Iowa Diary #2

Yo diary!

Our journey to Iowa began with two warm tropical plane trips and a short drive to our hotel. What else was there to do but go to Aphra Behn’s favorite store, Wal Mart?

We went for a wonderful dinner in Downtown Cedar Falls called Bourbon Street, and although they didn’t have bananas, they did have some lovely New Orleans food, including Pickle Chips, which were a delight.

The day of the show, we returned to Wal Mart for a lovely photo shoot, where we danced around the aisles looking for as much interesting food as possible. Aphra also got several bras on sal for our opening "sunrise" bit in "Feminists Are Funny". Mine is a left over Valentines Day bra and the women in the check out line in front of us exclaimed "Oh, that's too pretty to hide!" Guess what? I'm not planning on hiding it!

Before we knew it it was time to go to the University of Northern Iowa. It was a fantastic theatre, and to my pleasure and surprise the tech went extremely well. Our student volunteer, Jessica, was very excited and she did a great job at the rehearsals.

Suddenly it was showtime and our audience was hot! We could feel the enthusiasm bursting onstage. My favorite ad libs were when Aphra described pulling the topics out of the hat as “Avant Garde” and when I had the audience all applaud for “yay, discrimination!”

The commedia skit was hilarious, as our super enthusiastic student volunteer almost stole the show. She made Edith Evans drop her cigar twice during the skit, which I thought was a slapstick routine but turned out to just be an accident. Talk about upstaging. Who knew we would have met our improvizational match in Jessica!

The Q&A was thoughtful, poignant and hilarious. Almost everyone in the packed house stayed which made it comfy and cozy.

Edith, Aphra and I headed back to our hotel exhausted but not too tired to have a cast party in Aphra's room complete with Wal Mart wine and snacks courtesy of Gloria our grad student cohort. Until we meet again Iowa...I will dream of you.

Monkey love,

Audrey Hepburn

March 29, 2011

New Hampshire Diary #3

Yo Diary!

We drove to Keene, NH, leaving a trail of banana peels in our midst. Our gorilla chatter went on for hours on the long drive, until we finally arrived. I had never seen so much snow before! After a delicious meal, we retired into our Bed and Breakfast... a bit tiny for a gorilla but comfortable none the less.

I roomed with Zora Neale Hurston, who not only enjoyed the room piping hot as I do, but enjoyed snoozing her alarm as many times as possible before getting up in the morning.

Day Two:

Arrived on campus and toured the wonderful facilities. We jumped around in our gorilla suits to warm up for the performance and rehearsed onstage.

During the show, the energy from the crowd was terrific. They seemed to enjoy our improv, especially my blues rhyme about eating cauliflower in the shower. I was quite embarrassed when I made a mistake during my big note on "Size 2 Pants." I suppose I should have agreed to the clause in the contract where Marni Nixon would dub me for that note... Maybe next time, Marni.

My favorite moment was my portrayal of Julia Child. I could feel the audience really enjoyed my performance. And when I got to pie Janis Joplin/Tammy the Tummy, I really gave it to her, which was tremendous fun. It was great to hear so much positive feedback from our viewers.

Afterwards, we had an intense meal at a Mexican restaurant in town. Our waiter, Steven, had a huge sexual energy and said "ohhhhh yeahhh" at everything we ordered and raised his eyebrows seductively when I ordered my second Margarita. Hey, I know gorillas are attractive but calm yourself!

The next day we all snored as Aphra drove us home. Somehow, we misplaced our large bag of bananas, a huge mistake when you have a car full of gorillas! We'll need extra reinforcements next time.

Until then I remain yours truly,

Audrey Hepburn

March 8, 2011