We arrive in Singapore after another loooonnnng flight, and make it ten steps out of the aiport before we begin to sweat. It is HOT. Texas hot, with a humidity index of a basquillion. The Brits are concerned. The Americans are in heaven.

We proceed to the Swisshotel, which is —by far— the most luxe living arrangement we will have on tour. Swisshotel is the tallest building in Singapore, so we have beautiful tower rooms with a view of the city. Gym and two pools (free!), wireless internet (not free), fancy-pants bar at the very top of the hotel (prohibitively expensive). Comfortable is an understatement. We are PAMPERED.

But here’s the thing. Having now gotten to see little bits of lots of countries, I can say that Singapore is truly the weirdest place I’ve ever been. And not Coney-Island-freakshow-weird, or more-than-slightly-creepy-roadside-attraction-weird, but Stepford Weird. The whole city might as well be a gated community. Everywhere we go is spotless. Spitting is not allowed. Littering incurs a fee of thousands of dollars. Drugs, and I mean ANY non-prescription drug, in any amount, gets you the death penalty. And, most upsettingly, no gays allowed. Homosexuality is completely, 100% illegal. I am 50% gay.

By the way, Americans: Don’t ever let someone from another country tell you that we are a mall culture. We are, true, but Singapore has got us beat by a long shot. Our hotel was part of a mall. The theater we performed in, a mere ten-minute walk away, was in ANOTHER mall. You can’t swing an illegal homosexual without hitting a mall in Singapore. The reasoning, locals tell us, is two-fold. One, it’s wicked hot during the day, and people try to stay indoors. Two, Singaporeans love to shop. Looooove it. And they have plenty of money to do so — Singapore is one of the richest places in the world, and they are really big on “The Aspirational Lifestyle.”

More on this later. I’m in London now, and am meeting Juliet for lunch so she can show me where the damn grocery store (pardon me..TESCO’S) is.

Oh darlings, I am so sorry. You probably think I’m still in Hong Kong, gloating over my understudy triumph. You would be wrong.

FACT #1: It is June.

FACT#2: I have been in 7 different countries since Hong Kong.

FACT #3: Clearly, I am super lazy. In a bloggy way, anyway. In a “get out and go see The Queen of Malaysia/The Louvre/Flamenco dancers/my boyfriend/Anne Frank’s Secret Annex/London Bridge” -type way, I’ve been rather active. As well as the little matter of putting up a buncha shows everywhere we go. But as a blogger, I suck. ON TO THE RE-CAP!

Our last night in Hong Kong was marked by many exciting things, of which I remember precisely 2.

1) We went to the Night Market and had delicious chili crab served to us by a lady we affectionately named “Hong Kong Patti Smith”, as she bore more than a passing resemblance.

2) Then we went back to Handlebars Hong Kong, which was full of ten of our gang and a dozen English Rugby fans in nylon Beefeater costumes. And when I say the bar was full, I mean it. Biker Bars in Hong Kong are not spacious, in my limited experience. So the rugby fans are drunk and loud and sweaty, and we’re becoming more so, and I am faced with my eternally recurring problem: What do I put on the jukebox to make this a perfect moment? What will a) make the people in the bar go wild, and b) cement this night in our minds as a great night forever? I have learned over the years that the answer may not be a song I particularly like, or that fits into the narrow definition that Leon and I think makes appropriate bar music. You just try to identify the crowd, and the mood, and drop your quarter in the slot, and try your best.

Oasis’ “Wonderwall” it is. “Watch this,” I tell GT.

As Noel Gallagher’s snotty vocals begin, the crowd erupts. The men in Beefeater outfits are crying, climbing up to dance on the bar, and trying (in vain, thank God) to strip off their costumes. The British members of our company have slung arms around each others’ shoulders and are singing the lyrics at the top of their lungs. In the middle of the tiny dance floor, two of the boys in our cast (both straight, mind you) are in a clinch, kissing passionately.

“My GOD,” GT says to me. “How did you know this would happen?”

“I didn’t, really,” I admit to her. “I just knew SOMETHING would.”

And the next morning, we fly to Singapore.

