Tour to France

After a brief stop on the East Coast to dump most of my belongings, repack into a smaller suitcase, and pick up plenty of props and show equipment, it was off to France with the show from Edinburgh last year.

A week in St. Etienne, down by Lyon, would be followed by three weeks in Paris. It's a highly ambitious show to load in, but we had a great team, and we knew what we were doing, after Edinburgh. The show had also gone to the London Mime Festival in January, while I was on ships.


So off to St. Etienne, to work exclusively in French, loading in a full convenience store into some kind of performance space. We weren't sure exactly where we were performing. We knew it was the Palais des spectacles, but exactly where in the 6-acre building, we didn't know.


The team we met there was a little overfaced by what we proposed to do. We needed to install a full ceiling, floor and walls. Plus very specific lighting and sound plots, and intricate rigging for all of the tricks of the play. Like our ducks that need to fly through the ceiling. I think they thought our french was just very bad...




But the magic of theater prevailed, and despite constant doubts on our part, we opened on time. The actors did the entire show in French, changing the script over into a different language. We performed in a wildly different space from anything the show had seen before. And we performed despite deafeningly loud rain beating on the roof of our venue, drowning out the subtle and silent sound design, and breaking the actors' voices as they tried to yell over the chaos.

We played to sold out houses, and were well received. And three days later, we struck it and headed to Paris.