Adventures on the High Seas, Day #2

Well, I slept like a rock after the stress of the first day onboard. Day #2 was relatively calm in comparison. We got going and grabbed some breakfast. Because Day #2’s show was a completely different show than Day #1’s show was I still was feeling a bit apprehensive. Day #2’s show was a bit more artistic and not quite as much what I would call “commercial” magic. And we still had to go through a quick tech rehearsal and sound check. Luckily, we had planned that for late morning, so all my stressing would be over once I knew we were good from the technical side. We took care of the sound check without any issues and were free for the rest of the day.

You know, I just realized that I didn’t explain the most challenging part of this gig in my first blog post the other day. Part of the reason for my stress level being high was because I was performing on a stage that was completely surrounded by seating. Yes, the stage was surrounded 360 degrees by people. Now I knew this coming in, so I was prepared. It’s just that magic can sometimes have angle issues or lighting issues and performing with people surrounding you adds to the difficulty level. Not only do you want to amaze everyone, you have to make sure that you perform in a manner so that everyone will be able to see what you are doing. I think it’s natural to be a little stressed until I had actually performed each of my shows at least once in front of a real audience. Day #2’s show would be yet another test of both my planning skills and my performing skills.

The day was spent in Freeport, Bahamas. It was actually quite cool and a little bit rainy, so Kristin and I decided to spend the day exploring the port area and not go into the city itself. Unfortunately that was a short lived plan. Because the weather was so sucky there really wasn’t much happening in the port of call. We explored several local arts and crafts and souvenir vendors and ended up stumbling into a local bar that had a really good wi-fi connection. We made the decision to just hang out there for much of the afternoon and I fetched my computer from the ship so I could get caught up on some emails. I took care of some business on the computer and Kristin read a book by David Sedaris that kept cracking her up. It was a pretty tame day in the Bahamas. In fact, if we hadn’t known that we would be back several times later in the week we would have definitely made more of an effort to see some things. As it was, we knew we would have time to explore later.

Today, we both made the rather intelligent decision to take motion sickness pills before we left port and headed back to FL. And I think that decision was in our best interest. Both shows went well. Actually, I was a little verbose on the first show and went over my 20 minute time limit. I had to make a conscious decision the second show to tighten up the script and make sure the show kept moving so the other two entertainers would also get their allotted time. Overall though, the audiences responded well and I was quite pleased with this show.

Afterwards, we hung out and enjoyed meeting audience members. Then we just took it easy before calling it a night. Click here for Day #3's adventure.



Here's the showroom. As you can see I was completely surrounded by seating on two different levels. On another note, as soon as the show was over the showroom turned into a disco and the stage became the dance floor. Towards the end of the week, I got down and shook my groove thing after the show while Kristin watched me much to her amusement.

If you missed Day #1's entry, click here to check it out.