Questions

As I prepare to go on vacation I'm also preparing for the upcoming MHT Board retreat. I met with incoming President Cindy Miller today and talked over many of the ideas that we have for the agenda. There are so many things to address and to think about that sometimes its hard to know where to start. I'm sure that I'll spend a few evenings while on vacation thinking about the retreat as well.


One of the questions that I discovered while looking at planning guides was to look at our successes and try to understand why it was a success. With the overwhelming response to Wizard of Oz recently I asked that question. What was it about our production that made the show so successful that 2 weeks after the show people are still buzzing about it. What makes a successful show at MHT? Is is the script? Is it the talent of the performers? Is it the choreography? Is it all of the costumes, sets, lighting, sound, special effects? Is it all of the above? How do you try to build those successful things into the fabric of everything that MHT does?

We have some big challenges facing us this year and in the next couple of years leading up to our 50th Anniversary season. How we measure success will give us ideas of where we want to be in 5 years. What is that we do that is unique in our community? What is it that we do better than anyone else? Who are our constituents? These are tough questions that are asked each year as we begin a new season. We must decide which areas of the theatre to invest in and which areas we need to move in new directions. What is the vision and values of the Market House Theatre?

With the answer to those important questions everything else falls into place.

Year end wrap up

We are in the last days of the current fiscal year. Last night was the last board meeting of the year led by President Renie Barger. Renie thanked Randy Davis and Mary Jean Grief for their 3 years of service as they retire from the board. She welcomed the new board members Denise Bristol and Pam Benzing who attended the meeting as guests. Other new board members Sid Hancock, Heather Overby and Melisa Mast who could not attend the meeting will begin their board terms in July. A board retreat is planned for Friday July 10 and Sunday July 12.

Fundraising Chair and Past President Valerie Pollard was also thanked by Renie for her 6 years of board service as she retires from the board. Valerie did the wrap up for the Curtain Call Auction of parts for the Wizard of Oz. After expenses the theatre raised over $14,000 from this event and everyone felt it was a great success. Valerie has agreed to continue to help on the fundraising committee as a non board member for next years event.

President elect, Cindy Miller, talked briefly about ideas for a couple of fundraising events for next season and ideas for the board retreat. Cindy officially takes over as President July 1. The board agreed to operate on a temporary budget for the new year until a final budget is approved in July.

As we end the year we are doing better than we expected financially thanks in big part to the success of the High School Musical and the Wizard of Oz box office. We will still end the year with a deficit but it will be much smaller than we had originally estimated back in January. The January predictions of a $30,000-$50,000 deficit were a real possibility. With the ice storm devastation to ticket sales of Southern Comforts and the loss of a major grant from the city, along with lower contributions because of the stock market we began to aggressively cut expenses back in January. Those cuts have kept us on a solid financial footing and I'm pleased to say that with the cuts and box office from the Wizard of Oz it looks like our deficit will be approx. $10,000. That $10,000 will be borrowed from the theatre's next fiscal year. The board will seek ways to make up that $10,000 in the next budget.

Staff members April, Jim, and Janice are in high gear for the Disney Kids Sleeping Beauty Musical Camp performance Friday and Saturday. Costumes are being made, props created by the kids in the camp and sets and lighting are being worked on. After the board meeting last night I set the preliminary light cues for the show. Today we will scan the artwork created by the kids in the camp as the scenic projections for the show. The sound system has to be set up for playback of the music for the kids to sing and dance to.

April does a daily newsletter for the kids in the camp to remind them of what they have accomplished each day and to help them remember what is important to work on before the next day. The camp is only two weeks long and the campers learn choreography, learn music, and develop characters for the show Sleeping Beauty. Jim Keeney has put in lots of work on a magical orb for the evil queen and a large dragon effect for the climax of the play when the queen turns herself into a dragon.

April has now called me 3 times about her rehearsal this morning so its time for me to head out the door.

The morning after

The cast ended the show on a high note yesterday and after the set strike Guest Glinda Chris Black who came to help with the tearing down of the set complimented the cast on their graciousness in allowing others to do their roles for one night and how they all were so generous and welcoming to those who made a guest appearance Saturday night. I posted some photos on the Market House Theatre face book page.

Today will be spent working on the awards and the wrap up for the picnic tonight at 5:30 at Keiler park. The BBQ and Fried Chicken have been ordered. The soft drinks purchased. All we need now is clear skies and maybe a little relief from the heat.

April and Jim are hard at work on the dragon and the other magical props for the Sleeping Beauty Drama Camp which performs this Friday and Saturday. Over 3o kids will present the Disney Kids Sleeping Beauty production on the Market House Theatre stage. We will re-use some of the Wizard of Oz set with a few changes to make it easier to get Sleeping Beauty up.

The final board meeting of the fiscal year is Wednesday evening and financials and other materials are also going out today for that meeting.

Lots and Lots to do today!

