Travelogue: South Padre Island, TX

[Once a month we have a company member report to us about life on the road. This month, it's Deb Rabbai. sharing about our recent tour in South Padre Island, TX]

Oh what fun it is to be in Broadway’s Next Hit Musical! I always say “Join BNHM, See America!” In early December we were lucky enough to leave the island of Manhattan for another island. South Padre Island Texas! What a journey we had with amazing meals (as usual) friendly, chatty people and hilarious shows. We love tours like this one because it had us in the same venue for three consecutive nights and we can really find our groove.

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We flew from NYC into Houston then into Brownsville Texas. The Brownsville “International” airport. I put quotes in because while it’s an international airport, there is literally only one baggage carousel and that made it easy to find our luggage and gave us a chuckle. Something we all noticed upon arrival at 11pm at the Brownsville airport as we walked in the balmy Texas night weather to get to our respective rental cars, was the aggressive sound of birds chirping. As we exited the airport there were four trees covered in birds tweeting. We moved quietly and swiftly into our cars and escaped what was sure to be a reenactment of a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds.

The cast was split up into three hotels and while each hotel had its own flavor and distinction the one thing they all had in common, which made all of us jump for joy, was….. A BEACH! We each spent time at the beach walking along and watching the waves crash against the shoreline. We saw seagulls, sandpipers and many jellyfish that washed ashore.

At the South Padre Island Convention Center where we performed, we were so fortunate to be well taken care of by Joann, our presenter. The catering she organized was top notch. So much so that the caterer baked us a cake for our first night that had our BNHM logo printed onto the icing. It made us feel so welcomed.

Since it was early December, all kinds of Christmas decorations were popping up all over South Padre Island and the neighboring area of Port Isabel. We even had a meal at Manuel’s! We saw the lighthouse all decked out and various Christmas lights throughout the town. We saw beautiful sunsets from our green room at the Convention center and beautiful holiday themed sand sculptures. Our third performance was a holiday themed musical and we had the chance to break out all the ugly Christmas sweaters and hats to wear in the musical that we improvised that night.

All in all, we decided that South Padre Island Texas was a beautiful, lovely place that we’d all be happy to return to anytime of year, but December will always be our favorite.

Buy the Original Cast Recordings from our shows in South Padre Island, TX