The Cast Get Sporty in Charlotte and Celebrate Halloween in Atlanta!

Charlotte, North Carolina was an unexpectedly competitive week for the company. We ended up staying just outside the city near the University of North Carolina Charlotte campus. Our hotel had a lovely, big pond behind it which was bordered on the far side by a boardwalk and several really nice restaurants. The pond was peaceful during most of our stay except for Thursday when we had an organized paddle boat race on it. The participants were split into teams of two, and three teams raced against each other in each heat. The winning team of each heat then got to race in the finals and prizes (including blow-up swim rings, instant soup packets and hotel toiletries!) were awarded for the top three places.

The company usually has a fancy dress party for Halloween but this year the fact that Halloween falls on a travel day prevented us from having a party. So instead, on the Saturday night in Charlotte we had a pumpkin carving contest. Hollowing out pumpkins and carving pictures or faces on them is traditional in North America but for some of the cast members from other countries this was the first time they had tried it. We had carvers from England, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Russia, Canada and America. First place ended up being a tie between and intricately carved trio of ghosts created by tapper Aaron Tolson and Russian dancer Anna Brovkina and her daughter, Katia and an elaborate re-creation of one of the scenes from the show complete with a pumpkin-headed female lead dancer which was created by Irish dancer Justin Ryan.

The final contest of the week took place on Sunday before the matinee. A group went to a nearby park to fit in a round of Frisbee golf. The course was a beautiful path through a wooded area and the goal was to accurately sail Frisbees through the air, avoiding obstacles, and hit various targets. Our medical officer, Scott Lamb ended up beating out Mary Jo Clark for first place but I'm sure, given the opportunity, there will be a rematch to come.

We traveled to Atlanta, Georgia on Halloween and many of the cast members took the opportunity to dress up for travel day. Wearing witch hats, tiger tails, cat ears and even a butterfly costume we made the four hour trip to Atlanta and arrived in the afternoon with enough time to enjoy the day. The city is one the oldest in the south, dating back to pre-civil war times and a lot of the architecture reflects that period in history. Our hotel was one such building and is a part of a national register of historic hotels. It was great to stay in such a beautiful, old building and even better that it was located right across the street from the theatre and in the middle of the downtown area of Atlanta. The theatre itself has a lot of character seen in the decorative walls and gold detailing and a ceiling that glows blue like a night sky. The most unique thing about playing in this theatre is the organ player. Before every show a big gold organ rises up out of the floor in front of the stage and a man plays it for about 20 minutes. We're onstage behind the curtain at this point finishing up our warm up so we got a chance to hear him every night. He plays an array of old show tunes like "That's Entertainment" and "There's No Business Like Show Business" but also medleys of some newer shows like The Sound Of Music, Annie, and Phantom of the Opera. It's amazing to hear and we had a fun time singing along with the tunes as we got ready for the show.

On Tuesday night we attended a wonderful party in the ballroom upstairs at the theatre. It was a celebration of the 10 plus years that Riverdance has been going on and it was put on for us by a local man. The party included a magician, tarot card reader, entertainment, great southern food, and a raffle for great prizes like ipods, free car rentals, and free airplane tickets. We were also treated to a performance by a local family called the Murphys who have adopted 23 children with Downs Syndrome. The kids prepared an excellent gymnastics/dance routine for us and performed it at the start of the night. We had a great night and it was lots of fun watching the kids and exchanging hugs and smiles after their show.