March 24th**************************************************************************

I wake up surprised. I am a little hungover, but not jet-lagged. Nice!

It’s tech time. The tech gang and the crew have been in the theatre for days, but this is the first time us actors are coming in. The theatre is beautiful, the acoustics make Jenni’s voice sound like a basquillion bucks. She’s goooood. The house (where the audience sits) is huge, and unabashedly seafoam green. Like a bad bridesmaid’s dress. I am in love with it immediately. However, there’s no trap door in this theatre (isn’t it horrible that after years in this business I still don’t know when it should be “theatre” and when it should be “theater”? Forgive me, y’all), which means that several entrances have to be changed. A large box has been built. Instead of Ron coming up through the center of our circular sand pit, an entrance that was truly theatrical and beautiful, he is to be wheeled onto the stage in what is essentially a packing crate.

Ron ain’t having it. “I’m not coming out of no fucking box, man. It’s supposed to be shocking, you know what I mean? And instead it’ll be like ‘Where’s Caliban?’ ’ I don’t know, maybe he’s in that big fucking box that just got wheeled out onto stage!’ I mean, I’ll try it. But that shit ain’t gonna work.” He was right. After seeing the unintentional hilarity of that entrance, it is decided he’ll come out of the stage right entrance. Excellent choice by GT, our director abroad (GT is Sam’s assistant, but makes the decisions when he’s not around. She is also a brilliant and gifted director in her own right).

Tech was long. And tiring. And everything else tech is supposed to be. We go to Glutton’s Bay afterwards, which is a set of food stalls next to the theatre. Singapore has the best, most highly-regulated food stalls in the world. Shit is SERIOUS. We eat ourselves sick for about 12 bucks apiece. 

March 25th***************************************************************************

Dress rehearsal, followed by opening night. I am a little nervous for opening night, even though A) I have one line, and B) We already opened this show in New York. But everybody manages to fight through their jet lag (which still hasn’t really come a-knockin’ on my door) and man up for a good dress rehearsal. We goof off a bit. My wigs look beautiful, thanks to Anna, wig strumpet extraordinaire. 

Don’t know why that picture turned out sideways. But you can still see her, right? I don’t think I can introduce her to Leon, he’ll leave me in a heartbeat. PLUS she’s Italian but has an Essex accent. Whooosh.

So, as Anna’s putting my wig on, she tells me about her best friend Mary, who’s been over in Hong Kong for years, and works right next door to our hotel. They’re excited to get to hang out, and Anna wants to see this boss of Mary’s that she’s heard so much about. “She’s troouble, huh?” I say. Anna makes a little noise of agreement. ‘Nuff said.

So opening night goes off pretty much without a hitch. The audience is quieter than we got used to back at BAM, but they seem appreciative. I wear a cute black dress for the wine party afterwards. We find out that our names in the program are spelled phonetically in Chinese characters, making an approximation of our names. We immediately hunt down a sympathetic Chinese person who doesn’t know us and makes them read out our names without knowing the English equivalent first. Good times!
I see Anna talking to her friend. I go up and introduce myself to Mary, and say, “I have heard all about you, and your pain in the ass boss!” 

SILENCE. Awkward smiles. Anna says, “Ashlie dudn’t know whut she’s talkin on abowwt.” I agree vehemently, just to stop this sinking feeling I’ve got. Mary then introduces me to her boss, Pamela, who is STANDING RIGHT THERE.

Oh GOD.

I make conversation with Pamela, just to try and fix things. It’s predictably awkward. But thankfully Mary seems okay.

Afterwards, a bunch of us (Mary and Anna included) head to the central part of Hong Kong to drink fancy drinks. I spend all the money I’ve got with me on buying drinks for myself and Mary. Mary is calling me her new best friend. I feel better. Besides, she was quitting that job soon anyway. 

