Christmas Caucus

Week 55: Des Moines, IA

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.
--Shirley Temple

I hope your holidays were warm and wonderful. I had a pleasant Christmas in Des Moines, mainly because of the delightful way that the company came together to celebrate and make this holiday away from home special. We were treated to a delicious Christmas Eve dinner, and a wonderful dessert and egg nog party in the penthouse of our hotel.
Secret Santas were revealed, carols were sung, Christmas crackers popped, and our own pyro guy Mike Berg played a fabulous Santa Claus--and found himself being sat upon by every member of the cast and crew! Here he is with the two resident Jews, me and Jonathan Hadary! People flew in their families and significant others; Matt Greer had his beautiful children Spencer and Miranda dashing about. Lest you should worry that we don't get to have a family style Christmas on the road, let me assure you Christmas with the Spamily was an affair to remember.

My week here started with a series of seven back to back radio interviews at various studios spread out around town. The local press representative picked me up at the unholy hour of 7:30AM on our first day here, and shuttled me from one interview after another. It was rather fun, though, to tailor the conversation to the station that was conducting the interview--"musical theatre" talk for the public radio/arts station, fart jokes and showgirls in bikinis for the rock station. It's fortunate that our show has such a broad appeal! Des Moines is an odd city, rather nondescript and strangely quiet. Part of this has to do with the very convenient skywalk system that connects office buildings, hotels and indoor malls--leaving the streets almost deserted. We are performing at the Des Moines Civic Center which gets my vote for ugliest theatre I have thus played on my tour. The interior is vast, with plain high walls of grungy white stucco, and horseshoe shaped, continental style seating, upholstered alternately in primary green, red and blue. However, the audiences have been great.




Lest you should think there is no beauty in Des Moines, au contraire. A small group of us went on a tour of the governor's mansion, Terrace Hill. This historic home was built in the mid 19th century by Iowa's first millionaire, Benjamin Franklin Allen, who squandered his family fortune and had to sell the home to one of the lawyers who worked on his bankruptcy case, F. M. Hubbell, whose descendants lived in the house for over 70 years. The family bequeathed the house to the state of Iowa and in the 1970s it became the governor's official residence.
Built in 1869 at a cost of $250,000, it was the first home in the region to have gas lighting, indoor plumbing, and an elevator. Rich with sumptuous woods and veneers, magnificent stenciled walls and ceilings, marble fireplace mantles and an extraordinary stained glass window at the top of the grand staircase (reminiscent of "Gone With the Wind"), this place is a real treasure of Victorian and turn of the century opulence. It was a pleasure to visit it and to learn about the extraordinary efforts of the nearly all-volunteer staff that keeps the place going while the governor's family resides in the historic home. We even got to meet the staff chef, whose pumpkin pies filled the air of the house with sweet smells of goodness. The place was all decked out in Christmas finery and all in all it was a real treat to see it.

From Terrace Hill, I went further up Grand Avenue and stopped in at the Des Moines Art Center. It is a small gem of a museum: the main building dating back to the late 40's is sort of sleek, post-war deco with light woods and matte steel railings, and a very special wing built in the 60s and designed by I.M. Pei is in his signature style, all clean lines and striated concrete. The collection itself is small, and primarily focused on 19th and 20th century artists. There are some fine pieces by Picasso, Childe Hassam, Rodin, Monet, as well as some photography by Man Ray and Alfred Stieglitz.
The most famous piece in the collection, and the one that drew me to the museum, is "Automat" by Edward Hopper. Regrettably, the painting is currently on loan to a museum in Seattle so I missed the chance to view this wonderful piece up close and personal. I did have a very nice lunch in the museum restaurant, reputed to be one of the finest in Des Moines, and the art dork in me was very satisfied.

Flo is my Des Moines dresser.
She and her husband were publicans, and owned a bar in the East Village section of Des Moines for 25 years. They got involved with stagehand work via the fire fighters who frequented their pub (seems fairly common that fire fighters do back stage work on the side), and Flo became a wardrobe worker ten years ago. Luckily for me, she dressed my "track" the last time the show was in Des Moines, so this week has been easy breezy. Thanks, Flo! New Year's will find me in Cincinnati, so I will write from there in 2009. Happy New Year everyone!