Two boats full of playwrights and actors sailed to Shoup Glacier. We saw icebergs, otters, and even a humpback whale!
Shoup Glacier
Even though 90 % of an iceberg is underwater, the title of this photo is “Global Warming.”
Snoozing Otter
Humpback Whale
No Standing
Dawson (the great playwright who made it all happen) and I
It wasn’t really this dark. I had my flash on when I shouldn’t have.
On the morning of my staged reading, June 17, I saw the same black rabbit from the day before lounging beneath my hotel window.
The staged reading couldn’t have gone better – thanks to my wonderful actors and generous panelists.
Valdez is a magical little town near the southeastern edge of Alaska, not too far from Canada. About 4,000 people live here. This place boasts the most snow in Alaska and offers one of the most important ports, used for fishing and by the infamous oil industry (1989 Exxon spill).
I’m here for The 17th Annual Last Frontier Theatre Conference.
Many great playwrights, including Edward Albee (aka God), Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Lanford Wilson, John Guare, Horton Foote, and Tony Kushner, have attended and it is a great honor to be here.
Some heroes attending this year include: Kia Corthron, Richard Dresser, Marshall Mason, Dawson Moore, Timothy Daly, Y York, Gregory Pulver, Danielle Dresden, and actors Lee Brock, Glenn Morshower, Laura Gardner, and Frank Collison.
A staged reading of my play, Two Women On The Shore (named after and inspired by the Edvard Munch woodcut prints) will be performed later today, June 17, at the Valdez Civic Center.
This is the outdoor area of the Civic Center where we have lunch on sunny days and where the Champagne gala will be held on Saturday:
Some other Valdez pictures:
This moose wouldn’t stop staring at me the whole time I was in the dining room at The Totem Inn:
I don’t know why, but there is a disproportionate number of chiropractors here:
This was on the community board at the local bank:
Valdez certainly has character. Check out my psychadelic bathroom:
Yesterday after a successful rehearsal with my amazing actors I was returning to my hotel when a black rabbit crossed my path. If a black cat crossing your path is supposed to be a warning of bad luck then what does a black rabbit mean?
I love rabbits and cats and all animals – they’re delicious, especially when cooked. I’ll choose to take this to mean good luck since my staged reading is in a few hours.
“I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.” – Blanche DuBois, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
In San Francisco I get panicky if I have to wait more than five minutes before hailing a taxi. Feeling stranded is what I imagine hell to be like. It is my worst fear. So you can imagine how shaken up I was yesterday when I was stranded miles from any known town.
Though I’ll admit, if you’re going to get lost and stranded, Alaska may be the best place to do it.
The last forty-eight hours have been quite the Alaskan adventure, but I didn’t lose my mind because the people here are so kind and generous. I’ve never met so many nice people in one place before.
It took me two days to get to Valdez. Mistake #1: I followed the Mapquest directions instead of the Google directions (Drew, you were right – also, thanks for your help with the hotel situation. Never again will I use Mapquest, which I hereby rename: Maplost). Maplost forgot to mention the main highway that takes one to Valdez (Glenn Highway) and that one should pass through a town called Palmer.
After a very nice gas station attendant helped me get back on track I was about 100 miles into the journey when my front passenger-side tire blew out. Fortunately, I made it off the narrow and winding, two-lane highway and pulled into the Matanuska lookout point. In the pouring rain I tried to unscrew the tire, but it required a screw gun (and even then – nearly two hours later when AAA arrived, the cheap aluminum screws jammed the repair man’s drill bit).
I called Enterprise (renting from them was Mistake #2) and explained that I had 200 more miles to go until I reached Valdez and needed a normal tire and this is what the representative said:
“Personally, I would never make the drive to Valdez, especially not in a rental car.”
“Thanks. That’s really helpful.”
He also turned down my request to have a new car driven out to me. His advice besides taking a small plane instead of driving “next time” was that I should try to drive the remaining 200 miles to Valdez on the spare and then replace the tire once I got there.
The AAA repair man, Chris, was a saint. Not only did he show up in record time, considering I was in the middle of nowhere and near the edge of hysteria when I first called, but also he gave me some excellent advice. He knew the roads and the tire shops inside out. There was no way the shop in Valdez would have a 17-inch tire, he said, and there was no way I could make it on that rough road for 200 miles on a spare. He recommended I turn back around and drive 60 miles to Palmer and go to their tire shop when they open the next day.
I did one better. I drove past Palmer and all the way back to Anchorage (100 miles on a spare) and returned the damned car to Enterprise. I made it there at 11 pm – one hour before they closed. The guy who advised me to drive 200 miles farther into mountain country seemed surprised to see me. I think he may have felt bad because suddenly he was very friendly and gave me a brand new, four-door, four-wheel-drive, Dodge Ram pickup truck at no extra cost.
At least they got the color right. I enjoy blasting my Broadway showtunes from the truck much more than the petite hybrid I started out with.
