia is:

a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from Professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, so she can pass as a proper lady. It has been called "the perfect musical".

Ya hear that? The perfect musical. So if you see it, kindly ignore the lapses in character logic, classism, and misogyny. After all, it is perfect.

The City: While Phoenix is the easy identifier, the truth is that we are in glamorous Peoria, Arizona, where the people are old, the restaurants are abundant, and the cacti are prickly.

The Venue: The Arizona Broadway Theater!
Now in it's 6th season this place is one classy dinner theater. I have literally NEVER felt like I'm acting for people just trying to enjoy their supper. The audience's are attentive and the house is really quiet. It's decked out with a full scene/costume shop, the commercial kitchen, bar, offices, rehearsal spaces, and somehow, rooms that are still being finished.

Home Base: Ah actor housing! Now before you hear about my apartment, please know that while Peoria is not necessarily the bustling metropolis that New York is, it is far about Sun City- where I spent my first week. There's a minimum age requirement of 50 and everything goes in a circle, so if you get lost, just stay on the same street and you'll get home. But PEORIA, and our apartment complex "The Enclave", is crazy convenient. Its about 4 minutes to walk to the theater, 8 to Barnes&Noble (for the Starbies), and 15 to the mall/trader joe's/target/everythingelseunderthesun.

The theater has a few apartments that actors get divvied up between so we're a short trip to each other, and I get fun roomies including our show's leading lady and a member of the production team. The place is simple, but when considering the fact that I live here for free, it's the most beautiful apartment on the planet. And no, we aren't putting-off taking down the Christmas decorations, we have been told that those are permanent fixtures and shall not be altered :)


Having finished this weekend of shows, I have now officially given more performances of My Fair Lady than any other musical. We now enter uncharted waters. Adulthood little by little.