3 ring circus

Tomorrow is the final day for us to enter our information in the Economic Impact Study being conducted by the Americans for the Arts in Paducah. I wanted to share some of our data as well as talk about what's going on in the 3 shows now in rehearsal.

Here are some of the statistics about MHT based on our audit for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2007-

Number of artistic volunteers (performers,technical crews, designers,) 287
Number of volunteers: 486
Number of volunteer hours: 13,000+
Average hours per volunteer per year: 26.75

Full time staff: 5
Part time staff: 3
Independent contractors: 12

Total Revenues: $654,923
Total Expenses: $652,369 (Approx. 90% of all expenses are paid to local individuals and businesses that are located or reside in Paducah and McCracken County)
Net: $2,554

Net Assets as of June 30, 2007 $1,091,400 (A large portion of the net assets are the buildings and equipment owned by MHT)

High School Musical- Before we started rehearsal last night the "jocks" and the cheerleaders got into the costumes which just arrived yesterday and we went outside against the wall of the old Finkles to take some publicity photos for the television commercial and the newspaper. It's tough to photograph that many people and to get very close. We all then went back inside and April staged the big scene last night which is set in the gym, a science classroom, and the high school stage all at the same time. All 33 cast members are onstage or in the audience including me playing Coach Bolton. I had to leave rehearsal 15 minutes early to run across the street to the studio theatre to switch gears and be the director for Doubt.

For High School Musical we are going to have to do some structural work on our control booth to accommodate two follow spots. The sound system will still operate out of the back row of the auditorium. We looked at building follow spot platforms outside of the control booth above the audience entrances but the ceiling fan light fixtures above the audience obstruct the follow spots. We've used two follow spots before with one in the back row of the auditorium sitting on a platform but with our two current follow spots the cooling fans make too much noise to do that.

We are looking at how to build the special walls that move around the stage and the translucent walls at the back of the set that can change color with the mood of the show.

Doubt- we staged 3 scenes with Renie and Jennifer on Tuesday night. We spent a great deal of time probing and talking about how the characters react to each other and what they are saying. Last night Jody and I worked on his 3 sermons and staged those. It is a little harder to stage a sermon but we did find opportunities to put some movement in. Just standing behind a podium for long periods of time is not visually interesting no mater how powerful the language. Tonight we will stage the only scene in the play that Dvonne is in. Dvonne plays the mother of a young black student who is the center of the struggle between the Principal Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn. Then we are off until Monday Oct. 13 because of fall break. There are only 2 scenes left to stage in the play. The two scenes are the confrontation scenes between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn.

Greetings- had its first read through with an entire cast last night while H.S. Musical and Doubt were in rehearsals. The cast is composed of Roy Hensel and Susan Anderson as the parents, Fowler Black and Audra Hall as the son and his fiancee and Will Edwards as the younger brother of Fowler.