April 19

Saturday morning about 8 am. I'm sitting here in my office. My daughter Jade and about 30 other elementary students have just started the first footlights class of the day. April teaches 4 classes every Saturday morning during the school year. Watching kids of all ages get up early on Saturday morning and drag their parents down to the theatre means that something important for these kids is happening. I usually watch for a while as the kids "play" some of the improv games. Games like world's worst. A group of kids stand in a line and April will call out a character for example worlds worst doctor. The kids then at random step forward and act out both physically and verbally what their idea of the worlds worst doctor would be. A doctor who says oops or maybe a doctor who is very near sighted and thinks that a foot is someones head. Lots of funny things happen. But the kids also practice thinking fast, being creative, and learning how to express ideas in verbal and physical ways. It is always lots of fun.

Tuesdays with Morrie had its second night of performances. The audience was very responsive. One woman at the end came up and said the play was so good that at times she wasn't sure if she should laugh or cry or both at the same time. Don Maley and Tom Dolan are doing a great job. Phil Counts the director sits at the back of the audience each night and takes notes from the performance and shares it with the actors the next day before the show. Jim Roush and his son Ted are in the control booth. It is very rewarding to see a parent and child working together. Both of them challenged to do something they have never done before and to feel that sense of accomplishment when the show goes smoothly. Adam Gilliam and Jim Keeney are working backstage to make the scenery enter and exit the stage. They have to coordinate walls moving to clear a motorized turntable. The furniture has to be set exactly as there is only a few inches to clear the walls as the furniture magically moves on stage all by itself. Adam turns on the motor and watches for marks on the floor to know exactly when to stop the turntable so everything is in the correct place. After the show opening night I went to check something in the sound system and the monitor which had been acting a little strange went totally crazy and wouldn't show anything above the bottom taskbar on the screen. Friday I went out and purchased a new monitor so that wouldn't happen during a show leaving poor Jim Roush with no way to run the sound cues.

Today is a two show day. Actor and crew call is one hour before show time. The actors show up at 1:30 . Show runs from 2:30-4:30 pm . We take a break from 4:30 -6:30 and I bring in food for the cast and crew. Actor call is 6:30 and the show runs from 7:30- 9:30 tonight.

A couple of the people who have an even longer day are the box office staff. Rhiannon Dodds will open up the box office at 1 pm for the show today and end up staying until after 10 pm tonight. She is a part time staff person who is the mother of Shelby 9 and Ethan 2. Rhiannon also works at Market Square Coffee. She will work a shift at the coffee shop and then come down to the theatre and work the shows in the evening. Rhiannon has worked at the theatre for about 5 years now and has a wonderful personality. Alexis Davis, the box office manager, is in the box office during the week and also works the shows. Alexis does an outstanding job of keeping everything organized. The box office is a tough job because you are handling lots of financial transactions as well as customer service and dealing with a computer system of both online, walk up and telephone sales. At times that means they are handling up to a thousand transactions in a two week time period. The great part about Alexis and Rhiannon is their personalities. They both support each other in their business and personal lives. They are constantly sharing photos of their families, pets, and friends. The next time you walk in to the show and see two brown haired women behind the box office counter giggling you'll know it's Alexis and Rhiannon.

Yesterday I worked on the set for Anything Goes. We expanded out the deck of the ship. Diane wanted a way for the actors to stroll on the upper deck without having to climb the steps in front each time. I reconfigured the offstage space to allow for access. Jim Keeney and I are working through the building of the tree and the rocks for Zink. The tree will need to be made of durable yet draped material like fiberglass. The characters have to climb on the tree and the rock yet they need to be built out of light weight material.

The MHT board has it's monthly meeting next Wednesday during the Quilt Show. Hopefully parking downtown won't be to horrible. We are preparing for the Derby Party and the Lowertown Festival Fundraiser. Both of those events are important to the theatres fundraising campaign for the year. The Derby party is Saturday May 3 at 3 pm at Max's courtyard. We have a terrific group of 4 high school students who are a string quartet who play music. Lots of great food and then we walk across the alley to the Maiden Alley Cinema and watch the Derby on the big screen. It is always lots of fun. We trade the use of the Maiden Alley Cinema a couple times a year for their using the Market House Building during August for the Rivers Edge Film Festival. The barter system is alive and well in Paducah's non profits.