Stanley remembers the Alamo and Madison's fantastic pizza

John Ambrosino (center) plays the lead in a touring production of "The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley."

Many people have described Flat Stanley's travels around the world. But seldom, if ever, has he had the opportunity to speak for himself. John Ambrosino plays Stanley Lambchop in a national touring production of "The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley," which was at the Colonial Theatre in March. Ambrosino, 28, a native of Avon who graduated from Thayer Academy in Braintree and Bates College in Maine, talked about life on the road.

Q: How many cities are you hitting on this tour?

A: We're going to 89 cities, and we're in the middle, like 50-something or maybe 60.

Q: You do most of your travel by bus. What's that like?

A: They try to plan the legs so they're not too far, but sometimes we are traveling for up to eight hours. It's in our contract that we each get two seats so they become kind of a home away from home, and people decorate. . . . I have a Hello Kitty throw blanket and a Hello Kitty body pillow. And other people do things, like Jamieson [Lindenburg, who plays Stanley's father, Mr. Lambchop], who put up pictures on his window, vintage postcards and pictures of his mother and stuff like that.

The bus has two DVD screens so sometimes we watch movies, but mostly I listen to music with my iPod. I listen to musicals to get ready for auditions. I'm also a big country fan. I like to listen to people like Jo Dee Messina.

Q: What has been your favorite city?

A: Well, there were two: Madison, Wis., and San Antonio, Texas. They were fabulous. Madison is, like, a college town. It's small and well set up; there's a cute downtown with shopping and restaurants. And there was a beautiful new arts center and plenty of artistic and ethnic diversity. There was great dining on Main Street: Indian, Thai, and cool and interesting stuff like Russian-Arab fusion. And many of these places were run by immigrants, and we were, like, what are you doing in Madison?

San Antonio was so cool. The Alamo is there. We went there and did the whole Alamo thing. And I loved the River Walk; it's like a separate town on the river's edge. There are shops and restaurants there. We went to dinner at 9 after a show one night and it was alive. There were lots of people and mariachi bands, and it's just the coolest concept, having a way to bond this entertainment and cultural center with the rest of town.

Q: What's been your favorite restaurant?

A: It was this pizza place in Madison. I can't even remember the name, but they served mac-and-cheese pizza, which I had never had before, and I loved it. It was basically a heart attack, but I loved it so much I had it twice. It was most fantastic. Tasty and very unique.

Q: Favorite hotel?

A: The Biltmore in Providence. It was just beautiful the way they had the rooms set up like a suite with a sitting room and a bedroom and walk-in closets. It was very artistic design, the way fabrics and furniture were put together.

Q: What's the coolest thing you've seen on the road so far?

A: We were driving in the Midwest in Kansas or Ohio, no, I think it was Kansas, and all of a sudden Jamieson says, "Oh . . . my . . . God!" And we all looked. And there it was: an 11-story cross with siding on it by the side of the road. And all through the bus you could hear people yelling: "Oh . . . my . . . God!" There was a sign next to it that said Crosses Across America. And our bus driver said that he'd seen crosses like this by the side of the road all over the Midwest.

PAUL MAKISHIMA