January 24, 2012

Escanaba in da Moonlight has really taken off since the first weekend. The cast has been terrific under Ross Daniel's direction and audiences have been really responsive. We have added two encore performances of the show because of audience demand on Jan. 27 & 28 at 7:30 pm.

I must confess a mistake I have made more than once as Executive and Artistic Director of Market House Theatre. I underestimated the sensitivities of our audience. When we first looked at selecting this show it was passed up. Some of the reading committee loved the show (myself included) and others thought the humor was a little too crude. I will confess that I watched the movie version of this show and thought-"this may be too crude for our audience." I pulled the show from consideration after that first year of reading because I was also worried that we would not get enough "hunters" to buy tickets to make the show successful.

To my surprise I discovered that not only did our audiences like the show, but women are often the source of the loudest laughs in the theatre.

As I watch the show from the back (mostly watching the audience reaction), it dawned on me- this was the reverse of Dixie Swim Club audiences where the show was about 5 women and their friendships and the loudest laughs came from male members of the audience. We all at some basic level love to see how the opposite sex acts when it's just the guys or just the girls. We may be any age from 30-100 but inside of us there still lurks that 13 year old kid-looking for acceptance from our peer group and willing to do outrageous things to earn that acceptance. There is an honesty to the show (in addition to some really funny stuff) that I think makes the show work really well.

Another worry we had was finding a talented cast of 5 men to rehearse over the Christmas/New Year's holidays which is usually a real struggle. We were able to cast a great group of guys and a girl to make the show a big success. I hope that everyone that missed out because of the sold out shows on the second week will get a chance to come to the encore performances.

Auditions for Getting Sara Married started last night. We had a terrific turnout of of women and men. I did not know the majority of those auditioning! That was a very welcome surprise. Auditions continue tonight and I believe that director Diane Byrd will be able to put together a great cast.

We have a workshop for Auditions for Hairspray on Feb 1 and then the auditions on Feb. 6 & 7. The workshop will let people know what songs to prepare and we will do a little bit of dance and share some of the scene selections I'll use for the auditions. It really is just a primer for those auditioning who have never done this before.

Play selection committee met last night and chose the slate for next season. It will now go into the rights application stage and then if everything is available we will announce our next years season at a big party on March 16 at the theatre. Look for more information on this in the upcoming newsletter. A big thank you goes out to Denise Bristol who chaired that committee, and to its members who read dozens of plays to narrow down the list to our final choices.

The Murder for Hire Troupe is rehearsing for the next event. We will perform Murder by Magic at the Paducah Country Club on March 3 and then in 3 dinner theatre performances at the Market House March 8-10. It should be lots of fun with dinner catered by Neil's Catering and a wine and beer cash bar again. Tickets are $35 each and we encourage people to get a team together to compete.

The Market House Board of Directors Meeting is tomorrow at 5:30 at the theatre. Williams Williams and Lentz will present the official audit to the theatre of our last completed fiscal year.

MHT completed our annual Kentucky Arts Council Arts Partnership application on January 13 and we hope that with all of the state budgets cut that they will be able to continue to fund the arts at some level. That funding leverages 4 times the tax revenue for the city and state as they dispense. The legislature cut the funding for the Kentucky Arts Council in the last two budgets. The arts council ended up eliminating all of their grants except for the Arts Partnerships for long standing arts groups. Any more cuts could quite possibly jeopardize matching funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and that could be the difference between groups being able to make that return on investment in tax revenue for the state which then reduces state revenues even further. Some cuts would literally be worse than others for state revenue. KAC funding isn't just a quality of life issue. It truly is a tax revenue issue as well.

The theatre is still in process on Phase Two of our Organization and Facilities study. We hope to have some significant progress to announce by the end of this fiscal year in June as to our future plans for renovation and expansion. Everything from scene shop construction space to additional lobby restroom space is being studied. The good news is that we have lots of exciting options and a strong financial foundation to build on. Consultants will visit Paducah over the help us evaluate our options.

