Friday May 30

We are still waiting on some final numbers from the Lowertown Festival to find out exactly how much the theatre earned from the event. But preliminary numbers are between $4-$5 thousand. With the success of the Holiday Home Tour it looks like the theatre will be closer to our special events fundraising goal than we thought. Membership donations are still lagging a bit from last year. Those two areas are what the board really works hard at trying to raise. Combined they represent about 1/4 of the theatres $500,000 budget for the year. The board approved the budget for next year and approved the nomination slate of officers and directors for the election which happens at the theatre's family reunion picnic on June 23.

At that picnic the theatre not only elects new board members but also gives out the infamous Golden Screw awards for moments during the year that things didn't go exactly right. I'm sure that one nomination this year will be for a moment during Zink when Ice Z decided to be overly enthusiastic about plopping into a chair. The only problem was she missed the chair and ended up on the floor. She made it look like it was supposed to happen but everyone onstage did everything in their power not to burst out laughing. That is a Golden Screw moment.

I watched rehearsal of Act 2 on Wednesday night and took photos (which I turned into a video on the directors blog page on the website). Last night I watched Act 1. Last night was the first night to run all of Act 1 off book (which means the actors don't get to hold their scripts) . For some parts of the Act 1 it was the first time they had run the scene since they were across the street in the classroom working with the set taped out on the floor. It is vastly different to pretend to walk down stairs and enter doors and exit on a taped out floor versus doing it with real stairs and doors while trying to remember lines, lyrics and pitches of songs, and dance choreography. The cast did a good job of trying to adapt- but the first time to run through off book in a new space is always a long difficult evening. There is lots of stopping and starting and going back as the director says- "No you enter from mid left, not down left or no you cross over to past the doorway." Followed by the actors saying "oh- is that mid left?"

I took lots of set and prop notes last night. Today Jim and I will need to clear lots of space behind the set and gather some more of the set props. We are trying to locate a violin and a case. There is a bit in the show when the gangster pulls out a tommy gun from the case and later on when he needs the gun he pulls out the violin. We have an antique wheel chair that will be used. We are building 2 beds, a bunk bed for the "brig", The brig walls itself which is a rolling platform with the bunk beds and 3 walls attached, a bar with a rolling wall behind it, and various other units while still trying to build the basic set. Jim was able to build the doors with a wooden sill plate that glides across the floor. Yesterday he raised the railing we had already built and finished the side railings up the stairs. He attached the doors to the door units that pivot into place.

We are short on crew for the show. The chorus actors will not only have to act but also move scenery for the scene changes. This ads a layer of tension to everything as they do costume changes and have to remember to move set pieces. Jim and I will also be filling in on crew positions as it takes 5 people to run the lights, followspot, sound, projections, and stage manage.

We are 2 weeks from opening and things are now moving into high gear. The program is due at the printers today which means any late additions will have to be done with a program insert. The tv commercial was created using music from the show and the photos I took last week. The newspaper ads start next week.