Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: How Michelle Came to Make Philadelphia Her New Home

The following takes place between the hours of 3:00pm and 4:00pm.
Somewhere between Chicago and Washington D.C. And Philadelphia. And Norfolk...

3:00PM: Clear-eyed and optimistic, I roll out of Chicago. Flight doesn't leave for hours, but it's always good to build in a window, right? Riiiiiiiight...

3:30PM: The train is crowded, and a fight breaks out on the Blue Line back to O’Hare between a guy clearly looking for a fight, and what appeared to be an older, (possibly) mentally challenged man. Directly in front of me. I could’ve thrown a punch, were I so inclined. The guy who picked the fight jumps out at the next stop, while the older man lays bleeding and unmoving on the ground. The train is stopped - medics come - guy eventually walks out on his own, with the help of more than a few other people. I discuss our ringside event with a lovely middle-aged Chicagoan woman. She encourages me to visit again.

6:20PM, 6:30PM, 6:45PM: The first leg of my flight is delayed. Repeatedly. Firstly… because of reasons unknown. Secondly by lightning. Then by a mechanical issue. We will eventually take off, but suddenly the hope of making a connection, while not abandoned, is beginning to look bleak.

9:40PM: Somewhere in the air over DC, we begin to circle the block for a while, delayed by something mysterious on the ground. Even the pilot doesn’t seem to know. We fly endlessly in circles. My connecting fight departs at 10:10… I’ve already heard rumors that there are no more flights to Norfolk until the following afternoon. I clench my teeth and begin scanning the plane for people in front of me small enough to knock out of the way.

9:55PM: We finally land. My exit gate is 35 - I look around, 32, 33, 34… There IS no 35! I run up to the counter and ask if it’s even possible to still make my flight - and WHERE, in God’s name, is gate 35?! The slowest, oldest man in the world eventually croaks out, “Well, it hasn’t left yet… So it’s possible. But it’s all the way in the next terminal.”

9:57PM: I take off running. Flip-flops clacking obnoxiously on the tile, my wheeled suitcase flying behind me in defiance of physics like a 75 lb. banner of panic. Pedestrians leap from my path, clearly terrified of the snorting, panting, redheaded hurricane hellbent on reaching her destination with no obvious regard for the fact she is clearly never going to make it.

10:07PM: There is a SECOND security check-point between me and my destination. What. New. Hell. Is. THIS?! I stop cold for only a second, then hurl my suitcase and backpack onto the conveyer belt. I unpack nothing. I toss my shoes and my cell phone into a box. The security guard shrieks, “MA’AM! YOU HAVE TO TAKE YOUR LAPTOP OUT OF THE BAG!” so I yank it out of my backpack and fling myself through the gate. Running again, I briefly reflect on the number of times I’ve exercised really excellent caution when heading through airport security - and how it obviously was all for naught, since they clearly don’t give a crap. So long as you take out your laptop.

10:13PM: My gate is empty. The plane is gone. In a shameful display of defeat, I cry a little. Tears of failure. Tears of homesickness. Tears of being grossly out of shape and having just run through an airport in flip-flops.

10:40PM: My options are these. I can take a flight to Charlotte the next afternoon. And… Then live there. All the flights from Charlotte to Norfolk are overbooked. The kind girl behind the counter, who finally realizes the futility of trying to send me to Charlotte, has a discussion with her manager. They can get me there - first class to Philly, then Philly to ORF. In theory, I might eventually make it home. She hands me a hotel coupon (discounted, not comped… they cannot control the weather. This is a fair argument) and directs me to a shuttle headed that way.

10:48PM: I call Tim, who had every good intention of coming to get me, but the more we discussed it, the more ridiculous driving all hours into the night began to seem. It was too late to rent a car and just as expensive anyway. I book the hotel and attempt to hop a shuttle. In keeping on theme, the last shuttle of the night took off at 10:45.

11:00PM: My Uber driver, Bockrie, arrives. Bockrie, a very friendly but terribly confused young man from Sierra Leone of the tender age of maaaaaaybe 18, begins to make some questionable choices. Wrong turns. U-turns. General bewilderment. Muttering to himself about which way to go. At one point I find myself yelling, “NO! NO! DON’T GO DOWN THAT STREET! IT’S ONE-WAY!”

11:15PM: I fall into a fit of hysterical laughter in the backseat of Bockrie’s Toyota Camry. Hungry, tired, and frustrated, Bockrie is just the adorable, confused cherry on my travel sundae. Eventually, he will drop me off at the hotel. By pulling in through the exit gate.

12:00AM: I’m settled into a room at the Old Crown Plaza hotel in Alexandria. The water pressure is terrific, and the bed is comfortable enough, but the smoke detector has been detached from the wall, and I had to rearrange all the lamps in the room just to find one without a loose connection port that will actually charge my nearly-dead phone. But these are minor issues... At least I have a room. Roland, the super friendly desk clerk, tells me when I check in that many of the people the airport sends to them get sent BACK to the airport when they run out of rooms.

12:10AM: I ask Roland, the super friendly desk clerk, if there’s anywhere I can get a bite. He directs me to a bar about 4 blocks away. It’s a safe neighborhood - I hoof it. They don’t serve food. But they do have beer. This is more or less acceptable.

