quick turn around

The songs from High School Musical are still running through my head as we prepare for 3 shows in rapid succession. This morning is the final rehearsal for the Fall Story Theatre Tour. Currently the True Story of the Tortoise and the Hare set is on the mainstage. A few step units from High School Musical are still pushed to the back of the stage along with the flats (walls). Greetings moves from the classroom to the main stage tonight. Jim and I spent a couple of hours at the warehouse on Tuesday loading stock doors and their frames into the theatre van to use in Greetings. That means a big push today to get the stage ready for the Greetings cast. In addition I have to move most of the lights back to the studio today along with the sound system to get ready for Tech on Sunday of Doubt. Doubt opens one week from today. Doubt rehearsals have been moving along very well. The rehearsals were put on hold for a week while High School Musical was in its final prep week. The cast for Doubt was getting nervous about the opening. We have been rehearsing from 7 pm - 10 pm each night this past week. Renie and Jennifer have been wearing the rehearsal bonnets the last couple of days. Renie said it is like having blinders on. You can't see to the sides and everything seems to sound different because your head is in a cone. Kind of like a radar that you have to point in certain directions to hear and see. The last couple of nights we have made lots of discoveries with each of the characters. What we thought was the ideas behind certain lines have given way to different ideas and a deeper meaning. A great play is like peeling an onion. It has layers that we keep trying to peel back to get to the very center. (Suddenly the argument in Shrek about layers pops into my head.) Jody worked on the basketball monologue last night. He laughed and said his father would get a big kick out of watching him playing the basketball coach.

It is funny how sometimes things go from one show to the next. I played a basketball coach in the last show and Jody plays Father Flynn who is the basketball coach in this show. We had two sign language interpreters for many years who discovered that in almost every children's show the word chicken was always in it somehow. The one interpreter would always end up flapping her arms to say chicken at some point in every show.

Marsha Cash boxed up all the scripts, music and materials that we rented to produce High School Musical and those will be shipped back to Music Theatre International today. We also boxed up all the unsold Sharpay hats to send back to Heartland Costumes. This past weekend a group from a theatre who will produce High School Musical in about two months came to watch our production. They are interested in renting the tables and benches that we built for the show. Jim has already stored those at the warehouse for future use.

I went to the insurance agent yesterday and worked through all of the details to renew our current policies. Our policies cost the theatre just under $18,000 a year for all the things that we do. Our policy actually went down a little from last year so that is great news! Part of our policy is based on the number of admissions to the theatre. If we have a great year it costs us more in liability insurance. Two years ago was a huge year with Beauty and the Beast. Last year was a little lower so the the cost went down. Success costs!

If you drive by the office building on Kentucky Avenue you will see scaffolds up. A crew is tuck pointing the side of the building. They should be finished by Monday.

The board of directors are working on finalizing the last designer home for the Christmas Tour of homes.