Bourbon Street Is Just Around The Corner...

Today has been a DAY.

Let us begin by taking note of the fact that it is almost 4am, and I am just getting home for the night.  A large portion of the cast and crew is still out enjoying the fruits of New Orleans most infamous strip, and I'm pretty sure they'll just be finishing off the biggest plate of chili-cheese fries I've ever beheld.   We'll come to that.


Tech is still going strong.  There have been rewrites and altered blocking, but nothing too outrageous.  The real highlight of the rehearsal day came at dinner break:

Do not adjust your computer screen.  That is, in fact, a freshly fried doughnut ice cream sandwich topped with BANANAS FOSTER.  

There is a food, beer, craft, and music festival this weekend at the park around the corner from our hotel. For $7 I had a Po'Boy with pork belly, crispy shrimp, pickled cabbage and spicy remoulade.  I followed that up with shrimp-stuffed jalapenos and fried blueberry pie.  We are planning on attending every day this weekend, if possible.  

Gil enjoyed the live music with a sensible glass of red: 

He then proceeded to get completely wasted on Abita Amber:

And at last, he was found in a rather compromising position with Karla:

Needless to say, it was an excellent dinner break.  Refreshed and ready, we took to the stage for a few more hours of notes, lights, and costumes.  Here's a fun candid of a few cast members during "Death Is Just Around the Corner" : 

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Its important to highlight that, for most of us, we haven't had an opportunity to go out and have a good time.  So when Ted said he had a great idea for a place to go in the French Quarter, most of the cast (and a good deal of stage management) came along for the ride.

Now, unless you've been living under a rock your whole life, you know that Bourbon Street and most of the surrounding area is pretty seedy.  Its a long stretch of ground populated by extremely drunk bachelor/bachelorette parties zigzagging between corner bars selling sugary, frozen drinks in plastic to-go cups.  The perfect place to let loose after a very long rehearsal day and not worry about annoying the neighbors.

Ted's bar was okay.  There was outdoor seating, but the drinks?  Hurricanes and Voodoo?  Let's check the glossary, shall we?

HURRICANE: White rum, dark rum, 151 rum, some more rum, someone else's half-drunk rum, and a dash of canned fruit juice.  The juice usually overflows from the top, so you're left with a big plastic cup of rums with a cherry floating in it.  Rebecca called it "a hangover in a glass."  We'll check in with her tomorrow - I believe she had a hurricane and a grenade (some frozen, green apple flavored, deadly-looking thing).

VOODOO: Questionable amounts of grain alcohol blended with ice and what I swear was either de-fizzed grape soda or Dimetapp.   This drink tastes like grape death.  Don't do it.

You can imagine how this night went.  After hurricanes and voodoo, Doug bought rounds of tequila and Jameson for those that wanted.  We trolled the main drag, thrilled with our circumstances, until Sarah started catching beads from people on the second level:

There were beads a'plenty.  I guess they only enforce the boobs=beads rule on Mardi Gras?

We continued on into a dive bar playing 90's rap and serving beer.  While the ladies danced, Brad was accosted by a beast of a waitress toting shots in tubes.  She shoved the shots down his throat, then pulled his face into her voluminous bosom.  After all that, she demanded $8.  In Brad's own words, "I was raped."  

To cap off this eventful evening, we hit a bar serving food until 3am.  As if you needed reminding: CHILI-CHEESE FRIES.

The moral of the story is two-fold:
* Always go to local events involving food and live music - you're bound to have a good time.
* Never accept alcohol from the nasty-looking waitress in the dive bar on Bourbon Street - you're bound to lose $8.