'tii next year, Tour de France!

Word for Word Artistic Director Sue Harloe writes to us from overseas, where the acclaimed Tour de France tour of "Two On A Party" has just wrapped.

We saw the trees in the Luxembourg Gardens turn from skeletally brown to lacy green to a verdant canopy during Word for Word's latest Tour de France. Tennessee Williams is all the rage here this Spring (I've seen 4 productions, each a different play, two in French and two in English--ranging from Isabelle Huppert in a tour de force of a deconstructed "Tramway" to a fantastic production of "Spring Storm" Group's), so we were, in essence, part of a European Williams festival. Our "Two on A Party" was tremendously received; people loved the story, the actors, the staging, the set. Full houses everywere. All the elements combined to make a terrific evening of theater.

Our venues were wildly disparate--from a tiny postage stamp of a stage, to a large auditorium with a painting of Pope John Paul II overlooking our valiant company, to Paris' Salle Adyar (housed in the 1912 theater building shared by the Theosophist Society)--and each provided a home, a stage for our actors to bring "Two On A Party" once again to life. The post-show question and answer sessions were intelligent and mostly thoughtful--people wanted to know about Theater Rhino (and Rhino's Artistic Director, John Fisher, was able to join us onstage for these talks in Paris), always about Word for Word and how we select our stories, who makes up the company, etc. etc. Our wonderful technician in Paris, Lillia, pointed out how unusual it is for audiences in France to have such intimate contact with the actors. This contact creates a further bond and expression of our mission: French-American amity. (This is also the mission of the Florence Gould Foundation, which provides our funding and without whom we could never make this tour). We performed for everyone: anglophones, francophones, and a suprising number of high school students (some entirely French speaking) who had studied the story and were completely enthralled by the production. (I did give brief vocabulary lessons to some of our hosts regarding Williams' more colloquial terms, like queen, fairy, lush, old bag, and the inimitable "glory hole".)

We were well cared for in every city we visited (Angers, Nantes, Nancy, Paris), with great city tours, long meals, wonderful wine, and endlessly thoughtful, gracious, and fascinated hosts. We are so lucky to be able to share this experience with them: really, it is our hosts and our loyal audiences who make the tour shine as it does.

Then came the Ash Cloud! The night of our final performance in Paris, April 15, was the night of the Eyjafjallajokull eruption. Suddenly Europe is in a panic, planes can't get in or out, the words "ash cloud" are everywhere. Fortunately, the Icelandic gods were smiling on us, because our company members had each made plans to leave several days after the show, and so had booked later flights, all of which left more or less as scheduled. And so we had a place to stay (the lovely large apartment that we rent each on rue de Vaugirard), food, water, wine, and some of the most gorgeous weather Paris has had. We did experience long and arduous lines at the airport, and Jeri Lynn's flight even took off, flew, turned around, and came back to Paris. But all arrived home, safe and sound, and we are all very grateful for that.

Boundless thanks to all who make this tour possible, both here and abroad. It brings so much to so many people.