Hello, there.

My name is Scott Charles Adams, and I'm the Assistant Director of Scooter Thomas Makes It to the Top of the World, as well as the husband of the director, Nikolette Adams.

I know ... it sounds rather suspicious, doesn't it? As in, "Is this guy really qualified to Assistant Direct, or did he get the job because he's married to the director?" And I guess my only defense is that I'm a writer, and Mrs. Adams feels I understand characters well enough to give me a shot at Second Banana. At least, that's the line she gave me, although I secretly suspect that she included me in this because I can lift heavy things.

Similarly, I was also chosen to write this Travel Log either because of my writing experience or because I type really, really fast.

I'll let you be the judge of that.

DAY ONE

Our first day started, quite naturally, with our drive to Happenin' Altoona, Pennsylvania. We split our group into four cars. Nikki, David Micun (playing 'Scooter'), and Kevin Paul (playing 'Dennis') were in one car; Patti Keefer (producer), Jim Billow (Patti's boyfriend), and Daniel Boris (stage crew) were in another; Joe Scott (stage manager) drove alone; and Bob Broadbent (technical consultant) drove the rental truck with me.

Poor, poor Bob.

I can't say with any measure of certainty what took place in those other vehicles. I would imagine that someone navigated for the driver, using the directions I'd gotten from the Internet. I'd also imagine that a great deal of chit-chat went on in those other cars. Five hours in a metal box moving at 70 miles-per-hour does afford one the opportunity to get to know people better.

Bob, however, only had me.

Poor, poor Bob.

Bob did all the talking--this was partly because I couldn't hear a word he was saying over the sound of the truck, and partly because the part of my brain that's supposed to allow me to chit-chat is severely underdeveloped. That is, Bob did all the talking until we were within ten miles of Altoona and I began my navigation attempts.

Holy Crap.

Eventually, Bob stopped to make a few purchases. One was a map. The other was some duct tape for my mouth, which I happily applied myself in the hopes that we might eventually find our hotel.

As a chronicler, my anger at myself rendered me fairly useless for quite some time after our arrival. All I can say for certain is that some stuff happened. It's possible during that time that I may have vented my anger on some random Altoonian, but we can't say for certain. Blood evidence alone just isn't conclusive enough--which I guess is a good thing, or I might now be in prison.

***

Eventually, we found our way to the Mischler Theatre. Have you seen this freakin' place? It's quite, quite, quite impressive.

The question that popped into my mind upon seeing it was, "Why in the Wide, Wide, World of Sports did someone build this in Altoona?" Well, let's take a short trip back in time--to the years between 1906 (when Mischler originally built the theatre) to 1923 (when he sold it). Back in those days, theatre productions would leave New York City or Philadelphia by train. And the first convenient stop on that trip? Why ... don't ya know it's Altoona? The sleepy little town became known for discriminating theatre audiences, and a good reaction from the crowds here was often used as a dipstick to gauge the success of the rest of the tour (hence the title of George Burn's book, They Loved Me in Altoona). Sarah Bernhardt, Lillian Russell, Ethel Barrymore, W. C. Fields, Ed Wynn, Al Jolson, Isadora Duncan, Helen Hayes, George Jessel, and George Raft ... recognize any of those names? They've all performed there.

Oh--and one more thing about the Mischler: Patti Keefer, our very own esteemed producer, is actually a distant relative of his. Her great, great grandmother was apparently his cousin, or something. So we had sort of a home-court advantage.

But enough on history. There's not one laugh in that entire last two paragraphs. My point was--my original point was--it's one hell of an intimidating space. The perfect theatre space.

Or so we thought.

It was right around five when we arrived there. The shows went up at seven. Let's do the math.

(9 Theatre People X 120 Minutes)/15 Minutes/Beer = 72 Beers

Pretty straight-forward mathmematics, there. Time to find a bar.

Ahem.

We walked. We found a church. We found another church. We found a candy store (closed). A pizzeria. An art museum (???). Eleven more churches.

No bars.

Five o'clock slowly turned to six o'clock. My silly walk got sillier and sillier ... did you know that a full human bladder does not like an hour of walking? I'm on the left (picture to right), and I know it well.

Finally, we asked a passer-by on the street, and we were directed to Pete's. God Bless Pete, whoever he is. Of course, by now we were looking at 6:20 or so, which changed all the math.

