Hitler's head in a box (spolier alert!)

I once Company managed a European tour of 'Carmen Jones'. The tour ran for two months and consisted of a series of one night stands throughout Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and Denmark. 


We played every style of venue from ancient old opera houses in the former East Germany to farmyard barns. The british cast and  Brataslavian orchestra travelled from town to town by coach with the technical crew going on ahead by mini-bus and lorry. 

The south of Germany proved to be somewhat racist at that time which was challenging to our black cast. The predominently meat based German diet was a minefield for the vegetarians in the group as even the vegetable soup had chunks of pork floating in it. We had coach break-ins, illnesses, lorry fires and defections from the tour. Bob, our percussionist was late for the band-call in Frankfurt, I called him on his mobile "Hi Bob. We're about to start the band call, where are you?" "Croydon" came the reply. He'd had enough and had just headed to the airport that morning!

If you look up the word 'arduous' in the encyclopedia, there is a cast photo from that tour.

Most of the coach journeys were hours long and in the pre-smart-phone era, the only reading material were a few english books and magazines. There was a paperback copy of a book doing the rounds.  It was called The Day After Tomorrow, a thriller by Allan Folsom  a best seller of the day and there was a long waiting list to borrow the well thumbed copy. 

Terry, our DSM had coupled up with the talented and handsome Musical Director David, they made a sweet loved up couple. On this particular day, we had all piled on the coach early as we had a long  journey from one German hell-hole to the next.  We all sat bleary eyed as we sped past kilometers of spruce trees wondering what today's venue would have in store for us. David watched as Terry rummaged around in his bag and produced the prized copy of The Day After Tomorrow. Terry opened the front cover of the book he had waitied weeks for and settled back in his seat to savor every word. "Oh, you got the Day After Tomorrow?..." said David from across the aisle. Terry nodded affirmatively "Good story...Hitler's head in a box!"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Oh What a Night

Image
John and Carl were my favourite production carpenters. John was usually accompanied by his spaniel Ben and when he wasn't using the skill-saw, he was either rolling, relighting or smoking a fag. The pair used to turn up at venues in John's battered old Land-rover full of tools. He was once pulled at customs travelling back from Europe. The sniffer dogs were all over the car and drug enforcement officers virtually tore the vehicle apart in their search. It was after an hour or so that John pointed out that ropes which he always carried at least one shank of in the back of the land-rover was made from hemp and given that this was the same plant family, may explain why the sniffer dogs were going beserk! We were on stage at the Blackpool Opera House during the fit-up of 'Oh What a Night!'. Set in New York in the 70's, the show had been commissioned by Apollo Leisure to play the summer season in Blackpools permier venue. 70s icon David Soul and Take That's Jason...
Read more

6th December 1988 - Goodbye Big O

Image
I walked out onto the stage of the Alexandria Theatre Birmingham. It was dress rehearsal day and the band-call was due to start at 9.30. 'Snow White' was my first professional engagement as Lighting Designer. We had plotted the show and had spent a couple of days doing technical rehearsals so I was confident that the lighting looked good. To be honest, Terry Parson's set was so sumptuous, you only needed to turn on the working lights to make it sparkle. Several members of the band were setting up their gear in the pit. We had all woken up to the news that Roy Orbison had died in the early hours of the morning at the age of 52. Back on top thanks to his involvement in the Travelling Willburys it was a tragically young age to pass. The MD arrived at the rail clutching the band-parts "Did you hear about the Big O?". A few responses of "Yeah. What a shame" "He was one of a kind". I was walking upstage checking that none of my cross lights...
Read more