Humana Fest not the only show in town

Humana Fest not the only show in town

“Are you here for the show?” the guy on the elevator asked.

Thursday night, around ten o’clock. Cold, rainy. I’d just driven down from Cincinnati and had barely enough time to check into the hotel before heading over to 21c (art gallery, hotel and performance space) for my first Humana Festival play, “Heist!”

I started to say yes, but then I looked at my questioner more closely. About six-three, 250, trucker cap, work boots, olive green T-shirt with the sleeves torn off from a Sturgis, Ky. bar, bearing the slogan “WHO LET THE HOGS OUT?”

Maybe he was talking about a different show.

I seem to be one of perhaps three guests here at the Fairfield Inn in downtown Louisville not connected in some way with a massive annual expo of what’s latest and greatest in the world of the big rigs — an industry upon which we all rely, as Americans. And I’m not just talking about bus and truck tours.

At breakfast this morning, I talked with a couple of good-looking guys from California (they could have been actors), here working a booth for a company that makes heavy-duty windshield wipers.

“You know, for truckers — they scrape off the bugs and stuff,” one guy explained.

I told them the wipers on my Saturn had squeeked all the way down I-71. Drove me crazy. All I could do was turn up the volume on my “Hair” Broadway revival cast recording. Which is how I handle most of my automotive issues.

“We can help you with that,” my new friends assured me.

Maybe I should swing by the truck show later, after a few more Humana Festival plays. Clear my head. Pimp my ride.

But I’m not sure I brought the right outfit.

— Julie York Coppens, Dramatics magazine