But at least I got to pee, dammit.

***

There were three shows going up that night. We watched two of them, and we were done. We were hungry, we needed more beer, and as we were approaching 10:30, we knew we had limited drinking time left. It was time to go.

This time, we smartened up. We didn't waste time in Downtown Altoona, which had already rolled up its sidewalks and gone to sleep four hours previous. We headed down to Plank Road, were we'd already spotted a TGIFridays, a Ruby Tuesdays, and several other franchised drinking holes.

It was just after 11:00 by the time we settled on Ruby Tuesdays, which translated to just-under three hours of drinking time--or would have, in any part of the civilized world. In Altoona, however, where the bars close at freakin' midnight, we had less than an hour.

We walked into the bar, still reeling from this latest fact, when we discovered something even creepier.

Ruby Tuesday's was completely empty at 11:00 on a Friday night.

Not 'slow.' Stopped. Entirely stationary. Ever see Children of the Corn? This was creepier.

We all got a little something to eat, had a drink or two, and quietly left. Whatever sinister forces were at work here, we weren't about to take them on.

We were here to win a theatre competition, after all.

***

Tech-in was at 11:00 am, Saturday morning. In our decidedly un-hungover condition, we woke, had breakfast, and proceeded to the theatre. By now, anyone who still harbored ill-feelings towards me for my ... my ... various outbursts of the previous day over getting lost ... well, I can't say for certain that they'd all forgiven me. What I can say is that as individuals they'd either (a) forgiven me, (b) were too nerved up to confront anyone about anything, or (c) hadn't noticed my behavior and will read these words and say, 'What the hell is he referring to?'

I had serious concerns about Sound. I'd seen those two shows the preceeding night--and I stress the word 'seen' because I was lucky to catch every fifth word. As beautiful as that stage was, it was an acoustic nightmare. It swallowed sound like ... like ... something something really scary and hideous that absorbs sound. Ooo ... I've got it: like the blood-stained foam lining the walls of Gary Heidnick's basement. I don't know if Heidnick had foam on those walls or if I even spelled 'Heidnick' correctly, but I'm gonna go with the simile anyway.

The scary part was that we needed to play music underneath some of the scenes. Have trouble hearing the actors? Well, just throw some music into the mix! What better solution could there possibly be? Fortunately, the sound-guy (I think his name was Brian) (and I'm really bummed that I've forgotten his name, because he was a genuinely Good Guy) was a great help. If the actors couldn't be heard, he assured me that he would adjust volumes on-the-fly.

Lights--and the rest of tech--went equally smoothly, more-or-less. One part of the stage, the top of 'Hatch's Cliff,' couldn't be lit with the existing hanging lights, so they were to be lit from the wings. It wasn't ideal, but it beat plunging two actors (two great actors) into darkness.

Somewhere along the line, 'Old Familiar Steam' became our battle cry. It was the title of one of the contestants for Pennsylvania's State Competition, but our use of the title had nothing to do with our seeing the show (we didn't see it--it was the last show of the previous night, and the one we missed by heading off to Ruby Tuesdays when we did). But nonetheless, 'Old Familiar Steam' became a part of us at Regionals.

Let me see if I can express this correctly--it's one of those things that's very simple to understand in the spoken word, but a real bear to get across in text. Picture an old man from the south, sitting in a rocking chair on his front porch. Picture that man saying, "OOOOOOOOLD famILIAR steam!" and you get some sense of it.

The really beautiful--and ingenius--part of this battle cry was that Kevin ("Dennis") and David ("Scooter") incorporated that into the show (not the words, just the intonation). And they did it at a time when it was critical to demonstrate the bond these two characters shared, growing up together as they did. Using it created the tiniest of miracles on that stage--a moment of truth so tangible you could taste it in the air, and feel it in the forgotten recesses of our own childhood memories. Kevin, David, and Nikki (the Director) had already created two dozen of those little moments during rehearsal, but the fact that this one stemmed from the camraderie between Kevin and David gave it an undefinable power.

(I believe it was Kevin who actually adopted the phrase after reading the title of the show in the program.) (Just for the record.)

I may seem as though I'm getting ahead of myself here--but during our Tech-in was the first time they did this. It caught Nikki and I completely by surprise, and our eyes found each other across the theatre--in the middle of playing with lights and sound--as an oath that Kevin and David would have to be told, "That stays."

