April 15

Tuesday with MHT

It's 10:48 pm on the night of final dress. A great deal is still left to do on the set for Tuesdays. I painted some texture on the walls today with a textured roller. Unfortunately it went on very heavy and now is very streaky. I need some time to let my brain figure out how to fix the paint. I'll probably use a natural sponge and apply some of the original wall color back on the wall. I added the dark texture because the background was too bright. Which made the actors seem to be standing in dim light. Tonight's final dress rehearsal was a good rehearsal. We are still working out the sound levels and the lighting focus. Each day I add some more patterns to the lights to put leaf colors on stage. Today I added more red and green to make the fall colors.

I was up by 6 am today drafting out the set for Anything Goes for my meeting with Diane Byrd at 1 pm today. At 9 am this morning Jim Keeney went to the warehouse to measure the walls from Kiss Me Kate 3 years ago. We are thinking of using them with Anything goes to help make the staterooms and the cabins. While Jim was at the warehouse I was busy in the classroom taping out the floor plan in full scale for the set for Anything Goes. Then Jim came back and spent the rest of the day painting texture on the walls and doing last minute technical notes for Tuesdays. I met with Mitzi Kirkwood at 10 am today to record an accapella sound piece for Tuesdays. We weren't happy with the first one I found because the quality wasn't very good. At 1 pm I met with Diane and we talked through several different scenic elements of Anything Goes. We are looking at having the theatre auditorium be part of the ship and possibly having the character of the ship captain and some of the ships crew act as ushers and welcome people aboard when they arrive for the show.

3:30 was time for a budget meeting with President Valerie Pollard and VP Renie Barger. We looked at the income and expenses for next year as we try to build our budget. Since I put the numbers together a couple of weeks ago some things have changed. Some of our school programming may have to change if the schools decide to move testing to the end of the school year instead of during April. We are also evaluating our class offerings. Some significant challenges have appeared over the past couple of weeks and that may put real strain on our projected class income.

On the expense side of course everything went up. Lumber and building materials went up. Story theatre headed out and I gassed up our new van the KY Colonels purchased for our educational programming this past August. We have a 30 gallon tank and it was $100 to fill it up with regular unleaded. It is always somewhat daunting as we put together the budget. There is always more expenses than income. That is where we depend on fundraising with special events and membership to fill the gap. When you are already operating with extremely lean expenses it is difficult to cut anything back because it cuts back on your income as well.

Marsha is working hard on getting the volunteer handbook completed and trying to set up shadowing experiences for potential crew volunteers. She set up 3 people to come in and shadow the Tuesdays with Morrie crew to see what it is like to work backstage or up in the control booth.

Alexis is covered over with Tuesday with Morrie tickets as well as season ticket renewals. We are trying to order some new ticket stock to print our next years season tickets on. Until we receive the new stock we can't print any of next years tickets.

April is on the road with Story Theatre and teaching in the schools. She finished just before spring break her last elementary school show. She directed shows at McNabb, Clark, Concord, and Lone Elementary schools in addition to the GTC drama show at Paducah Middle School and her residencies.

Janice our costume coordinator is busy trying to shift from Story Theatre to Zink costumes.

Sandy Harbin our bookkeeper was working when I came in from the Tuesdays with Morrie rehearsal and we talked budget, fiscal reports and I tracked down several Internet purchases that I had made for recent shows.

It's now 11:10 pm and I'm headed out the door. That was "Tuesday with MHT" on April 15.