The Boy Who Cried Poo

Cheers, Matt Smith.

I've just returned from my first full week on the road. "Road," in this particular case, differs greatly from the original entymology. Here, "road" reads more as "middle of nowhere." And, to be even more specific, this week's middle of nowhere was Luverne, Minnesota.
Luverne boasts a great number of fabulous things.
Luverne is the Gateway. I never witnessed the Gate myself, and I can only surmise that the Gateway they speak of is some fictional gate -- a Gate to Iowa and/or South Dakota. Unless they're talking about Real Gates. On fences, perhaps. In that case, there was a plethora of those that housed the area's cattle, pigs, and yes, buffalo.
And, speaking of buffalo, the large stone blasted buffalo statue that stands in front of the specialty store, "Those Blasted Things," is not to be missed. You simply couldn't miss it even if you tried.
Other things of note in Luverne:
1) The Super 8 Motel. Highly recommended by CLIMB Theatre folk, mainly because of the make-your-own-waffle component during breakfast hours. Ask for Barb. She rocks.
2) The local playground. In addition to the windy, swirly, makes-your-hair-stand-on-end shocky slides, there are swings to swing, bouncy things to bounce, climby things to climb, and lots of hard ground to injure yourself on. And while we were there, a man in army fatigues was patrolling the area. Makes you feel safe... or something. (In my case, confused.)
3) The students at Luverne Elementary. Fabulous kids accompanied by fabulous staff. The teachers' lounge was never wanting for goodies -- cinnamon rolls, mini Snickers bars, chocolate chip cookie pie thing -- and I felt very welcome there. In my time as an actor, educator, troll, and pirate there, I even felt a bit of appreciation. Or at least I came close.

Side note of note: During the end of one of our K-2 mini-drama classes where I play a troll, we were asking the kindergarteners to try to remember the 3-part magic formula they learned at the beginning of the play. It never fails that we -- the seasoned professionals -- forget the magic formula. The kids come up with it on their own at the beginning, and we go through so many different combinations in a day (favorite breakfast food/book/color, favorite cartoon character/shape/dessert, and the like) that we inevitably must rely on the kids in each class to remember. In this particular class, the children were having a tough time remembering, and we were of no use. One boy, hand raised, kept calling out, "Poo! Poo! Poo!" Yeah, kid. Poo. I'm SO sure. Why's the weird kid screaming poo? We had no idea. It was odd, and we were tired, and it was funny. So, trying desperately to stay in character, we laughed, and I turned to my team lead/partner, and in my best Russian troll voice, asked, "What is this poo?"
Well, yeah. It was Winnie the Pooh.
But you can't know everything all the time,

Love,
Meredith