3:08PM (The following day): Zipping past the uneventful morning of shuttles, first legs and exceptionally chatty lawyers from Albany, here I am. 24 hours from the start of my journey, sitting in an empty airport terminal in Philadelphia on the world’s longest layover. There’s one more leg to this trip, and then I’ll be home. Of course, I still remember about 17 hours ago when that was also the case… But,  still... I remain optimistic. It is, after all, always sunny in Philadelphia. And there’s plenty of brotherly love and such. And besides, if Tom Hanks can live at JFK, I can surely live here if I need to, right?

Good thing they have beer.

"boom / OR," OR... The Best Thing No One Ever Saw

"I won't have one of those 'OR' titles... one of those greedy, get-it-all-in titles. 'The something-something OR what-you-something...' I don't care if the Great Man did it, they take up half the poster, and the typesetter charges by the word. Make up your mind and pick one, thank you." - Lady Davenant

In a near-impossible 3-page hulked-out monologue in OR, by Liz Duffy Adams, that line is mine. It arrives wedged in near the end - a breviloquent lesson on naming plays twice; a practice I became well versed in watching episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle as a kid. So, it's not without irony that I wrote my own title the way that I did.

We opened a show last night. boom by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. A genius little 3-person one-act (though to be fair, it runs about 80 minutes - it just doesn't have an intermission) about the end of the world. A straight up comet-explosion, apocalyptic, civilization-destroying end of the world comi-tragedy. And tonight, we'll open another - OR, - Liz Duffy Adam's even sexier, albeit somewhat ridiculous, Restoration Era door-slamming farce about spy/playwright/poetess Aphra Behn. And we'll do it with the same 3 cast members. Intriguing? Sure. But for an actor, the concept was all but mind-blowing.

When Generic Theater announced their season last year, I was taken in by a few things.

1.) A partnership with Double Dog Theater on this (these) show(s). Double Dog does undeniably interesting work, is run by some amazing, truly creative, and fun-to-work-with folks. Point boom/OR,. They also have a profit-sharing model for paying their actors and crew, which, let's face it, is a major bonus. Time = money, and if any of that comes back your way, it's basically like winning the lottery. Another point boom/OR,.

2.) The concept of 1cast/2plays was just difficult enough to understand that you can read the heightened concentration on Jeanette Rainey's face in the video as she struggles to make sense of what this event actually IS. Complicated theater that can't be readily explained by a cue card? Color me curious. Point boom/OR,.

3.) It looked like a CHALLENGE. I'm choosy about the shows I audition for - they're time consuming and I have a day job. And a significant other who eventually wonders where I've run off to. So, the things I ultimately audition for are things I know I will KICK MYSELF for not being a part of. And this was, without a doubt, exactly that. Great writing. Multiple roles on different sets. Repertory theater, which is essentially unheard of in this area. And repertory with the same actors and crew? Point boom/OR,. Basically all the points. I sucked it up, hauled that giant sack of points into an audition and laid them at the feet of our now-director Brendan Hoyle, who I'd recently declared a creative genius. (Don't tell him this, his head will swell, and we'll have to revoke the title and that will be the end of it.)

So, cut to now. Weeks of rehearsals and hundreds of lines memorized and nearly a dozen characters developed (well, hey there, multiple roles in one show!), we open. To a warm, receptive, engaging crowd. Of about 20 people. And that little red warning light that had been quietly blinking in the back of my head since before I even auditioned suddenly comes into focus. This show is a TOUGH SELL. While conceptually brilliant, well marketed (read about us here... and here... and here!) and doing everything it needs to be amazing... the fact remains. It's going to be a hard sell! The plays are basically brand new. Consider theater years in terms of dog years - the oldest of the shows was written only in 2008, which means most people have yet to even HEAR of this title yet. It's a gamble to pay for a ticket to a show you've never heard anything about. On top of that, there's a good chance you might not KNOW anyone in the cast... There are only 3 of us. And while that's a huge part of what makes this so conceptually amazing, I'm as guilty as anyone of not seeing local shows when I don't know anyone who's in them. Never heard of the show and no one's gonna be mad if I don't see it? I'll keep my $17, thanks. Maybe I'll go see a movie... I don't know Matthew McConaughey personally, but he looks like he could use my money. And those Hollywood studios are really struggling to make ends meet...

So, begins my point. (Did you see it coming...? I know, it nearly slipped right by in the subtlety, there.) There are amazing things happening that need your support, and boom/OR, juuuuuust might be one of those amazing things. And, oddly enough, this isn't about me for once! (WHAT?! I know!) Whereas I'm having a total blast, and I want people to come and be impressed with my ability to put on a bunch of different wigs and hats really fast (isn't that why people go into acting in the first place?), this is about something else. It's about recognizing something special... Something different... Something that might expand the definition of what art and theater is in this town. Something that's good for everyone! Support it now and you'll get to see more interesting things down the road. Actors and techies alike will be provided bigger and better opportunities to do things that stretch them, because it's already been proven that the community will hold up the ticketing end of the bargain.  

This might not be a life-altering experience... You'll see a play (two, if you like what you see and decide to catch them both), and you'll be hella entertained - because, let's face it, they're comedies and it's near impossible not to get a laugh or two out of it. BUT, support for something like this will benefit everyone. Actors, directors, crews, audiences... the whole flipping City of Norfolk and then some! But you have to come. Suck it up and drop the cash, because it's going to make all the difference in the world.

I can't encourage you enough to come out... Whether you want to (somewhat dramatically) change the course of history or not. :) We run for 3 weekends at Generic Theater down under Chrysler Hall in Norfolk, through February 15. I promise you will kick yourself for missing it.