Mary’s friend from work, Barry, also comes along. Barry explains to me he does not understand or care to attend theatre. I think Barry’s an alright guy.
(From L to R: Half of Tom H, Barry, the top of Mary’s head, Anna, Jen Tait)

At the second place we go to, however, Barry manages to ruin the night of two sweet, pretty girls. They’re from England, as is Barry. Barry asks where, they tell him, and he says, “You’re brown cows!” And they go all red in the face. Apparently, they went to a school where they had to wear these legendarily ugly brown uniforms, which makes pretty much everyone in the region call them “Brown Cows.” They try to say no, that’s another school, but he’s got them dead to rights. These poor girls, they’re in their thirties, all grown up and beautiful, and someone thousands of miles away from where they grew up has just called them by their dreaded playground-taunt of a nickname. It would have been kind of sad, if it wasn’t so terribly, terribly funny.

At some point, my friend Tony says he’s got to leave, and I tell him if he’ll wait 5 minutes so I can finish my strawberry-chocolate martini, I’ll get a cab with him. But when I step outside 6 minutes later, he’s disappeared into the night.

(L to R: Tony — complete with a sty in his left eye, Ross, Jeremy)

“Goodnight, Tony!” I yell into the Hong Kong dark. Then I head back into the bar.
March 26th************************************************************************

THERE is that hangover I’ve been expecting. Hello, old friend. 
But it didn’t keep me from having a lovely day at Stanley Market (an awesome marketplace about 45 minutes out of Hong Kong) with Ross, Jen Tait, and Sarah. We meet downstairs, I make sure Tony got back okay last night (I’m his understudy, so I have a very vested interest in making sure he’s alright), and we head out.

We shopped for all kinds of souvenirs (Leon, I got you the COOLEST THING EVER, so be prepared), and then decided to take a swim in the ocean. Ross had brought trunks, but none of us girls had come prepared, so we went swimsuit shopping. The girls are trying on swimsuits over their clothes, and eventually decide to get the most ridiculous ones they can find. I settle on some boardshorts and a tank. 
We swim.

Then we ate the best seafood EVER, and went home. The girls had to be at the theatre at 5:30, a full hour before me. But after we parted ways, I decided maybe I’d just shower at the theatre instead of the hotel. I smelled like ocean.

I walk into the theatre at 5:40. Call time is 7, so I’ve got loads of time. Set down my stuff. Decide I want a Diet Coke (in Hong Kong, Coke Light) from the vending machine. I figure out the appropriate change in HK money, and am walking down the long hallway outside our dressing rooms, when Tommy bursts through the double doors and makes a beeline towards me. “You’re on tonight. Tony’s in the hospital. You’re on as Trinculo.”
Holy fucking shit. HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

Tony’s all right, turns out he just had a bug, but as his chest hurt and he had a bunch of scary symptoms, he did the right thing and went to the hospital. But they’re keeping him overnight.

I, on the other hand, am screwed. Maybe. I’ve run these scenes once, with the other understudies. But we always assumed we’d have a lot of time to work on them in when we got to London. WHEN WE GOT TO LONDON. NOT THE SECOND PERFORMANCE OF THE TOUR. I try, and succeed, at not crying then and there.

“I need a script,” I tell Tommy. “Right now.”

“On it, ” Tommy says. Thank God somebody is. Unfortunately, it’s not me.

GT shows up and immediately gives me a big hug. My scene partners are Tommy and Ron for most of my scenes, so we go up to the set to go over the blocking for each sequence. As per the regular Trinculo blocking, I will be offstage until my first scene in Act 2, scene 2. I will enter from the back of the audience seating, say a line among the audience, and then get up on the stage. After the first scene ends, I will go join most of the other actors, sitting upstage in half-light in chairs that are standing in several inches of black water. Trinculo’s chair is angled so it half-faces the upstage wall and half-faces the other actors.  Antony, one of the stage managers, goes to make a cheat book with my lines in it so I can sneak a peek at upcoming scenes while I’m sitting in the chair. Thank God. And I’m very lucky that my seat is at an angle, so I can see when Ron and Tommy get up for our scenes and stand up with them. Okay. Okayokayokay.

We start to run the blocking, and I have a moment of feeling bad because I know I’m cutting into Ron’s preparation time. But once we get into the swing of it, it’s actually going okay. I have to be under a tarp, my body on top of Ron’s, and I remember that I haven’t showered since before I was in the ocean. Poor man.