Saturday preparations

The show last night was great again. Standing ovations have been constant throughout the run. After the show last night the cast gathered at Jim and Ted Roush's apartment for lots of food. Jim cooked Indian food for those who wanted to try something different. (I tasted it and it was great!) For the others there was hot dogs and spaghetti. Mary Jane Bowles and Doug Arnold made a wizard of Oz dessert out of rice crispy treats and m & m's. Oh those creative arts people! I left shortly before midnight reminding the cast of their early call today for the matinee.

This morning I'm meeting with Cindy Miller to audition a couple of more performers for Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming. We should announce the call backs or cast list within the next day or so.

Today will be spent dealing with food and show issues. I have to confirm the food for the cast party tomorrow after the final performance. Confirm the food for the picnic on Monday. Work on the golden screw awards for the picnic. Get the studio theatre setup to feed the cast between shows today and then cleaned up for the church which rents the second stage space on Sunday mornings. Do a final check and work through brief staging changes for the fundraising event tonight with the winners of the Wizard of Oz auction. I'm also preparing the photo discs for the cast. We sell photo discs of the shows for $10 and all the proceeds go to volunteer appreciation to buy things like the food for the picnic, water for the backstage, food for between shows, etc... There are over 900 photos on the photo cd. Bill Fox graciously donated his time to come in and take the photos with his high speed equipment. Unfortunately because of copyright restrictions no video of the performance is allowed.

Each performance I constantly scan the audience to make sure that no one is taking photos or video taping the performance. Last night I was watching and suddenly noticed the little digital screen of a camera in the audience taking photos or video. These days you can't tell which. I slowly worked my way down the aisle until I could identify the person and then moved quickly to the woman and told her she had to stop immediately. I try to always make an announcement before the show. It is also in the program. I know the woman heard the announcement but I guess she didn't think it applied to her. We have to worry that clips would show up on youtube and then we could be liable for copyright violation and damages. Every actor, technician as well as the theatre can be named in a damage suit. That's why we get a little crazy about people not videotaping.

As much as this show keeps me on pins and needles hoping that everything continues to go well, I will miss the show when it is over. It has been a rewarding experience for me to work on this production. The cast and crew have done an outstanding job. Audience response has been overwhelming. This will be one of those shows that I personally will remember for many years and I believe our community will remember as well.

Getting ready for final weekend

We are just a couple of hours away from the final weekend of the Wizard of Oz. The show has broken the all time box office record for the theatre selling well over 3,000 tickets for the run. There are a few seats left for the final weekend but waiting lists have already been started for the sold out performances.

Last night was the full dress rehearsal for the Saturday night fundraising performance of Wizard of Oz. The cast could not retain their composure when Chris Black was revealed in his pink gown, crown and wand as Glinda the Good witch. Emily Yocum several times had to look at the floor or turn her head as Chris rendered his own unique version of the witch of the north. Tickets for the Saturday night show are going fast. We had one small moment of worry last night when Dorothy threw the water on Auction winner Mary Keef, the wicked witch, to melt her. Denise Bohle forgot to tell Mary to close her mouth and the wicked witch was almost drowned with a face full of water. After taking a moment to catch her breath again, Mary stepped back into the role and melted like a pro! David Mast donned his Munchkin Mayor costume and led the Munchkins in singing and dancing in celebration of Ding Dong the Witch is Dead! David was later heard to say something about next time he bid on a part he wanted to know the number of lines that were involved before he bid on it. David Jernigan put on the Lion costume and sang and danced his way along with the help of the scarecrow, tinman and Dorothy and did a terrific job for only a couple of rehearsals.

I'm hard at work trying to get ready for the Golden Screw awards next monday at the picnic. If anyone would like to nominate someone they can email me at m.cochran@mhtplay.com and I would be happy to accept the nomination. I'm ordering food tomorrow for the event and hope that we have a big turnout. Please contact the box office if you are going to attend. The only thing we ask is you bring a dish to pass.

We are still holding auditions for Smoke on the Mountain. A couple of people who contacted the theatre about auditions were out of town during the regular auditions so we are seeing those people this weekend. I hope we have a cast by next Tuesday.

April is about to wrap up the first week of the Sleeping Beauty Camp and they have been staging the show and working on sets and props.

Wizard Record

My last post was just before Wizard of Oz opened and I started writing this sitting in the stage manager cage backstage on Sunday just before the matinee to try to update what’s going on. I finished up this post this morning.

The show has received a tremendous response. As of my writing this, it only needs to sell another 130 tickets to break the Beauty and the Beast record to become the biggest selling show in MHT Main stage History. I used to try to do it by box office gross but with ticket price changes over the years, number of seats sold has become the number to beat.

The audience response has been tremendous. So many people have complimented the performances of everyone in the show, especially Emily Yocum as Dorothy, Fowler Black as the Scarecrow, Chris Schnarr as the Tin Man, Chuck Wilkins as the Cowardly Lion, and Denise Bohle as the Witch. Katy Miller’s choreography has been a real crowd pleaser with overwhelming praise for the crows, apple trees, poppies, snowflakes, and jitterbug dance numbers. The special effects and the technical production have also received dozens of compliments for the crew who is running all of the complicated scene changes and effects so smoothly.

