Hey everyone,
Good morning, or should I say 'Top of the mornin t'ya' - although Irish people don't actually say that to my knowledge.
I am sat in Starbucks in the shopping centre in Derry in Northern Ireland where we have been with the show since Tuesday!!! I'm actually sat here with Danny who plays Mike in the show but I told him I need to be rude and ignore him while I write my Blog! Although he is eating a delicious looking mince pie and I want one too - it's already becoming a distraction!
Anyway....
So we opened on Tuesday to the most unreal crowd!!! We have never had such a reaction - it was like an episode of Friends with the canned laughter, then ridiculous cheers and whooping and applause at the end of every number, the show was about 6 minutes longer just because of audience reaction - which means the Band members were happy as they get over-time payment if the show exceeds 3 hours haha!
This whole week really has been about our end of tour party which was held at the amazing Waterfoot Hotel here in Derry on Thursday night which was also the night of the Oklahoma Golden Cob Awards! It was an incredible night full of great food, lots of drunken folk, pictures and videos on a projector screen, and lots and lots laughing!!!
I am proud to say I came away clutching a Golden Cob award. I had been nominated and won the category for 'Best Entrance/Exit' - There is a bit in the show where everybody is at the annual box social and it's the auctioning of the girls hampers - people start bidding for the hamper of Laurey (my love interest in the show) and when my rival for her affection Judd Fry starts to bid I get worried and decide to go and get the saddle off my horse Dunn to sell to bid a higher amount of money than him - you with me so far?! So there is a tense moment of silence as I pierce a threatening look into his eyes before I turn acting really cool to exit the stage to fetch the saddle- however in one venue the stage was particularly narrow and I turned and literally smacked my face and whole body into the pros arch which is the solid wing at the side which frames the whole stage and in our show it's in a light blue colour to replicate the sky! There was no way to disguise it - the whole company were laughing as were the entire audience! So I got the award for 'accidentally walking into the sky upon my exit!'
The awards were amazing though they were made by one of our stage management guys Will Tse! He's a genius! It will be on my mantle piece as soon as I get home!!!
The highlight of the evening however was the premier of the 'Oklahoma Presents Lady Gaga and Beyonce's Telephone video'!
For the majority of this year the entire company of Oklahoma have been working hard on re-creating the entire 10 minute music video which was famously premiered and so hugely popular earlier this year when Lady Gaga and Beyonce released their great song, Telephone!!! It took a lot of time and effort and organisation particularly from Gemma Sutton and Chris Gardner, between sorting out the casting, costumes, technical requirements not to mention working out which location to use for each section of the shoot which is very difficult when you are only in each venue on tour for 5 days!!! But it was shown at the party on the big screen for the first time to everyone in the company and it exceeded everyone's expectation and really is in my opinion a MASSIVE achievement! Touring life is not easy and to achieve something like this on top of performing over 240 shows in over 33 different cities over 34 weeks is AMAZING!!! I am very proud of everyone involved and am going to post it on my facebook fanpage BUT........... BE WARNED - It does contain explicit language and also I am on there looking like what can only be described as a terrifying tranny about to drop into the gutter - I will never attempt to be Lady Gaga again!!!
Please watch the video on my facebook fanpage and if you don't get it all - YouTube the original by Gaga and Beyonce and you'll see just how accurate ours is whilst keeping the true Oklahoma style!!! Enjoy it!!! It's funny!!!
So today we lose a few company members who are not able to come to Trieste in Italy with us next week as it was an additional week to the original contract- those people will be missed and we are sad we couldn't have kept all together until the end - Gary Davis, Ste Clough, Rachel Williams, Ed Bussey and for me the biggest loss for the end of my tour personally is Laura Bradbury who is our wardrobe mistress, but she is also the person who has spent approximately 120 hours of her time this year curling my hair - she is a great gal and has been a big help to me in getting me in the mood to do the show when I'm feeling tired or under the weather just by having a laugh in my dressing room!!!
Laura is setting up her own business called 'Just Sew Perfect' which is going to be based around Manchester - she will be specializing in alterations for bridal-wear and will also be available for dressing the brides and bridesmaids on the wedding day and will be working in conjunction, if desired by the client, with her make up artist friend who will come and make the morning of the wedding very special - she's a wonderfully talented lovely girl who deserves every success so if you are getting married or know of a friend who is, Laura's website will be launched in the new year so keep your eyes pealed!!!
I can't believe we only have 9 performances left - It only seems a couple of weeks ago when we were all discussing how we were entering single figures with how many WEEKS we had left!!! It's gone so quickly yet still been a lot of hard work so the fact that after today we will only have 7 left to perform and that those will be in Italy fills me with mixed feelings I suppose - I have loved this opportunity to play such an incredible role and one that's iconic in musical theatre and is one of the most famous roles written by Rogers And Hammerstein but I am also absolutely cream crackered and have been ready to get back to London and stop being on the road for a good few weeks now so the way I look at the end of this tour is that it was an ideal length of time, I'm so glad it happened and I shall miss it but am ready for a change!!!
And what a change it will be too- once I have tried on my complete outfit for 'Marcaroni' I will post a picture on my facebook page - it's a 'slightly' different look to Curly in Oklahoma!!! Haha!
Right I'm off to work - I imagine this afternoon some of the cast will be attempting to play a few pranks on other cast members as it's an old musical theatre tradition (within reason) to have a little fun on the last matinee of a long running show and attempt to make the other people on stage laugh, or look silly or change something for comic effect etc providing nothing is different as far as the audience who are seeing it for the first time is concerned! I have nothing planned personally but am pretty certain there'll be a few jokes played today - it's not our official last matinee but it's our last one in the UK so I'm looking forward to a good fun show!!!
Anyway I think people are waiting for me to leave Starbucks as it's busy here and I finished my Frappuccino ages ago and can feel people giving me evils from the counter - what a welcome!!!
I hope all is well with you wonderful people who are reading this,
Keep smiling because this life is too short and we should embrace each moment as much as possible!!!
Love your lives
Mark
To find out more about Mark and his career visit his official website at http://www.markevansonline.co.uk/