December wrap up

Every time I look at the calendar I can't believe how fast the time is going. The theatre will be open until 5 pm Thursday Dec. 22 and then close and reopen Jan. 3. If you have any last minute gift certificates you need stop by tomorrow to pick those up. I just sent out scripts for the next murder mystery dinner theatre event March 8-10.We will do Murder by Magic. A producer is trying to take over the Market House Theatre and turn it into a year round haunted house. The producer tries to bring back the ghosts of a famous magician and his assistant who tragically died in the theatre with the help of a local psychic. Of course not everything goes as planned and one of the company members are murdered. See if you can solve the mystery and win a prize. Tickets will go on sale Jan. 3.

Escanaba in da moonlight is taking a short break for Christmas and will be back in rehearsal before New Years. That show opens Jan. 12 and it looks to be lots of fun! WARNING- if crude language and bodily function humor are not your cup of tea- this is not the show for you. If watching 5 male hunters go to any length to bag a buck, "wit lots o drinking o de maple sap whisky" and "yur males bonding wit de tall tales of da deer hunting" written by Jeff Daniels then this is da show fur u!

That was my limited attempt of the Upper Peninsula Michigan accent. There are websites devoted to this show about Yoopers and all things U.P.

The board of directors met last night with a pot luck get together to celebrate the holidays and review the first half of our current fiscal year. We've had lots of positive response to the news that MHT ended the second consecutive year in the black. We used almost all of the surplus to pay for maintenance repairs on the buildings in the current fiscal year and the consultants we've been working with on a future plan for MHT. Hopefully by the time we announce our 49th season in March we will have made some decisions about facility improvements and some exciting new programming for our 50th Anniversay in 2014!

Speaking of announcing our 49th season the play selection committee headed up by Denise Bristol is madly reading plays for consideration for next season! We have to have our list finalized and work on securing the rights by the end of January if at all possible.

January has auditions for The Adventures of Nate the Great on the 9&10, Getting Sara Married on the 23&24. Two weeks later on Feb. 6&7 are auditions for Hairspray.

The January newsletter is going through its final proofing and should hit mailboxes soon! We have lots of information about some new acting classes for adults that will start in Jan.

We have received some donations in memory of JC Dudley this past week. JC will be missed a great deal by everyone who knew him. He gave me a tie tack a few years ago that he wore to the theatre for opening nights. It is something I treasure. I've worn it a couple of times in his honor on the Sundays when he would be in the audience. I couldn't help but smile when ever he entered the theatre.

On behalf of the Staff and the Board of Directors Merry Christmas, Happy Hannuka, we hope that everyone has a safe and joyous New Year! See you in 2012!

November 12 2011

The 39 Steps opened Thursday night. It has been a tough show with lots of technical elements. There are well over 100 light cues and 100 sound cues, smoke machines, flash devices, still and video images and dozens of costume and sets pieces. We have been changing things right up to opening night. A great example was that the night before the final dress we eliminated all the scene change crew from coming onstage requiring the 4 actors to do all the scenery changes in front of the audience. After the final dress rehearsal we hung several of the furniture pieces like chairs, tables and stools from the walls to make the show more theatrical with actors getting their set pieces from all over the stage to create the next scene. The actors found out about this change when they walked in for opening night. After opening night I realized it took too long for the actors to hang their scenery pieces back up on the walls after the scene so we now have the pieces carried offstage where they are stored until intermission when they are put back up onstage.

The cast and crew have done a great job of adapting to these last minute changes. The creative process is extremely stressful when you have that deadline of opening night. Sometimes when you fix one problem you discover that two other problems were created. Tension builds and often I find myself getting more blunt the closer to opening we get- barking at the crew when the lights are late or the scene changes don't happen fast enough. Stopping a scene during the dress rehearsals and by yelling "No, No, No! Do it again!" I really do try not to yell and scream as a director or designer but there are times when I find myself doing just that.

As I read the paper today about the Tilghman HS game big win over their playoff rivals Owensboro. One of the players said "we aren't going to hear about the 56 points we scored, we're going to get yelled at because we let the other team score 17 points against us!"

