The End of the North American Tour

Hello all!

Oh dear. So I’ve totally slacked and not updated in a while. I’m sitting right now in the Los Angeles airport, waiting for our flight to Hong Kong, which will then take us to Bangkok, Thailand. Fun times. But, while I’m waiting, I’m going to update everyone on the comings and goings of myself for the past week and a half.

So Wednesday and Thursday went well in the Woodlands. I continued with deck project on Wednesday, and we managed to get the frame almost all constructed, which left only the deck floor boards to be put on for Thursday. I, however, was not able to return the next day – I was signed out for vocals, catching back up from my advanced work break from the show and sort of “re-learning” the vocal parts for the show. That went well.

Friday was our regional learning day for The Woodlands. We went to a local lake and had a beach day all day. We played volleyball and ultimate Frisbee and swam for a while. It was great. The cast, however, didn’t quite take to heart the advice our staff gave about sunscreen, so a lot of us (including myself) found ourselves burnt. Thankfully, I wasn’t NEAR as burnt as I had been in Acapulco, so I got over it quickly. Overall, however, the day was an amazing time for us – a block of relaxation in an usually hectic schedule.

Saturday was show day for the cast, and for me the first show I had done since Mexico City. Needless to say, I was EXCITED! The entire day went by fast. I discovered Jamba Juice somewhere along the way, and had a fun talk with our assistant cast manager Scott Enebo. Rehearsal zoomed by, and soon it was time for the show. For me, it was a great show. We had about 1,500 people there, which I thought was a good turn out. We were only allowed to sell 3,000 tickets, and the facility was gorgeous – a HUGE amphitheatre. It was great to get back onto stage and re-engage into the show – a show that I thought was going to be the biggest challenge of this Up with People experience.

Sunday brought our host family day in The Woodlands. I spent the morning catching up on some z’s, and then the afternoon relaxing (obviously not updating my blog because here I am a week later). That evening, Leo and I went with our host family for some dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant in Houston, which was delicious. After that, we went to “The Wedding Singer” the nationally traveling Broadway production. It was amazing!! I really enjoyed it, even though I haven’t seen the movie. The music was great, I after being in Up with People I could really appreciate the technical side of putting a production like that on.

Monday brought travel day to Plano, which was fun and uneventful. When we arrived, we were able to spend an hour and a half at the local YMCA swimming and working or just relaxing. It was great. After that, we changed into our nice clothes and took out some blind folds. For our allocation in this city, we were going to experience it all blindfolded. From getting our luggage off the bus to finding our host families, it all had to be done without the use of our crutch sight. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience. Thankfully, I did not run into anything and hurt myself. And I was able to find my host family with relative ease. But it did make the entire process a LOT longer, and far more educational than it normally is. Once I arrived at my host family’s place, I got to take off my blindfold and “meet” them. My host mom’s name is Mary Reeves, and her husband is Steve. They both are amazing people and really made our last U.S. city experience amazing. I was roomed with Kyle DeGraff, the son of the Up with People Midwest Coordinator. I found out once I got there that Kyle’s parents would be joining us for the week at our host family’s home, making it one full house!

Tuesday was Regional Learning day in Dallas. We toured around the art district in downtown Dallas, and learned about its history. After that, an afternoon-long presentation on world hunger and poverty. While the presentation was long, and full of some amazing and ghastly information, some statistics that stuck in my head were that 1.2 BILLION people live on less than a $1 a day, and 1.6 BILLION people live on less than $2 a day. That is staggering to think about. We hear about stuff like this all the time, but its not often when the information sets in like it did on Tuesday. Just how widespread world hunger and poverty really is. Just how PREVENTABLE it all is. The top 20% in the world use 80% of the world’s resources. While I believe in people working for their own, there’s a point where we all must say that something’s wrong here when we look at this statistic. We finished the afternoon/evening with a hunger banquet, where half of our group had nothing but salt water and cold rice to eat, a third had warm rice and beans to eat with juice, and the rest had a full-out restaurant-style meal, after which all the extra food was thrown away. We all sat and ate this meal together, all next to each other (though segregated into our groups). It an interesting experience, one that I had done before at the University of South Dakota Newman Center. I could tell that it really made people think about how much they order and then DON’T eat at restaurants.

Wednesday and Thursday were CI days for the cast. I was on Stand For Peace, working in 4th grade classrooms. I had fun there, and it was fun to get back to that form of CI since I hadn’t done it in a long while. The afternoons on both days had BTS’s for the students at the school, which went great. On Wednesday, the entire staff were in a day-long meeting so we had to run the BTS by ourselves. I, personally, enjoyed this because I felt like I could take some personal initiative in all of this instead of just taking directions from the staff and carrying them out. It was fun! We did, however, find out that one of our staff members, Kristina Henry, would not be joining us on our trip to Thailand. She had interviewed for a position at Cirque de Sole and was offered the job. The only catch was that it would start on Tuesday. So, with regretful tears, she informed the cast that she would be seeing us off on Monday morning when we took our flight to Thailand, and she would get on her own flight to join Cirque de Sole.

