DIRTY ROTTEN COLUMBIA, MO

"Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" on tour...

We've played theatres that are short on wing space. We've played theatres that are short on dressing room space. We've played theatres that are, well...., primitive when it comes to backstage facilities. We've played theatres that have not and will not ever be properly equipped to deal with performers of any kind, or with shows that involve more than one back wall and sofa as the set. Rarely, however, have we played a theatre that wraps all of these dubious qualifications into one.

Most notable, here in Columbia, are the dressing rooms...there are two of them....and two only. There are 19 of us using two, not-so-large, arena-style dressing rooms. And in these primitive dressing rooms are the make up mirrors which were obviously purchased from a defunct fun house. They are made of some kind of really cheap, wildly warped acrylic which makes your face and body look like a Picasso painting. The reflection offered by these pseudo looking-glass plates is so untrue that the girls eventually give up trying to perfect their faces and the boys spend a good ten minutes looking at their full body reflections, giggling like 8 year olds. The bathrooms (there are only two, one for each gender) are down the hall and our company manager's office is a folding table in the paint shop/laundry room/pass-thru-to-the-orchestra-pit. There are lots of reasons to be in show biz. I'm in it for the glamour.

We have a day off here in Columbia, but we are stranded, yet again, on the outskirts of the city. Not that it really matters because even if one were feeling adventurous, there are very few options that come up if one googles "things to do in Columbia". It is a day for rest, relaxation, and organizing future projects. I wander around the nearby mall for as long as I can take the vapid, slack-jawed creatures who inhabit the place before retreating to the hotel.

Seven-thirty a.m. bus call in the morning. The injustice of it all is eased by the fact that we are flying to Galveston, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, where the temperatures are hovering in the 80's.