That is what I feel like at times- focusing on the small things that go wrong and trying to make every joke funny, make every dramatic moment filled with a real human drama and easily go from one moment to the next. With very difficult shows like this my hat is off to the cast and crew who make magic happen with each performance and put up with my ranting and raving to make the show better. When we do it right, it looks effortless. Getting it to look that way is far from easy. Thanks again to a wonderful cast - Fowler, Landon, Roy and Heather. Thanks to a great crew- Assistant Director/Stage manager Denise Bristol, Light board operator Jim Roush, Sound operator Lisa Humphrey, stage crew, Jim Keeney, Betty Wise, and Tomas Lesnowinsk, and dressers Diane Byrd and Kris Shanks . If you don't come to see The 39 Steps you will have missed a great performance.

October 29 2011

To say that October has been a whirlwind would be a big understatement. We have just completed the run of Charlotte's Web, The Downtown Walking Ghost Tours, and the Masquerade Ball. The annual fund drive is in full swing and The 39 Steps is in rehearsal. In addition Escanaba in da Moonlight had auditions this past Monday and Tuesday and the Murder for Hire troupe is getting the materials together to present Murder at the Company Party on Dec. 3rd for Hilliard Lyons Investment firm and then on Dec. 8 & 9 at the Market House in a dinner theatre setting. As I write this we are about an hour from getting set up to do the final Oak Grove Cemetery and Mausoleum tours. Last night we did 4 tours that were either sold out or very close to sold out. Having written all that I need to break that down a little.

Charlotte's Web had a terrific run. The cast was outstanding and Ella as Wilbur, Martha as Fern, Maria as Charlotte were especially superb in their performances. The run ended with a standing room only crowd on the final Sunday performance and exceeded our budget goals for ticket sales. The cast did 6 school matinees and 6 public performances all told. April once again did a great job directing the production.

The Downtown Walking Ghost tours ran 3 weekends during the same time Charlotte's Web was performing. The opening night there was a mystery bus tour group from Missouri that found themselves with tickets to Charlotte's Web and then filed out of the theatre to find me in full ghost tour guide costume where we boarded their bus and did a downtown and lowertown tour of haunted locations. Cat Tilker gets a special thank you as she led tours along with me all three weekends. Fowler Black and Marsha Cash also get a big thank you for taking tours one weekend each with Cat and I as we did up to 6 tours a night. This weekend with the Oak Grove tours Cat, Fowler, Marsha, Kim Yocum and I will spend about 5 hours in the cemetery telling its history and the stories of its more colorful and sometimes ghostly apparitions. Special thanks to goes to all of the guides for spending time learning the stories and making the event very successful for the theatre. With all the tours together we hope to make about $7,000 in tour ticket income. This income helps to pay for additional items that come up during the year not covered by our regular shows and fundraisers.

Kristin Williams and Melisa Mast poured their heart and soul into MHT's first ever Masquerade Ball. Along with Kathryn Joyner, Cindy Miller, Susan Gafnee Evans, Susan Ybarzabal, and Sarah Bynum this group of very talented individuals created an event that had all of Paducah buzzing! Incredible food from Laura Duff of Pampered Palette and one of the best bands I've heard in a long time -The Nash Vegas All Stars created an evening that attendees will remember for a long time. Special thanks goes to Karson Kelly and his band of stilt walkers who entertained everyone as they entered for the evening. The theatre raised approx. $25,000 after expenses in income from tickets for the event, sponsorships, and the live and silent auctions and costume rentals. We would like to thank all those businesses and individuals that donated items and services to help MHT raise money for our programming. A huge thank you goes to Darlene Mazzone of Paducah Life for her support of the event and to Natalya and Jack Cody of Creatures of Habit for their support and donation of part of the proceeds of the costume rentals. Thanks also to MHT staff Marsha Cash for manning the registration desk with help from Kristy Waddie. Jim Keeney spent the evening taking great photos of the event for us to publish online. The committee is still talking about how to make next year even better. If you have suggestions we would love to hear them. Please send comments and suggestions to info@mhtplay.com. Next years event will be Saturday Oct. 20, 2012! Start planning your costume now!!

