Curtain Call and New Season

I removed the ice photos from the blog now that Spring has finally arrived!

The Curtain Call fundraising event was held last Friday evening and was a great success. We are still processing the ticket income from board and committee members but the total raised will be over $10,000. We had several flurries of bidding on the live and silent auctions. The largest item of the night was a weeks vacation in Florida that went for $1,000. The business Competition raised just under $3,000. The winning business was Lourdes Hospital who beat out Western Baptist Hospital by just $27 and change. Lourdes CEO will perform the part of a member of the Lollipop Guild in the June 20th performance. A special thank you goes to Chris Black as the auctioneer, Valerie Pollard as the fundraising committee chair, Melissa Mast who coordinated the business competition, Sandra Jernigan who did publicity, Sarah Bynum who coordinated the food and drink along with Anna Brewer, and Robin Brewer who did the decorations and coordinated all of the food the night of the event. Several others who secured auction items and helped with various aspects also deserve a big thank you! (Unfortunately I'm writing this from home and don't have the full list with me but I will post their names so they can get the thanks they deserve!)

The couple of major roles that were won Friday night for the June 20th performance were:
David Jernigan who will play the Cowardly Lion, Chip Wynn who will play the Wizard of Oz, Mary Keefe who will play the Wicked Witch and the surprise of the evening was a group of bidders got together and purchased the part of Glinda the Good Witch for Auctioneer Chris Black! A great time was had by all and tickets are on sale for the special performance June 20th only that will feature the "guest stars"!

Part of the Curtain Call event was announcing the 46th Season line up. For those who couldn't attend here is the official announcement.

Sept. 2009 SMOKE ON THE MOUNTAIN HOMECOMING (PT 3)
It's October, 1945, and the gospel-singing Sanders Family is back together again. The war is over Reverend Mervin Oglethorpe has been called to preach in Texas, his wife June, is eight months pregnant. Tomorrow morning, young Dennis Sanders takes over as Mount Pleasant's pastor. Join the Sanders Family for twenty-five toe-tapping Bluegrass Gospel favorites.

Nov. 2009 TOM DICK & HARRY Tom and his wife are about to adopt a baby. His brothers Dick and Harry are anxious to help make a good impression. Unfortunately Dick, who has stashed boxes of smuggled brandy and cigarettes in the house, and Harry, is in possession of a cadaver he is planning to sell illegally to a medical school. Add in Dick’s, illegal Croatian aliens who do not speak English and the stage is set for laughter!

Feb. 2010 GOD’S FAVORITE Neil Simon A modern day Job is visited by a messenger from God and the Tests of Faith (and the jokes) fly fast and furious as Neil Simon spins a contemporary morality tale in his hilarious comedy. The Good Book was never like this!

April 2010 WEDDING BELLES By the writer of Smoke on the Mountain-Four garden-club ladies meet a young girl who has come to their little Texas town to marry an infantryman before he ships off for World War II. The women impulsively decide to throw the girl an elaborate wedding, and their lives and friendships are thrown into turmoil as they race to accomplish the nuptials in one frenzied afternoon.

As many of you know we had a glitch in the royalties for the final show of next season. In the process we went back to our alternates and found that a majority of the MHT was excited about producing an updated version of the classic musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. So without further ado......

June 2010 CINDERELLA ENCHANTED The classic story with music by Rodgers and Hammerstein was updated in the 1997 movie version which starred Whitney Houston as the Fairy Godmother, Brandy as Cinderella, Whoopi Goldberg as the Queen, and Bernadette Peters as the Stepmother. With songs like “Impossible”, “A Lovely Night”, and “My Own Little Corner”, CINDERELLA ENCHANTED will delight audiences of all ages.

Youth Season

Dec. 2009 Best Christmas Pageant Ever In this hilarious Christmas tale, a couple struggling to put on a church Christmas pageant is faced with casting the Herdman kids-- probably the most inventively awful kids in history. You won't believe the mayhem-- and the fun-- when the Herdmans collide with the Christmas story head on!

We are still finalizing the details on the Youth show for March 2010. There will also be a Youth Studio production in October of 2009 which is yet to be finalized.

Our Spring Story Theatre is in rehearsal now for Jack and the Beanstalk and will start taking bookings within a week. The tour will start in April and run through the end of the school year.

The board of directors will meet this Wednesday and work through a couple of important changes that are in the process for next season. We will be mailing season renewal notices hopefully by the end of the week or the first of next week. With the fundraising event now behind us we move into high gear on preparing for The Sugar Bean Sisters set and the Jack and the Beanstalk set.

Natalia from Creatures of Habit came to the first rehearsal of the Wizard of Oz last Thursday and measured the cast for their costumes.

We are now in a sprint until the end of June!