Pittsburgh Week Part 3: A Grand Night Out

After what almost amounted to a week long, sit-down in Pittsburgh, it was time to bid the city that had hosted us so well a fond farewell. And, although Team ECK made an excursion to the Andy Warhol Museum and a nice little (part-vegan) BBQ restaurant, most of our off-time was spent sleeping in, wandering our lovely suburban neighborhood, catching movies at the local multiplex and mingling with the locals over scrapple and eggs at the nearby diner (that was me; I never need to eat scrapple again). But our last night required something special. And it was Saturday night! So, we (minus David, who was headed to the Carnegie Mellon area with a friend) dressed ourselves up and headed out to the South Side, out for a tasty-looking restaurant for dinner and a ride on the historic Duquesne incline for a spectacular nighttime view of the city.

We discovered quickly that our instincts were accurate. South Side is quite trendy, and clearly the hip Saturday night meet-up place. However, this presented a problem: the van. See, taking an oversized Sprinter van to a densely-populated, "in" urban area and expecting to find street parking on a Saturday night isn't exactly the brightest idea we've had on this tour. And, after an hour of spotting only cramped street parking and low-clearance garages, we did the only reasonable thing there was left to do.

We valet parked the van:

The guys were actually thrilled to get to drive something as big and "manly" as a Sprinter. Anyway, with our van safely tucked away (under the watchful eye of the valet dudes) at a price our pocketbooks could afford, we headed off to Yo Rita, a small-plates taco bar where (under the disdainful gaze of our eye-rolling waitress) we enjoyed some of the most unique Mexican fare I've ever tasted, and far too many baskets of free chips and salsa. This cast as a penchant for living well on occasion, and tonight was no exception. Dreaming of what we would each do with a million dollars (we play these games at dinner when we've run out of conversation), our troupe retrieved the Sprinter, tumbled in and raced to catch one of the last trips up the incline:

So long, Pittsburgh! It was a great week!

(P.S.  We got press!  Check out an interview with Nic here,  an interview with director Kevin here and a stellar review here!)

Call tomorrow: 7:30am, Travelodge, Parkersburg, WV. We'll be performing on our first thrust stage!

Kid Quote of the Day: Part of our time in Pittsburgh also included some workshops. We taught three groups of kids (ages three through five) theater games and imagination exercises connected to our books. Which, of course, garnered me a whole host of quotes. My current favorite? During an exercise where we had the kids pretend to be different kinds of monsters (after Leonardo), the entire class recognized Nic as Sam (the boy Leo tries to scare in the story) and ganged up on him. When I pointed out that Sam was scared, and we needed to help him, guess what happened? Nic disappeared underneath a pile of hugs.

Adult Quote of the Day: At the "scrapple" diner, I was referred to as "honey," "sweetie," "sugar," "angel," "darlin'" and "babe" by my server. It was an experience.