Cindy Miller has been hard at work for weeks now preparing and creating MHT's annual fund drive. Over a thousand letters went out recently to past donors and other who support MHT in a variety of ways. A general support letter is currently at the printer in process to go out this next week. MHT is needs to raise $70,000 this year in annual tax deductible contributions that support our youth and adult programming.

The 39 Steps starring Fowler Black, Heather Tomko, Roy Hensel and Landon Baker is in high gear getting ready for Tech next Sunday and opening night on Nov. 10! There are so many scenes and characters in the show the actors have been working for two weeks now on characters and timing. The show is very theatrical with actors using all kinds of individual objects to create the locations called for in the play. One of the props is a rolling door unit that the performers moves across the stage and then walks through it to create a new scene separate from the scene they just ended. If you like fast paced action and comedy this is the perfect show for you.

The auditions for Escanaba in da Moonlight were held last Monday and Tuesday. We are still needing additional men to audition. The first part of this season has called for lots of men to perform and we did not have enough men audition to cast the show. We have several very talented male actors audition for this hysterical deer hunting comedy but can't complete the casting until we find one more male actor ages 20-50 to complete the company. If you are interested please contact Michael Cochran at 270-444-6828 ext. 214 to set up an audition.

The Murder for Hire troupe is in the process of receiving their scripts for the show Murder at the Company Christmas Party. Troupe members Renie Barger, Fowler Black, Marsha Cash, Tom Dolan, Audra Hall, Roy and Travis Hensel, are preparing once again to challenge and audience to witness a murder right in front of their eyes and solve the clues to who-dunnit! The dinner theatre shows on Dec. 8 & 9 will be catered by Neil's Catering. The menu will be Roast Beef, Poppyseed Chicken, 3 vegetables, rolls and tea. Beer and wine bar will also be available for purchase at a cash bar. Tickets are $35 each for the event. A special nod goes to Fowler Black for learning lines for 39 Steps, Ghost Tours and Murder at the Company Christmas Party! Fowler's memory is going to need a rest over the Christmas Holidays!!

The theatre has finally completed most of the maintenance repairs on our historic properties. This year we had unexpected repairs of over $20,000 to our roofs, masonry, and back lot due to water damage from last spring. In addition the main Air conditioning unit in the Market House building had to be repaired at a cost of over $11,000. The City of Paducah is picking up a sizable portion of the at cost as owners of the Market House building. Last week when it got cold out we turned the boiler on backstage and discovered a major leak in the heating cools for the stage unit. That we expect to also be a major expense to repair. These maintenance repairs have really been a burden on this years budget. Events like Charlotte's Web exceeding its budget by $2,000 and making our budget goals for the Masquerade Ball and the annual fund drive become even more critical to keeping the theatre up and running.

As October comes to a close the thousands of people who have volunteered, purchased tickets and supported MHT in fundraising and annual fund drive events continue to show why Market House Theatre is one of Kentucky's leading community theatres.

Happy Halloween!

The show must go on

It has been up and down this past week. We have overcome lots of obstacles and each time it seems that something else comes up to challenge us. The main theatre air conditioner after 2 days of trying to find out what was causing our continuing problems was finally narrowed down to the main compressor unit had worn out and was constantly overheating and shutting down. We were notified 2 1/2 hours before show time on Thursday Sept 8 before the start of our second weekend of performances. The compressor unit was had to be replaced but the earliest it would arrive from out of town was Monday Sept. 12. Then we would have to get a crane to take the old one off the roof and put the new one on.

The weather mercifully cooled off for that weekend and we were able to do the shows with the overhead ceiling fans running during the performances with very little audience discomfort. The compressor unit didn't show up the following Monday but did arrive the next day and was finally installed and the system was working at 100% about 4 pm on Thursday Sept. 15 just in time for the 3rd weekend of performances of Putnam County Spelling Bee.

