A Child Of Atom

Tonight one of the patrons of the Playhouse opened up his home for a party to welcome the staff and resident company of actors for the season. This is a new event which didn't occur last year. All week there were rumors flying about the property and it's owners who are perhaps best described as eccentric. The main house is an old stone hatchery that has been converted to a literal mansion. It has some palatial rooms, including some bathrooms larger than my NYC apartment. The original estate was 8,500 acres of mountains and land. All around the grounds are collections of exotic animals. Llamas, alpacas, various parrots, macaws, and other tropical birds and a large colony of Galapagos tortoises. (Such as the one confronting our TD Luke above.) Rumor has it that there were also some macaques in the basement of the house, but we weren't allowed to see them because they apparently become aggressive when confronted with large groups of people. The owner was quite nice about it though and offered to show us the monkeys on an individual basis whenever we liked. In fact he offered to invite us all over again when the weather was sunnier so that we could enjoy one of the three (!) lakes on the property. I always knew that there were tons of animals in this area, I see deer and turkey on an almost daily basis, and I hear rumors of bears close by, but I had never known that there was an exotic animal preserve so close as well.