***

Tech-in was over. It was time to watch our Esteemed Competition.

I will refrain from commenting specifically on what I saw that day, and I will do this for a couple of reasons--primary among those reasons being that I Know Nothing. I lift heavy things, remember? Suffice to say that we saw a great deal of Truth on the stage that day, but we also saw a few lies.

As a writer, I'm often tempted to blame such flaws on the playwright instead of the actors. Did I say 'tempted?' Hell ... usually I come right out and tell the performers, "The playwright really left you high-and-dry during that scene, didn't he?"

There were definitely some really good moments in those shows, and I'll leave it at that.

I will--at this point--move on to something I'm not sure I should comment on at all. Perhaps this would be a good time to mention that I am in no way affiliated to anyone or anything, except for my wife, Nikki--and she does not control my opinions (except when she wants to) and she's already gone to bed and can't stop me from typing this. What I'm about to say isn't what the NJTL, ESTA, or NASA thinks.

It's just my opinion.

After the competition pieces, we watched a little piece of dance theater called I Am a Cosmic Rainbow.

Hmm. I guess I should also preface my comments with this little tidbit: I'm not a dance-theater sortta guy. I like my meat with potatoes Thank-You-Very-Much, and you can serve those fish eggs and snails to someone else. But I'm a tolerant, sensitive guy of the Third Millenium. If it's really important to you, I'll suck the eggs out of some dead fish--if only to prove that I'm man enough to do it.

However, if during the course of your 'dance theatre' you say some things that I disagree with strongly enough--and I mean, I have to disagree with those things very strongly, you run an extremely high risk of ... say ... bleeding out behind the theatre when your show is finished.

For example, if during the course of your performance piece you have someone in the background read the following words:

"You are black, and I hate you. I have observed that blacks have lower intelligence, lower resistance to disease, and are less creative than my people."

Well-then ... guess what? Don't come within arms reach of me, because I'll rip something off that modern medicine can't reattach. That's just the way it is. Think of it as my own personal flavor of 'Free Speech.'

If, however, you only say that about whites ... well then, that's a horse of a different color. So to speak.

Take the above quotation, and turn the 'black' into 'white.' And add about five minutes to the tirade. That's what Cosmic Rainbow offered us. Am I going to hurt someone because they hate whites? Absolutely not. Not ever. It's simply not my place, and I don't know what terms I can put it in that are more understandable than that.

I'm sure that those prejudiced comments were supposed to be in some sort of context that I somehow missed. At least, that's my fervant hope. I want to believe that I missed something and that in context, those words aren't hateful at all.

However, I would submit to the individual who wrote that show that--perhaps--that context should be made clearer. I think you'll find that not nearly as many people will stand up and walk out if you clarify that a bit.

But bear in mind that I'm only white--and therefore, uncreative--and that your show is probably just fine.

After that, we briefly attended a reception at their Art Museum. And--to my great credit--I refrained from telling the creator of that show that it was 'A triumph of prejudice and hatred.'

For which I deserve many accolades.

We escaped the reception without incident, and headed back to our hotel room--the lot of us. There was whiskey, there was hard cider, there was beer.

And finally ... finally ... there was Much Drinking.

***

It was Sunday morning. Today was the day, the Big Day. Not just the day of the performance, but also the day of the awards. One or two of us were a little nervous. Not me, though. I had nothing to be nervous about. I knew that Nikki had directed herself one helluva show, that Kevin and David were going to be just amazing on the stage. Bob, Patti, Joe, and Daniel had come with Nikki to Regionals for the past three years--they knew exactly what they were doing. They were seasoned at this stuff.

Of course, I wasn't seasoned. I'd never been to regionals before, except as a spectator--and I didn't learn a whole lot about the process that year. And this year, I was in charge of sound in Gary Heidnick's sound-devouring basement. True, I didn't have to run anything (which is real-good, because I definitely would have been nervous then), but if I hadn't set things up correctly the day before, I might have screwed up the entire show. If anything went wrong, anywhere, I was really the only thing 'different' about Nikki's last three bouts at competition. What if I was just bad luck to have around? I mean, until I met Nikki, I never really considered myself a very lucky guy. What if my crap-Karma somehow rubbed off on her, and I messed this up for everyone? Ten hours on the road here and back--an entire weekend of eight people's lives, not to mention months of rehearsal for David, Kevin, and Nikki--and here I come bearing the weight of the Loathing of the Universe.