On Saturday Sept. 17, thirty minutes prior to opening the auditorium to allow the audience in for seating for the 7:30 show that night the stage lighting system crashed and became totally inoperable. That's the interesting thing about live theatre. You never know what is going to happen. You also have the motto- the show must go on!

I've been working in theatre now for over 35 years (that makes me feel really old!). Each year some new challenge comes along that demands you come up with a solution in a crises situation. I feel like the character on the old TV show McGiver some days when you have to improvise something out of whatever is on hand to get out of a tough situation. There are always several paths you can take when faced with what seems to be a hopeless situation. One of them is to give up. To cancel the show. When ever we have rough weather everyone assumes that is what we will do- cancel the show. It seems to amaze people when we don't do that. We have only canceled in extreme circumstances (the ice storm).

Thing I love about theatre people is that we all have a show must go on attitude. It's not a silly thing that "show biz" people say. It truly is a code of conduct. When you are faced with difficult situations you don't give up. You find a way to not just survive but succeed! Sometimes our best performances come from very difficult circumstances.

So we madly scrambled and were able to rig up 4 floodlights using stage lighting cables from the backstage to put just enough light on stage to keep the entire stage illuminated. We dug out our 30 year old portable lighting dimming system that you plug into a wall outlet and then plugged the lighting cables into that. We were able to at least bring the four floodlights up and down to give some different lighting to the show. Our old system however can only handle 1,000 watts per channel for up to two channels. During the Saturday night show one of the channels kept flipping its breaker so we kept trying to run the lights at only about 75% or 750 watts to keep it going.

We were able to take a show that had over 100 lights and almost 100 light cue changes and redesign it as the performance progressed to do the show with 4 lights and a follow spot and still created about 40 light cues all made up as we went along. Lisa Humphrey, Jim Roush, and Jim Keeney all did a great job of following my verbal instructions to change the lights with each scene. Sunday Jim Keeney and I came in early and re-hung, re-cabled and re-lamped the flood lights so they wouldn't keep blowing the old breakers and we could all rest a little easier that we wouldn't lose all the stage lighting if one breaker went out.

This morning we called the lighting repair company that we use to come out and see if our 20+ year old lighting system can be fixed. I want to say how proud I was of the actors and the crew who not only overcame adversity with so many problems that developed during the run of the show but gave some of their best performances in the toughest situations. Bravo to the cast of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. You did an outstanding job kicking off our 48th Season. Cindy Miller and Joe Plucknett also outdid themselves musically on the show!

We don't get to rest however. Today we will move the Charlotte's Web set on stage so the cast can start rehearsing on it tomorrow and get it ready for it's opening in 3 weeks. Tonight is the first rehearsal of The 39 Steps with a terrific cast and the first meeting of the play selection committee to look for plays for the 49th season.

The show must go on...

September 7 2011

Tomorrow begins the second weekend of Putnam County Spelling Bee. Audience volunteer spellers have been great this past weekend. Ticket sales for this weekend are picking up and hopefully word of mouth will help us sell the third weekend. Cindy Miller has done an outstanding job with the difficult music in the show and percussionist Joe Plucknett has really added to the musical support in the show. Performers, Fowler Black, Tony Bohannon, Audra Hall, Al Knudsen, Cheri Paxton, Chris Schnarr, Heather Tomko, Kim Yocum, and Chuck Wilkins are doing a terrific job of bringing the middle school angst to their characters. Every audience member that has stopped me after the show has complimented the acting and vocal performances of the cast. Tuesday I was the guest speaker at the Lion's Club meeting. Al Knudsen and Cindy Miller came with me and Al sang "I'm not that smart" from the show while Cindy accompanied him on piano and we gave away a pair of tickets for the show. Today at Rotary Al and Cindy again performed the song and we gave away another pair of tickets.

