Chicago Wanderings
Travel Updates
As you dear readers can see from our last few entries, blogs are really only private squabbles made public. Well, I’ll toe the line and keep the political ruminations to a minimum. Here’s my Chicago blow by blow followed by Leigh’s Stratford update.
Leigh and I dropped Penny off at the airport near Cedar Rapids around 3:30 pm Monday, July 11th, after a final meal at the Hamburg Inn and the requisite tee shirt purchase. We then doubled back, passed Iowa City and headed east. An uneventful four hours later we parked in front of 1716 Grace Street, a few blocks north of Addison and a few blocks west of Clark Street in the West Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago Illinois.
Wendi W., the long time company member of Riverside Shakespeare Festival who had decided to stay in Chicago this summer, thereby opening up an Equity spot for Leigh to occupy, met us at the door. She brought us upstairs to her neighbor’s apartment, which they had generously offered for use while they we’re out of town. It was a large, well-decorated one bedroom, which was much more comfortable than the pull out couch we had anticipated. We all walked to a nearby restaurant and had a late dinner and then back to the apartment and to bed.
The next morning we set off on foot in the direction of my old neighborhood near Belmont Street and Halsted. I had lived there the year I worked for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Ballet Chicago, which was my last year Stage Managing before entering Grad School for acting. We went south to Addison and then headed east, and before long the shadow of Wrigley Field engulfed us. I showed Leigh where the brownstone of the then tech director for the Goodman Theatre was located. Since the days when I was in Chicago they have built huge bleacher type structures on top of these poor brownstones and are probably selling tickets in competition with the Cubs owners. A decade and a half ago there was a grill, astro-turf, and a bunch of lawn chairs up on the various roofs, and all you needed to get up there was to know a tenant. Ah, the innocent days of bygone enthusiasms.
We kept heading west on Addison to Halstead and then turned south. I lived on a one-block street that runs parallel to Halstead named Elaine Place. My roommate, Ken B. was an assistant director who went to LA directly after and ended up writing for the Star Trek Next Generation series. Elaine Place has two large sculptures at the south end of the street. They are twenty-five foot tall giraffe’s made out of car bumpers welded together. On several occasions after opening night parties one of us would find our way up the giraffe’s sloping hindquarters and sit triumphantly on its back. We were younger then.
Leigh was having trouble with the camera battery so we have a shot of the building I was in but none of the Giraffes. But they’re there, believe me. Why would I lie about a thing like that? We continued south on Halstead and then West on Belmont where we landed for breakfast at a place now called Clarks. It was the Belmont Diner way back when. It’s situated right next to the Belmont stoop on the Ell train. Leigh fell in love with my Swedish pancakes but eschewed the boysenberries they came with. After being defeated by the large portions they apparently are famous for, we (I almost said hopped) waddled onto the brown line heading toward the loop.
Downtown Chicago was vibrant on this overcast summer workday. We headed to the building where the Lyric Opera is housed on Wacker Drive by the river. After walking around the surrounding blocks and over the river a couple of times we went into the building and up to the eighth floor to the Opera’s offices. The receptionist told us that the technical director, Drew L. was away until the end of the month. They are off-season in the late spring and early summer. He is the only person I can remember who was still on staff. I left him a voice message and away we went.
We met up with Jenny the stagemanager from Iowa and headed to Millennium Park, which is spectacular. A huge amphitheatre dominates the parks design. Central park would be greatly enhanced with something along these lines. It would certainly make the concerts on the great lawn more pleasant and acoustically satisfying. We ended our tour by walking up Michigan Avenue’s miracle mile, which is a cross between the size of New Yorks Park Ave and the shopping on Madison.
The night was taken up with dinner with our fellow company member Pauli and his girl Kim at a Japanese place called Y2K and then home. The next morning would require an early start and about eight hours of driving, which would land us in St. Mary’s Ontario, a few miles down the road from Stratford and its legendary Shakespeare festival.