We get to run each scene through once or twice, and all of a sudden it’s 6:45 and we have to get off the stage because they’re opening the house, and I have to go put on the Trinculo costume that was made for me. I say a silent prayer that it fits. It does.

(Insert picture of me in Trinculo costume, as soon as I get it from GT)

There are beautiful flowers in my dressing room, courtesy of Jenni and Juliet. I remember, belatedly, that Jenni and Michelle’s parts will also be different in the masque scene, to make up for my absence. I wish them luck, they both tell me to not be nervous. I mention to Juliet that I swam today and haven’t had a shower. “You were in the ocean? That’s good luck! So was Trinculo!” I guess she’s got a point there.

GT comes in and shows me a very sweet text from Sam, telling me that he’s confident I’ll do great, and to channel the spirits of Lea DeLaria, Jackie Gleason, and Fozzie Bear. Which, I have to say, is exactly how I want to play Trinculo — as a butch, funny/mean, bad stand-up comedian. The bow tie and plaid suit is certainly helping.

Aaron helps me run lines for a bit, and when the show begins (!), Tommy and GT stay with me. Both of them have made themselves available from the very first moment I knew I was doing this insanity.We run it, and run it, and run it.

And then Sarah’s coming down to get me, and bring me up to the back of the house for my first entrance.

The moment before I go on, all the sounds around me seem to disappear. There’s a feeling of being underwater. I can, no joke, hear my own heartbeat. I stop breathing. I realize nobody at home knows this is happening, except Sam Mendes.

“Go,” says Sarah, and holds open the door. I’m whooshed back to the present. I enter, and yell “Hellooooo?” Ron says a line. I yell even louder, “HEEEELLLLLLOOOOOOO!!!!” And then I’m onstage. I can feel all the actors in the chairs lean forward a little. I am unaware, but learn later, that Juliet, Anna, Dean, Fiona, all the dressers, all the actors not onstage, all the crew people, and even our producers, have gathered in the stage right wing to watch me sink or swim.

I say the first few lines, fighting down a wave of panic that I will not get through this. Then, four lines in… a laugh. A big, generous laugh comes back at me from the audience. I exhale, and give them a big ol’ grin. And we’re off to the races.

Tommy and Ron stick with me the whole way. Any moment I threaten to disengage, they force me to stay in it. I drop no lines (though I step on a couple of Tommy’s), get some laughs, and before I know it, it’s all over. Company manager Richard Clayton presents me with a bottle of wine. Tommy takes me out for a fancy dinner. I did it. I DID IT. Somebody earned her paycheck that week. And that somebody, for once, was me.

All the same, I’ve never been so happy to see a man getting into costume as I was to see Tony the next day.

March 21st **************************************************************************

After a few dozen (I’ll admit it, tearful) kisses to Leon, I took the fancypants BAM-paid car to the airport. Found Tommy, Juliet, and Christian right off. After the typical over-priced airport food and meetups with the other members of our gang, we made our way onto the flight. 

Cathay Airlines is awesome, let me just get that out of the way. Good food, free in-air entertainment, pretty flight attendants… great. And I was assigned a window seat, bonus! 

But then the seatbelt was broken on my seat. And I guess had a hard time expressing this, as the flight attendant went and got a SEATBELT EXTENDER. “No thank you,” I say (with weird hand gestures that I thought would be helpful), “I’m not actually too fat for the belt, it just doesn’t click when I put the male and female ends together”. Ms. Cathay understands now, but is clearly alarmed by my sign language for “male and female ends”, so she sends me to the back section. I am placed in the bulkhead (good), in the middle seat (bad). We’re ready for take-off. 

Now, let me clue you in on something. If you plan to travel to Hong Kong, I highly recommend Cathay. But bring earplugs. And sleeping pills. And maybe birth control, just to make yourself feel better. Because there were, no exaggeration here, AT LEAST TWELVE BABIES on our plane. Not toddlers, not children, but bonafide “I can’t even walk, much less understand why my ears are popping” babies. Apparently all the parents wait until their infants are three months old, and then load the family up to visit the grandparents in Hong Kong or mainland China (which requires a stop-over in Hong Kong). So the twelve babies, in teams of three, all take four-hour shifts screaming their fool baby heads offs. 

