Fall Break

I apologize for my lack of posts this week as I have been in out of town trying to get some family time in during fall break. Today was back at the office working on several items. During the morning it was time to catch up on all the correspondence and emails that piled up during the last two days that I was out of the office. Unfortunately the Internet hub in the corner building wasn't working. My job description includes being the IT guy at times so I went around checking transmitters and hubs and Sonic Walls and all those fun things. Finally we called in Computerland. They were able to diagnose the problem quickly. However they don't have a new hub in stock so that had to be ordered.

It was then off to Rotary. After Rotary was proofing the newsletter that is going to press this week and a postcard sent out to a mailing list in Paducah that we use for publicity. April was in my office worried about ticket sales for High School Musical. We had an article in the paper today but it was heavily edited from the Press release we had submitted. We discussed some of the ways to try to promote the show beyond our usual marketing. It is very difficult when you don't have money to buy advertising.

This afternoon was spent in a mix of looking at the apartments mht has and trying to get those ready for new tenants and working on the drawings for the last couple of pieces of scenery for High School Musical. Jim has been after me for days to pick the paint colors but nothing was "speaking" to me. Tomorrow I'll have to select the colors and live with it. Tomorrow is also the return of High School Musical rehearsals. They've been off for 3 days during fall break. The actors are coming in on their own from 2-4 pm to work on dance Thursday and Friday. Then taking a break and starting rehearsals at 5 pm. Doubt is on hiatus until Monday. Greetings has been meeting during the week. Greetings director Phil Counts is still waiting on a set design from me to start staging his show.

We had 3 out of 4 crew people drop out of consideration for High School musical. Marsha is trying to locate new crew people. We need two follow spot operators, a light board operator and 2 stage running crew persons. So far we have 1 crew person and the show opens in less than 2 weeks.

I've been trying to read scripts early in the mornings and late at nights to look for some ideas for next season. I read a Christmas show script yesterday which was funny but seemed like I had already done this show in other variations. It is harder and harder for me to find scripts that I really like after having worked on so many Christmas shows. I often find myself thinking that one script is similar to another script. Like doing A Christmas Carol with any number of variations on who is visited by ghosts to change their life. It seems to get harder to find new ideas each year without taking a risk on totally unknown plays that may not do as well at the box office. This year's play Greetings is a different kind of "holiday" play. It has a spiritual element to it that really asks audience members to think about what the holiday means to them.

If anyone has any plays they would like us to consider hit the comment button at the end of this blog entry and I'll see if we can locate a script to look at.