Thank goodness we left Miami. I'd be flat broke if we'd stayed another week. That is the drawback of living for a week in a resort town while working--you start to think you are on vacation! And you spend accordingly. South Beach is all about excess--spending money, wearing over the top designer fashions, impossible physiques pumped beyond belief, drinking and partying until the early morning hours night after night.
I have a couple of lovely friends here in the area--my beautiful friend Jelena is from Croatia; she and I worked together in the cosmetics industry in New York (when I am not acting I sometimes work as a makeup artist for a high end line). She moved here to be with her boyfriend, Michael, who is Peruvian and Chinese and also beautiful--he works as a model and in the mortgage business. The two of them showed me some of South Beach nightlife by walking me past the velvet ropes into a couple of the hottest clubs. Hot is right. The suffocating heat, the crush of bodies jostling one in every direction, the deafening music, and worst of all, the cigarette smoke (how do people manage to hang out in these smoky places?)--I lasted ten minutes in each club. This sort of thing is not fun for me. If I were 20 and on spring break and sowing my oat-- maybe. But I had a thought as I was being buffeted around one of these smoke holes: I am officially middle aged. My days of clubbing are over. And there was a rather desperate and dark energy about these places and the young crowds thrill seeking in them. It seemed telling to me that the predominant fashion motif--emblazoned on shirts, jeans pockets and on bedazzled ball caps--was a skull. A death's head. Something not quite right about that.
However, I did manage to have some good times in Miami. We had our big two year anniversary party the other night at the Raleigh Hotel--a very posh place with a wonderful outdoor area they call "the oasis." It is the epitome of Miami chic. We all got dressed up for the occasion and enjoyed an evening of passion fruit martinis and balmy ocean breezes. I have added some very nice pieces to my wardrobe here and my wallet is feeling it! I also decided not to leave Miami without a tattoo, since some of the best tattoo artists in the world spend the winter in South Beach. Where it is and what it's of I think I will keep to myself. Important thing is, it doesn't show in my Sir Robin costumes!
Speaking of costumes, here is a picture of me with Lisa, my Miami dresser. As I mentioned before, Lisa is a genuine fan who has seen "Spamalot" twice. Her daughter has seen it three times and her father has seen it four times. It was fun to work with someone who is crazy about the show.
We are now in West Palm Beach, which feels like a very clean, affluent suburban place. It was established in the late 1890s by a Standard Oil magnate as a place to live for the servants who worked at the beach resort he established on the neighboring island of Palm Beach, and has expanded over the decades into the community it is today.
We are playing the Kravis Center, a relatively new facility, finished in the early 90's and named for Raymond Kravis, a prominent geologist from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who spent every winter here for 35 years with his wife, Bessie. Friends and colleagues contributed over $7,000,000 to the building effort in order to have the center named for Mr. Kravis, who was a beloved philanthropist. Aside from the show, I plan to use this week to rest and get back on my gym schedule and diet regimen after the excesses of South Beach. More from sunny Florida to come. Keep your questions and comments coming. I will have some great new updates to my website coming up, and plan to add some new features to my blog, including profiles of some of the people I am working with in the show, so you can get to know some of these talented folks.
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