While the first show of the season has been running smoothly I can't say the same for our Air Conditioning units. Opening night you would have witnessed me standing in front of the theatre, drenched from a water hose that back pressured on me, looking up a long ladder to the two technicians working on the roof. Fortunately we have had air conditioning for every performance but we have been only running the units during the performances due to overheating of the main units on the roof. Today we had the service techs back out to service all 4 of the air conditioners on the main market house building. The main coils both outside and inside the building had become so clogged up the units were quickly overheating. All should be running smoothly by showtime Thursday night with audiences never knowing that we have been hard at work this past week to keep them cool.

While that has been going on we have finished up the roof repairs on the three buildings owned by the theatre. Last month we repaired the brick and mortar of the parapets on top of the three buildings. Hopefully we will get the interior water damage from the spring rains repaired by the end of September and be in good shape for quite a few years.

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week the consultants from Webb Management based in NYC were back in Paducah to talk with city officials and others about MHT's future plans. We are looking forward over the next few months to identify specific facilities recommendations to meet our current and future demand. Facilities issues have really taken up a lot of time and money since last January.

Auditions are next Monday and Tuesday for the next comedy, The 39 Steps. I'm hoping for a good turnout. We have only 4 roles in the show but these roles are very complex. While that show is auditioning and starting rehearsals we will also be in high gear to do the Downtown Walking Ghost Tours and the Oak Grove Cemetery Tour again this year. Stories are being brushed up with a few new ones added.

August 16 2011

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee has been in rehearsal for almost a month now and it is hard to believe that next Thursday is 2 weeks to opening. Single Tickets went on sale today for the production. We had to wait until we had processed all of the season tickets before we could release the rest for sale. If you haven't visited our facebook page recently and seen some of the photos and rehearsal comments please do. It is a really wonderful cast and they are going to do a great show. Many of the actors are really struggling with keeping a straight face as we rehearse this comic musical about. When we first started, I didn't really think this was the kind of musical you walk out humming the songs, however I have been proved wrong. Some of the music in the show is really funny and infectious like "Pandemonium" and other songs really go right to the heartstrings with "The I Love You" song.

The audience participation in the show is going to be a lot of fun! We have been having MHT board members and family members of the cast acting as our audience volunteers. Each performance we will select volunteers, from those who are interested, to become "middle school" contestants in the spelling bee. They will get a shot at winning the Bee. The show will be one you won't want to miss. However we do have to warn our audiences that the show contains some comedic mature subject matter so we recommend parental discretion. The roles are played by adults who portray all the comedy and angst of middle school students when it comes to competition, friendship, love and their own libidos (hence the parental discretion).

The theatre has just announced our brand new fundraising event scheduled to take place on October 22. The Masquerade Ball. A full out Masquerade costume ball to be held at the Paducah Convention Center Ballroom. We have an incredible food from Pampered Palate, a full cash bar, a knock out band to dance the night away, additional entertainment, and great auction items. This promises to be the event of the season. At a Masquerade Balls ticket holders wear a mask to hide their identity so it will be lots of fun. Tickets went on sale today. We have reserved VIP tables of 8, single general admission tickets, and a few young adult tickets for ages 21-29! Ticket buyers are encouraged to dress up and theme their tables to go with their costumes. Prizes will be awarded for best costume and best table decorations.

Auditions are next Monday and Tuesday for Charlotte's Webb. Lots of people have been coming in and checking out scripts. Footlights classes start Saturday Aug. 27. We are encouraging all footlights parents to pop into the studio theatre the first day of classes and have coffee and donuts on us and find out additional information about auditions, classes and other things the youth and adults can do at MHT.

The MHT board of directors voted at the July meeting to move forward with Phase Two of a consultant study related to MHT and its facilities. We are currently in negotiation with the City of Paducah on a long term lease for the main auditorium. We are also looking at other properties around the theatre for expansion of theatre programming. We have been bursting at the seams for the past couple of years and have some exciting ideas and plans for the future. Our 50th Anniversary is only 2 years away!!

The staff and board have been hard at work getting our sponsors and program advertisers all lined up for the first program of Putnam County.