Like I said, some of them were nervous. But not me. Cool as a cucumber. That's what the 'C' stands for in Scott C. Adams, that is, when it's not standing for 'Charles.' If at any time that 'C' isn't standing for 'Charles,' it's standing for 'Cool.' Or was it 'Cucumber.' It was one of those, I'm just sure of it.

So, some of them were nervous. Oh, I said that already.

***

First, there was the performance.

There are exactly two movies that will make me cry every single time I watch them. One is The Color Purple, the other is Schindler's List. I'm a big guy and I move heavy things really, really well, so I'm man enough to say it. I cry like a little girl whose favorite dolly has just been dropped into the woodchipper. I bawl unabashedly.

Other movies can--on occasion--make me cry. But not every single time I watch them. That's a reserved honor.

During rehearsal for this show, I did find myself misty a bunch of times. A bunch of times. But as I began to busy myself with things like sound (Oh God, Oh God, please let me have gotten everything right yesterday) I was distracted from the performance, and I could effectively avoid the emotion of the show. And I'd been doing that for the last couple of weeks ... I hadn't been allowed to sit and watch the show for some time.

As the show before ours ran its course, we joked around downstairs--Kevin, David, Bob, Joe, Daniel, me. OOOOOOOLD faMILIAR steam! And other things that most of them would later be too nervous to remember (not me, though ... I was a rock).

We were ready.

Then, it was time. The crew scrambled around and set the stage. We had ten minutes to do two-and-a-half minutes of work. That morning, I think we set the stage in two flat. I looked around and saw that my work was done, and ran off stage-right to circle around to the auditorium.

Today, I got to watch.

Now, bear in mind that these pictures you're about to see were taken at a performance we did at Burlington County Footlighters, on the set for Children of Eden. That's why--if you were there, at Regionals--some of this won't look familiar. Still, I think it gives you a good sense for what they did out there.

Kevin later said that he wasn't sure exactly what happened during this performance, why this performance was different than the others before it. Maybe it was the audience. Maybe it was the theatre and its history. Maybe it was the genuine camraderie between Kevin and David over the last two days. But whatever it was, this performance was definitely different for both of them.

I'd like to say there wasn't a dry eye in the house. I'd like to say that, but I have no idea what condition those other eyes were in, as I was crying like a little girl. How many times had I seen ths show? I have no idea. Enough times that my shoulders should not have been heaving with sobs. That many times.

But best of all, Kevin and David had triumphed from Heidnick's basement. We heard them just fine. I was off the hook--at least where sound was concerned.

***

Next, we ate.

There was a great deal of buzz about Birdbath, a show Nikki brought to Nationals two years ago--which I think she found very flattering. The cast enjoyed that too, once we'd returned to South Jersey and told them.

I know that hindsight is 20/20, and that for me to say too much about my confidence in the outcome at this point would just look like me trying to make myself look as though I know anything about anything.

So, I'll refrain from saying that the room felt rather 'cowed' at that point. Intimidated. And I won't say that I knew already we'd won, and that it was just a matter of them making it official.

I just won't say it, and you can't make me.

***

By now, you already know what happened. David Micun received an acting award (one of three awarded), Nikki won a directing award (the only one awarded this year), and we took Best Show, moving us on to Nationals in Harrisburg. Only one or two judges mentioned that I'd screwed up the sound, and hopefully everyone learned a lesson about giving The Guy Who Moves Heavy Things too much responsibility.

But it didn't keep them from winning.

It was completely baffling that Kevin didn't also win an acting award. I won't even venture a guess why this might have happened, because I'm rather ignorant about these things and any guess I could contrive would be unflattering to ... to I don't know who. But certainly not to Kevin because--like David--he did not handle himself on that stage that day like an amateur actor. They weren't even journeymen. They were masters, both of them.

I'm greatly looking forward to Harrisburg. Not because I want to crush more plays in competition, because that's simply not the case. The goal was to get to Nationals, and we're there.

No ... the reason I'm looking forward to Harrisburg is because I get to watch that play again.

It's gonna be great.