That said… the thing about a sixteen-hour flight is that you’ve prepared yourself for it to be completely awful. But you put in your earphones, prop yourself up, doze a bit, watch two movies, walk around a bunch, eat two meals, play Bejeweled,  use the bathroom four times… and then you’re there. I finally got to watch “The Invention of Lying”, in which I have a small role, and “Inglorious Basterds” — which technically didn’t break the Atkinson-Chase household ban on Tarantino films as I was thousands of feet in the air above the North Pole at the time. 

At some point in the night, it becomes…

March 22nd***********************************************************************

We arrive at the Hong Kong airport, and every other person we see has a surgical mask on. What is going on? we ask ourselves. Is this still about SARS? But we quickly discover that an enormous sandstorm has blown huge amount of pollution — and sand, I presume — into the air over Hong Kong. The pollution levels are insane. Literally off the charts. There’s an index that ends at 100, and we’re at 500. We ask Gary, who is our guide from the airport to the hotel, whether we need surgical masks too. He assures us the particles are so small that they would make it through the mask and into our lungs anyway.

Well. That’s comforting. I suddenly, desperately, have the urge for a cigarette. 

We ride the Bridge Project Bus into Hong Kong, where we are a) alarmed that we can’t locate the sun in the sky due to the pollution, b) concerned by the bazillion of 7-11 stores we see on the way, and C) curious about the meaning of the basquillion little green signs bearing the word POAD. Tommy and I decide it is a indicator that the thing it decorates is unerringly lame. I took a picture of it, and would put it here, but my computer ate it. 

So we check in at the hotel, and decide it’s time to burn through some per diem. For the unlucky and uninitiated, per diem is latin for “the best thing to happen to actors, EVER.” It’s a sum of cash that is considered chump change for the producers, but for touring actors and crew it is FREE MONEY. Its purpose is to compensate you for not being at home, where presumedly you live off ketchup-and-white-bread sandwiches eaten over the sink in your kitchen. 

Under the guidance of Mr. Tommy Sadoski, we arrive at One Harbor, and eight of us eat The Best Meal I’ve Ever Eaten That Wasn’t Cooked By Leon or My Mama. 

And we go to bed in fluffy white beds that we won’t have to make up in the morning. Heaven. 

March 23rd************************************************************************
The night before, some of us made a plan to go see The Big Buddha on Lantau Island. Our wonderful new friend and Arts Festival liaison Hong Kong Michelle (to distinguish her from cast member Michelle Beck) said it was a must-see. So six of us — Jenni, Ron, Ross, Tommy, Richard, and myself — meet up at 10:30, and take the subway over. And lemme tell y’all, subways are NICE in Hong Kong. No random newspapers, no spilled drinks (well, I’ll qualify that in a sec), no homeless people. I make this observation aloud, and quickly realize I haven’t seen a homeless person ANYWHERE. This alarms me. Not because I think homelessness is like, awesome, but because I assume they’ve all been Put Somewhere Not Nice. I have no idea if that is actually the case. 

So we ride out on the pretty subway. Immediately after reading a sign that says food and drink are not allowed, I spill my coffee on the seat. I ask the gang for a napkin. No dice. I sit on the spilled coffee, hoping my cheap black skirt will soak it up. It does. 
Also worth noting is that all the names of the subway stops are Chinese except the one that lets you out at Disneyland, which is named Sunny Bay. Grody. 

When we get off the subway, I am made aware of the fact that there is only one mode of transportation to Lantau Island, and it is the Ngong Ping 360. New Yorkers, picture the Rooselvelt Island tram but smaller cars that go six times the distance. I don’t even like flying in a plane. My palms start to sweat. The guys are suggesting we take a glass-bottomed one. Jenni tells me I look like I might faint. Thank god, the glass-bottomed cars are price-prohibitive, even considering we’re spending the above-mentioned per diem. 

So we get aboard.

And it is amazing. I stop being nervous after the first couple of minutes. The view is, well, indescribable. I have a video, but I’m not quite sure how to get it on tumblr. I’ll work on it. Here’s a couple of photos as a placeholder.

