I arrived in Nashville to a gentleman in baggage claim holding a sign that said “Alan Hawkins”, won’t lie, that was very cool. They quickly shuttled me to my hotel and as we got to the entrance, he said “Oh good, you still have 25 minutes to get ready for the dinner pick up here in the lobby!”

Now, by this point, I had only had a muffin and water the entire day, so I was rushed, but I was being rushed to a thing I desperately needed. Put on a polo and some slacks, jogged down to the lobby and met up with some of the other teaching faculty.

The Tennessee Arts Academy is a week-long Festival for elementary, middle and high school arts teachers. They bring in a unique team of educators (like myself) to do workshops and seminars.

So the lobby was filled with my tribe, we introduced ourselves and chatted happily as we waited for the travel Vans to come get us and take us to the Middle Tennessee college house. Which is this big palatial house that the college uses for entertaining.

Now, I’ve never been to the South. I’ve never experienced true “Southern hospitality”.

There was so much food, and as you’re eating food, they’re telling you of the next time you will be eating food and the time after that. And the food was amazing.

And I was starving.

So naturally, I kind of hurt myself. And this morning I’m a bit sad.

They went over the whole history of the conference, what they do with Arts educators from across the region, and what we will be doing this entire week. I’ll be doing three improvised Shakespeare workshops a day for 5 days. And two character creation through movement workshops. All for about 60 drama teachers. And each night there’s some type of banquet or party or show that they are putting on for everyone. It’s quite the deal.

This morning, I’ll be going to breakfast with the theater crew, then we will check out our classrooms and meet the drama teachers we will be working with for the week. I’ll try to take more pictures today. I may even do a YouTube daily video blog. We’ll see how ambitious I get.