We have had 10 great performances. We have also had a few of those moments that is the thrill of live theatre because you never know what will happen. One performance Dorothy’s dress got caught on the painted fire in Professor Marvel’s scene and pulled it over on its side. The professor quickly reached his hand into the “fire” and set it back upright. On Saturday night during the witch’s exterior our rear digital projector had a lamp problem and decided to go into standby mode for a short time. I raced backstage to catch Daniel Yokum who is running the rear screen projections before he could try to restart the projector. Without a hand in front of the screen when it restarts it will go into a test pattern which looks like those old TV test patterns with the color bars and would not have been good during the witches scene. I ended up going up to the projector, putting my hand in front to restart and then slowly raising my hand to let the image reappear on the screen. I don’t know if the audience was even aware of the screen because fortunately it happened when we have lots of scenery in front of the screen at that moment. Unfortunately that meant that I had to crawl on my hands and knees under the projection image to escape from the restart or be trapped for the rest of the performance. There are so many technical things to go wrong in this show it is only because of a constant vigilance by the staff the tech crew and performers that we keep everything intact.

We have a rehearsal Tuesday night for the auction winners to learn their parts and a full dress rehearsal on Wednesday to give the Auction winners a chance to put on their costumes and do the show before their debut for the special Saturday night fundraising event. It should be lots of fun on Saturday as several people get a chance to feel what its like to step on stage for one night only in the show. Tickets for that event are only available by phoning the box office.

36 hours to opening

Last nights rehearsal was a definite step forward. The hard work of the previous 24 hours made solved many of the sound issues we were having. The scene changes flowed smoothly with the exception of a couple of hiccups. Flash pots and special effects all functioned and the cast kicked up the performance quality to show level. We still have a tremendous amount of work on the set lights and costumes to complete before the opening tomorrow night. The work of dozens of volunteers and cast members have made the show look terrific! Denise Bohle has done an outstanding job painting munchkin bushes, the wizards hot air balloon basket and several other props. Nick Jaeger made a large hourglass for the witches castle. Charles Keeney has spent countless hours designing and building remote controlled smoke generators, flash pots, and LED lights that can be controlled from backstage without any wires visible wires. Leah Bohle, Maria Miller, Madison Whelan, Sydney Hughes, Buddy Jackson, Chris Schnarr, Emily Yocum, Miki Abraham all came in during the past couple of days to help paint and build. Kim Yocum has put in countless hours helping paint and build things like the witches broom, and the sign for the side of Professor Marvels wagon, Daniel Yocum and Landon Baker have helped make the digital images move smoothly. Landon created the cyclone with flying objects. Kristy Hansen has painted all of the borders around the proscenium and the back screen. Luke Wilkins has been in almost daily for 2 weeks helping build and paint so many things I can't count. Aaron Spoden who returned from his freshman year of college a couple of weeks ago has showed up every day and put in countless hours cutting out set pieces. Doug Arnold has worked very hard as a volunteer musical director to help the cast with the singing. Manulito Mansfield and Mary Jane Bowles are filling in on running sound for the show. Jim and Ted Roush have done a great job on running the lights and working on the stage crew. I know that I'm forgetting someone. All the hard work is paying off and the show should be a great success. For those of you trying to call the box office please be patient. The phones are ringing off the hook and people are waiting in line at the box office during the day to get tickets to the show. Don't forget that you can skip the phone wait and buy tickets online from our website. 36 Hours to opening!

Keep it simple

Last nights rehearsal was a one of those steps forward and backward. We have so much technical stuff packed into the Wizard of Oz that at times it can overwhelm everything else. Scene changes and special effects require lots of practice and timing. However we are still creating some of these effects right up to opening so the technical crew has almost no time to rehearse with the new effects. As a result when things go wrong they go really wrong. The sound system last night decided it was going to drive that point home to me with a vengeance. I moved speakers yesterday trying to get a louder sound for the cast to sing and dance to and yet not overpower the singing voices. This is always the point where I'm telling the orchestra to play softer! However with a digital sound it is the level I set. Last night we were too soft, too loud, non existent, etc.. Flash pots tripped breakers and went off early, at one point one of the munchkins pants fell down, one of the dancers hurt her ankle and tried valiantly to hop through the rest of her numbers. Jim accidentally incorrectly wired the wizard head so the it looked like a really bad carnival clown with a flashing nose instead of a scary wizard. The rehearsal ran so long that I had to let the cast go without notes and start tonight's rehearsal with the notes. I stayed until almost 2 am last night trying to fix all the sound levels. I began again this morning at 6 to try to sort out the video images that need to appear.

The performers are still improving. That is at least some consolation in this special effects and scenic nightmare that I'm dealing with. In the midst of the chaos the performers were the bright spot. I have several brand new performers who are still learning how to sustain the energy through an entire scene. That will be the focus of my work with the performers tonight. On the technical side today and tomorrow will be spent simplifying and fixing problems. As I began yesterday I was like that dog that chases its tail trying to fix the problems. I literally walked around the stage for about 25 minutes starting one project then walking to get something and stopping to fix something else and then walking to get something and beginning another thing and on and on. Today I will focus on one problem until it is fixed. Opening is 2 days. We will get there.