And while we’re on the ride, we crest a ridge, and then we see it.

So as we’re going there, we’re saying things like how incredible that it was built so long ago, and how on Earth did they do it, and how amazing it must have been to be a weary traveler on these mist-covered mountains, and to come over the ridge and see it… and then I read on a plaque that it was built in 1981. But still.  

Pretty cool.

And then we had lunch at the monastery, and because we had read that it’s impolite to serve yourself, we made asses of ourselves trying to serve each other multiple helpings of food. It eventually came down to, if you wanted something, you asked someone else if THEY wanted it, and when they said no you stared them down until they offered it back to you. Ron, who had already said this would be a day he remembered forever, ran into someone he knew from Cal Arts at the bottom of the temple steps, and we decided this was gonna happen a lot on this trip. He’s gonna know people EVERYWHERE.

We ride the Ngong Ping back, and by this time I’m such a savvy cool fucking cucumber that I’m actually bummed when the ride comes to an end. 

I end the night with an entirely different crew of folks, with only Ross as an overlap: Tony, Ed, Jen Tait, Sarah, and the crew guys like Tom H, Dom, and Dan — all of whom I am just getting to know since they weren’t at the BAM run. We drink at a biker bar behind our hotel called Handlebar Hong Kong, and I drink whiskey when the beer runs out and play songs like “All Right Now” by Free and “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You” by KISS all night ‘til we close the bar at 4 and stumble across the street to our clean, fluffy beds. 

And somewhere, deep in my reptilian actor brain, I know that tomorrow the work begins.

*************************************************************************************

* Song by Alex Battles, about a car repair shop of the same name in Brooklyn. No, we did not in fact collide with anything. Except maybe drunk rugby fans. More on that later.

Hi there, friend! You look great! Have you lost weight? By the way, I am SO SORRY that I said I would update this blog, and then let three weeks go by without a peep. I plan to spend a loooong time tonight updating you. So just know that while Tommy and Ron are at the food stands eating chili crab, and Jenni’s having a backrub in the hotel spa, and Michelle and Shane are in Bali, and most of the Brits are at the beach, and the crew are in the Swissotel pool, splashin’ around… I am again your devoted servant, typing away in my hotel room with nothing but Tiger beer (an inexpensive Singaporean lager) and Missy Elliot to keep me company. I’ll pause a moment so you may wipe away any tears of pity.

Alright! Let’s do this thing!

Now make the Wayne and Garth squiggly hands that mean we’re going back in time, all the way to March 21st. Next stop, next post!

P.S. - Kim, is all forgiven?

but sometimes a little backstory is necessary.

I am currently backstage at Brooklyn Academy of Music, our home since October 19. Well, not really HOME… MY home is three subway stops away, with my manfella Leon.

This is Leon.

It’s our last week of shows here at BAM, and we’re currently halfway through our Wednesday night performance of The Tempest. I only have one line in The Tempest, so I’m in my dressing room, which I share with the other female cast members: Juliet, Michelle, and Jenni.We are girl posse to the extreme. Shared food, sauna parties, shit-talking.  And it’s funny, I remember seeing Shakespeare when I was in  Junior High, and talking to the actors afterwards, and thinking “Don’t talk stupid, Ashlie. Don’t say anything dumb.”  I don’t even remember what the show was, I just remember coming up to the actors afterwards and feeling this incredible pressure to speak intelligently on matters of antiquity. God knows what I even said. But I know I was working hard on crafting smart comments about life in the 1600s.

Right now, as I type this, Jenni and Michelle are talking about whether one of the actors farted onstage during the harpy scene. And whether the person in the front row is a transgendered prostitute, as she’s dressed “like Pretty Woman wayyy before she goes shopping. Wait, not even like Julia Roberts. Like her hooker friend. But with an Adam’s apple.”

It’s one of the many lessons I’ve learned from my dressing room mates. Shakespeare is our job, but like everybody else in the world, sometimes we want to talk about anything but our job. Unless it involves farting.

P.S. - According to the men in the other half of our dressing room, the chick in the front row was “smoking hot, transgendered prostitute or not. Did you see her LEGS?” The things you miss when you only have one line in a play…