Friday and Saturday were show days for the cast, and for us the last chance to make Kristina proud of us. Not that she wasn’t proud before, but I’m sure you get the picture. As Gabe, our show manager, put it once, Kristina is like our coach cheering us on, guiding us along, and giving us feedback to be better. So our Friday show came together nicely, but it still lacked a certain flare of passion. The message was there, since its part of the show, but the feeling behind it wasn’t quite on. Saturday came, and we spent the morning putting on an expression session – a chance for the cast to show off their talents and abilities they haven’t been able to before. That went off well, and really gave the cast a chance to relax and appreciate one another. Rehearsal came and went in the afternoon, and before we knew it Green Room was upon us. After we welcomed our guests and played some games, the mood turned emotionally serious. First, we invited Stan, our North American bus driver, to come to the center of the room so we could recognize him and say our goodbyes. Since we’d be going to Thailand, he wouldn’t be able to come with us. It was hard for both us and him to say goodbye. Many people have coined us the “welcoming cast” because we try and do just that – welcome everyone in. Stan wasn’t just our bus driver – he was a part of our cast. And we had to say goodbye.

After a large hug and gift presentation to Stan, we invited Kristina Henry to the center of the room. The air quickly thickened with the tears of many, especially the staff who had not only worked with her for the past few years but TRAVELED with her in A06. After a moment of emotion, Kristina said that she had been asked to read a poem of hers that she had written a few years ago when she was a student in Up with People – a poem she had read to us during staging but I had forgotten about. That poem was the one used in the song “Power With” we perform during our show. She then read her poem in its full-version, since the one we use in the show is abbreviated for its length. The words rang sharply in our ears, and I for the first time really heard the feeling behind it. Perhaps it was because the author was reading it, but it was a powerful moment. We broke from Green Room, determined to make Kristina cry by the end of the show (one of our little goals). I went through my normal progressions in the show, and soon enough I found myself out on stage for “Power With,” which is where we are miming people in verbal arguments with each other. I remember at one point looking behind me and seeing Kristina on stage, and I thought myself how cool that was that she got to be ON STAGE to perform one last time with Up with People. We progressed through the song, and during a break dance interlude, I found myself looking around for Vivia to come up onto the risers and give the poem lines after the break dance, but I couldn’t find her. I turned back towards the audience, silently worrying that something was wrong, but then turned back to see Kristina standing powerfully on the top riser, microphone in hand. And as her voice began to speak the words, “We’ve been walking through life blind…” a wonderful sensation of irony filled me and I tried my best not to smile. After all, who best to speak these words than the author herself?

“We’ve been walking through life blind, suffering of seclusion from other mankind, can we ask the questions to find the answers to bring this world back together, we are all mankind, a mammal so divine, we are one and strong we can be, if we open up our eyes and let our hearts be free.”

This was surely one of the most powerful moments I have ever been a part of.



The show ended as quickly as it always does. Kristina found her way back to her tech position at the back of the house right after “Power With,” but not before being hugged or congratulated by nearly everyone in the cast. We all realized how great of a moment that was – how special that was.

Strike and interviews came. I did an interview and finished the paperwork for it in time to lend a hand on the last strike of Cast A. In Thailand, we’re not allowed to do any set-up or strike for our show – only direct Thai workers – so this show was our last strike. After we loaded up the truck, and Kristina ceremoniously locked the door, the three tech staff climbed to the top of the truck and gave a beautiful speech to us all and each other. Then they popped open three bottles of champagne and sprayed all of us below. Fun times. But, we did get our revenge. As I mentioned before, Gabe considered Kristina to be our coach, so we did to her what many championship teams do to THEIR coaches – we filled up a water cooler and doused her with it. I’ll attach a video of it as soon as I can – perhaps its there already. Look below. Needless to say, it gave us all a great way to end the evening with warm smiles and strong laughs.

Host family day came, my roommate Kyle and I spent the morning in church with our host mom and dad. After that, we went to see the new movie “Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”. I thought it was good – three out of four stars, I think. Definitely better than the first. After a great dinner of Mexican food, we went back and I began packing for my next big adventure – Thailand! After packing everything up, we loaded up our family’s vehicle and went to the Plano Chamber of Commerce at about 9:30 p.m. After some warm goodbyes, we unloaded our stuff, and went inside for Thailand prep and North American wrap-up. After a few hours of all this, we loaded the buses up at 3:30 a.m. and headed to the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. We said goodbye once more to Stan, and proceeded through bag check-in and carry-on check in. We boarded our plane to Denver and took off at about 6:40 a.m., arriving there about an hour or so later. Flying into Denver was a bit surreal and nostalgic. I had the same approach as what I did back in January when I was first arriving – it was hard to imagine that so much had happened in between then and now. After we landed in Denver, we hopped right back onto a connecting flight to L.A., which lasted a couple hours. I tried to sleep a bit, but it didn’t work too well. Once we arrived, we had to grab our luggage and then hang out at the airport for about 13 hrs. before our next flight took off at 11:30 p.m. This was a relaxing, though sleepless experience. Still, I was able to get my taste of American food satisfied – I had McDonald’s for lunch, and some meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner. Mmmmm. And now I’m sitting in Gate 120 at L.A., waiting for our flight to leave. Our flight will last about 12 hrs. and put us in Hong Kong. From there, we get a connecting flight to Bangkok. We’ll go through customs, and then climb aboard buses to drive about 10 hrs. to Chang Rai, Thailand – which is in the far north. Honestly, I have NO idea what time of day it will be, but I have a bad feeling it will be during the hot, humid day when we’re on the bus, which will not make for a fun ride. Still, though, we’ll be in Thailand finally – and that’ll make it worth it.

I’m not sure what internet access will be like in Thailand. In fact, I’m hoping I can get this up sometime before I arrive, but its looking doubtful. But still, I’ll hope for Hong Kong. Either way, I’ll do my best to blog about the wrap up of Cast A’s tour around the world. June 16th marks the day we all go our separate ways from Thailand, and I have no doubt that it will come too soon.

Until my next post!

Dan