Circus Act

The past couple of days have been spent trying to keep several plates spinning on the end of sticks. Last time I blogged about the surprise restrictions put on our choice for the musical in 2010. Since then I've applied for royalties for 3 other musicals all as alternatives. We are still waiting to hear back from the original publishing company to hear if our appeal was accepted. All of this happens as we try to announce our new season this Friday.

April has been holding auditions for the Secret Life of Girls. She has had a good turnout both nights. We are supposed to do a trial run next monday on the digital projections that are needed for that show. It will require words that look like real time texting and emails to appear as the actors type them on stage.

I've been rehearsing the Sugar Bean Sisters at 6:30 each night. The entire cast has at some point in the last 2 weeks been sick and without a voice. Tonight was Susan Anderson's first rehearsal as the Reptile woman. She came in and couldn't speak above a whisper. So far in rehearsal Marsha Cash who plays a dancer from New Orleans has had to crawl under a bed, jump on top of a table, climb ladders, run figure 8's around a couch and table and dance on top of a table. The actors are all getting a real workout doing the play.

Thursday evening is the first rehearsal for The Wizard of Oz. It will be a short meeting to give out rehearsal schedules, scripts, music, and talk about costumes, etc.. I've already had several people who told me that had no conflicts on that date now tell me that they can't make it. I'm hoping this is not a preview of coming attractions. I knew when I scheduled it that not everyone would be able to make it. To get ready I'm working through the script scene by scene assigning parts for all of the various munchkins and people from Oz. Deciding how long and when to rehearse the scenes and looking at the music and which songs will have what singers in the back. I'm hoping that Creatures of Habit which is contracted for the costumes for the show will be able to measure most of the cast Thursday night and we can do a costume plot and expense breakdown.

Friday night is the Curtain Call auction. Chris Black, who will be our auctioneer, came in today and met with Valerie Pollard, who is the fundraising chair, about the timeline for Friday evenings events. It seems like it was only a short time ago (last September) that we were brainstorming about how this auction might work. We're off to see the Wizard....

April has selected a Story theatre show that will tour in April and May. It is Jack and the Beanstalk. She has also selected the summer music camp and I've applied for the rights for the classes. April has 3 or 4 productions at various schools around the city all in rehearsal at this point.

Jim and I took several large set pieces back to the warehouse Monday after the Footlights shows this past weekend and brought back a van loaded to the max with 4'x8'platforms for The Sugar Bean Sisters production. We hauled all of the cubes and boxes April had used in the footlights shows back from the stage up to the second floor classroom. Jim began legging the platforms up this afternoon.

Marsha is catching up on contribution thank you letters, receipts and program ad invoices while Alexis is working out the new seating charts for next season and a brochure for the final push on buying a new seat. We are hopefully withing sight of the end of the new seat campaign. I'm writing a couple of grant applications for matching funding on the seats. Janice is sorting through and cleaning all the costumes from Ramona Quimby and the Footlights shows and helping April pull costumes for her school performances.

It's hard to believe that we are almost three fourths of the way through the fiscal year. March is almost over! (We start our next fiscal year July 1st and go until June 30th.) I got information on the July Fund Run for Charities, yesterday. I'm not ready for July yet.

On Monday March 30th a large group of directors from several of the arts groups in Paducah will get together for a working lunch to discuss items and dates of interest. We will also share challenges and as we face a tough year with the economy.

Today I received word that the arts had a partial victory in the KY Senate Bill 1. The final language, although taking out the testing component, still leaves in 80% of what Arts groups were hoping for in the bill. I'm waiting to hear more details to find out what this means for schools for next year. It's time to go back to spinning plates...