DF
As you dear readers can see from our last few entries, blogs are really only private squabbles made public. Well, I’ll toe the line and keep the political ruminations to a minimum. Here’s my Chicago blow by blow followed by Leigh’s Stratford update.
Leigh and I dropped Penny off at the airport near Cedar Rapids around 3:30 pm Monday, July 11th, after a final meal at the Hamburg Inn and the requisite tee shirt purchase. We then doubled back, passed Iowa City and headed east. An uneventful four hours later we parked in front of 1716 Grace Street, a few blocks north of Addison and a few blocks west of Clark Street in the West Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago Illinois.
Wendi W., the long time company member of Riverside Shakespeare Festival who had decided to stay in Chicago this summer, thereby opening up an Equity spot for Leigh to occupy, met us at the door. She brought us upstairs to her neighbor’s apartment, which they had generously offered for use while they we’re out of town. It was a large, well-decorated one bedroom, which was much more comfortable than the pull out couch we had anticipated. We all walked to a nearby restaurant and had a late dinner and then back to the apartment and to bed.
The next morning we set off on foot in the direction of my old neighborhood near Belmont Street and Halsted. I had lived there the year I worked for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Ballet Chicago, which was my last year Stage Managing before entering Grad School for acting. We went south to Addison and then headed east, and before long the shadow of Wrigley Field engulfed us. I showed Leigh where the brownstone of the then tech director for the Goodman Theatre was located. Since the days when I was in Chicago they have built huge bleacher type structures on top of these poor brownstones and are probably selling tickets in competition with the Cubs owners. A decade and a half ago there was a grill, astro-turf, and a bunch of lawn chairs up on the various roofs, and all you needed to get up there was to know a tenant. Ah, the innocent days of bygone enthusiasms.
We kept heading west on Addison to Halstead and then turned south. I lived on a one-block street that runs parallel to Halstead named Elaine Place. My roommate, Ken B. was an assistant director who went to LA directly after and ended up writing for the Star Trek Next Generation series. Elaine Place has two large sculptures at the south end of the street. They are twenty-five foot tall giraffe’s made out of car bumpers welded together. On several occasions after opening night parties one of us would find our way up the giraffe’s sloping hindquarters and sit triumphantly on its back. We were younger then.
Leigh was having trouble with the camera battery so we have a shot of the building I was in but none of the Giraffes. But they’re there, believe me. Why would I lie about a thing like that? We continued south on Halstead and then West on Belmont where we landed for breakfast at a place now called Clarks. It was the Belmont Diner way back when. It’s situated right next to the Belmont stoop on the Ell train. Leigh fell in love with my Swedish pancakes but eschewed the boysenberries they came with. After being defeated by the large portions they apparently are famous for, we (I almost said hopped) waddled onto the brown line heading toward the loop.
Downtown Chicago was vibrant on this overcast summer workday. We headed to the building where the Lyric Opera is housed on Wacker Drive by the river. After walking around the surrounding blocks and over the river a couple of times we went into the building and up to the eighth floor to the Opera’s offices. The receptionist told us that the technical director, Drew L. was away until the end of the month. They are off-season in the late spring and early summer. He is the only person I can remember who was still on staff. I left him a voice message and away we went.
We met up with Jenny the stagemanager from Iowa and headed to Millennium Park, which is spectacular. A huge amphitheatre dominates the parks design. Central park would be greatly enhanced with something along these lines. It would certainly make the concerts on the great lawn more pleasant and acoustically satisfying. We ended our tour by walking up Michigan Avenue’s miracle mile, which is a cross between the size of New Yorks Park Ave and the shopping on Madison.
The night was taken up with dinner with our fellow company member Pauli and his girl Kim at a Japanese place called Y2K and then home. The next morning would require an early start and about eight hours of driving, which would land us in St. Mary’s Ontario, a few miles down the road from Stratford and its legendary Shakespeare festival.
DF
posted by LW | 7:43 AM
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