Tabishland

At long last, I have a report on the excursion to Ellicott City, Maryland, and an experience amongst the ruins with the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. Cheryl and I arrived just before the gates opened at 6:30 pm. We enjoyed our box dinners at a picnic table under a canopy while awaiting other possible Sendracsian arrivals. Cheryl kept asking, “Do you know who that is coming up the hill?” To which I replied many times, “No. I don’t know who that is.” We turned our attention to the delectable morsels of food for a brief moment, then I heard a familiar voice. “Yes, I called this in yesterday. It was an order for a few dinners. It’s under the name of Gallanar.” It was Ian and his adorable daughter Dora (Isadora actually, but he seems to call her Dora a lot and it works well juxtaposed with adorable…hmmm…unless that is her real name.) Cheryl and I sprung from our seats with joy and there were hugs all around. Soon after, The Man, Dr. David Tabish, came up the hill and there was more joy, and hugs, and introductions. Ian guided us around to the performance area where a table had been reserved. As you see in the first photo, Ian is the maitre d’, while David is doing his best sommelier impersonation. Dora is the food handler.







Here’s another shot of Dora carefully placing each little orange spec onto the California Rolls. I have no idea what this job would be called in French.

















The ruins where the productions are held were quite impressive. The stage is in the lower part of this image and towards the right. It fills a corner of the walls.











The walls were stabilized years ago with the blue steel beams visible in the images. Here’s the stage left side.












Before long, Ian had to go up on stage and greet the audience. He actually followed the opening act, which was a lovely local jazz singer. Here’s Ian doing his schtick.

















In a stroke of amazing luck, I was zoomed in for another photo just before Ian left the stage and caught him giving someone a Full-Hansmann sarcastic smile. It’s not the best image, but there it is.















I didn’t take any photos during the show, but Cheryl and I quite enjoyed the production. We sat towards the back of the audience and had little problem hearing the actors. Here’s how it looked at the curtain call. It’s more impressive at night.








Ian led us around the ruins for a back stage tour and I got a few more mood shots. You could shoot some cool album covers here.

















Ian’s camera is much better than my point and shoot. The images he posted earlier were taken after the show in the same amount of light. I tried to take one without the flash. If you look carefully, you can see Dave Tabish on the left of this image. Cheryl is a blur heading toward the doorway under the steps.






So that was it. We had a really super time at the show. We hope to return and spend more time in Ellicott City, as it looks quite charming. Hope we see some others at the next gig.