Last weekend I took the opportunity to see Elgin Theatre Company's performance of Leaving Iowa. The play is billed as a, "Comedic Toast to the All American Road Trip"; however, I think it is much more than an enjoyable comedy. Call me sentimental, but it totally reminded me of my family vacations as a kid. We had no funds for plane trips, except when those trips to Ireland to see family mysteriously came to be...we'll save that for another day. Where was I? Oh yes, growing up, we were as cash-poor as a non-profit in the State of IL! We had one car growing up, and it was a two-toned VW mini-bus. My Mom made curtains for it, and when we took trips, the back seat came out and my parents took my brother's mattress off his bed and put that in the place of the bench seat. The need for seat belts was null and void back then! We were kind of like the Irish hippies, and I didn't know back then how different we were from everyone else that I knew! I thought it was "normal" to drive around in a VW minibus donned with curtains and a mattress. Then add into that, to have a brother that went bizerk every time our Mom drove (sans a driver's license on a stick-shift, mind you) to ease up the burden on my Dad...But looking back, it was all good!
What seemed more than not (but it could be some misplaced kid memory), we would start out every road trip, ready to go - books packed, cooler packed, travelling songs ready to be sung and off we went...one mile down the road. Then full stop. Out of gas! Helllooooo! So, this is just a slice of my child hood. Back then, when it was real time, it was aggravating, frustrating and was a fight-evoking event with my siblings, but looking back on it now, it was pretty cool and very comical! This is how Elgin Theatre Company's (ETC) Leaving Iowa begins...well very similar.
The opening scene is a flashback to a Browning family road trip, complete with the enthusiastic Dad played by Scot Savage, the sometimes irritated Mom portrayed by Lori Rohr, the bratty Sis who could nag Mom and Dad into doing anything, played by Debbi Dennison and Don the son, effortlessly played by Patrick Pantelis. The scene then flash-forwards to present time and a middle-aged Don comes home for a visit. His father passed away three years earlier, and as time and busy lives would have it, his father's ashes never found a resting place at his boyhood home, as requested. They were actually found resting on the top of the electrical box down in the basement!
So, Don takes it upon himself to fulfill his father's wishes, and as he does this, he travels across the land and runs into an assortment of wacky characters amusingly played by Nancy Braus, Liliana Mitchell, Tim Bayler and Charles Wimmer, to round out the cast! And as the road takes twists and turns, so does the story, and Don finds himself reminiscing about many of the spots and experiences he had travelling as a boy in the family station wagon. Just by watching, one can tell that Leaving Iowa's director, Thomas Akouris, is a graduate of The Second City Conservatory Program because those skills show through in the character portrayals.
So the big question is...do Dad's ashes finally rest at his boyhood home? The only was to find out is to live like the Browning's, take an adventure, feel the family spirit and reminisce about your own family road trips. This weekend travel to the Kimball Street Theatre at Elgin Academy, located at the corner of Kimball & Douglas Avenue, Elgin, IL, to see this play! For tickets and more information call 847-741-0532 or visit Elgin-Theatre.org. And in June, watch for ETC's You Can't Take it With You.
Last weekend I took the opportunity to see Elgin Theatre Company's performance of Leaving Iowa. The play is billed as a, "Comedic Toast to the All American Road Trip"; however, I think it is much more than an enjoyable comedy. Call me sentimental, but it totally reminded me of my family vacations as a kid. We had no funds for plane trips, except when those trips to Ireland to see family mysteriously came to be...we'll save that for another day. Where was I? Oh yes, growing up, we were as cash-poor as a non-profit in the State of IL! We had one car growing up, and it was a two-toned VW mini-bus. My Mom made curtains for it, and when we took trips, the back seat came out and my parents took my brother's mattress off his bed and put that in the place of the bench seat. The need for seat belts was null and void back then! We were kind of like the Irish hippies, and I didn't know back then how different we were from everyone else that I knew! I thought it was "normal" to drive around in a VW minibus donned with curtains and a mattress. Then add into that, to have a brother that went bizerk every time our Mom drove (sans a driver's license on a stick-shift, mind you) to ease up the burden on my Dad...But looking back, it was all good!
What seemed more than not (but it could be some misplaced kid memory), we would start out every road trip, ready to go - books packed, cooler packed, travelling songs ready to be sung and off we went...one mile down the road. Then full stop. Out of gas! Helllooooo! So, this is just a slice of my child hood. Back then, when it was real time, it was aggravating, frustrating and was a fight-evoking event with my siblings, but looking back on it now, it was pretty cool and very comical! This is how Elgin Theatre Company's (ETC) Leaving Iowa begins...well very similar.
The opening scene is a flashback to a Browning family road trip, complete with the enthusiastic Dad played by Scot Savage, the sometimes irritated Mom portrayed by Lori Rohr, the bratty Sis who could nag Mom and Dad into doing anything, played by Debbi Dennison and Don the son, effortlessly played by Patrick Pantelis. The scene then flash-forwards to present time and a middle-aged Don comes home for a visit. His father passed away three years earlier, and as time and busy lives would have it, his father's ashes never found a resting place at his boyhood home, as requested. They were actually found resting on the top of the electrical box down in the basement!
So, Don takes it upon himself to fulfill his father's wishes, and as he does this, he travels across the land and runs into an assortment of wacky characters amusingly played by Nancy Braus, Liliana Mitchell, Tim Bayler and Charles Wimmer, to round out the cast! And as the road takes twists and turns, so does the story, and Don finds himself reminiscing about many of the spots and experiences he had travelling as a boy in the family station wagon. Just by watching, one can tell that Leaving Iowa's director, Thomas Akouris, is a graduate of The Second City Conservatory Program because those skills show through in the character portrayals.
So the big question is...do Dad's ashes finally rest at his boyhood home? The only was to find out is to live like the Browning's, take an adventure, feel the family spirit and reminisce about your own family road trips. This weekend travel to the Kimball Street Theatre at Elgin Academy, located at the corner of Kimball & Douglas Avenue, Elgin, IL, to see this play! For tickets and more information call 847-741-0532 or visit Elgin-Theatre.org. And in June, watch for ETC's You Can't Take it With You.
