Madison Conference 2009

I can't remember how many times I've come to this every other year conference in Madison. Each time I've been recharged by sharing and discussing issues that affect not only each of the theatres that we work for but also some of the challenges that we each face on a personal level. I've eaten wonderful Italian food, terrific Afghan food and tipped back a few micro brews after sessions with fellow directors from Hawaii, Texas, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Kentucky,Kansas, and Florida. I've listened to the struggles of theatres who are struggling to sell ads for $10 in their program up to theatres that have lost over $3 million dollars in their endowment fund.

Many of the issues are the same no matter the size. How do you attract performers, how do you energize boards, how do you sell tickets and how can you raise contribution levels.

In a great session yesterday after noon we had a presentation from Andrew Taylor who talked about social networking, facebook, twitter, flickr, geotagging and geocoding, and how to try not to just keep up but to move ahead to where arts are going. His presentation on place based networking is fascinating. Some theatres are now setting aside "Twitter Seats" for those people to tweet and text during performances. In several places arts organizations have empowered teens to produce shows using almost exclusively teens in all areas of production.

Last night we had a presentation from John Prignano of Music Theatre International who gave away lots of prizes for knowing show trivia but more importantly talked to us about copyright infringement, and new show availability. The new technology that MTI is constantly coming up with is helping community theatres and professional theatres across the country. We got dates for when shows like Legally Blonde, Hairspray, and Spring Awakening will be available for licensing. It was amazing to me how many community theatres in conservative areas had successes with shows that I would consider risky that are available right now- Rent, Full Monty, etc. I found out that Midland Texas and Diamond Head Hawaii can get shows like Les Miserables and others that we may not get for years because they have no tours that will impact them. (You must be at least 100 miles from the closest touring house.) Directors Tim from Midland and Deena from Diamond Head got lots of good natured ribbing from fellow directors about their locations.

I heard some great fundraising events that groups have done like a Diva Night where audience members watch local female performers in solo numbers and then vote on their favorite performer.

We talked about how many times to ask for contributions during the year. We talked about average ticket prices and discounts. We talked about censorship and how to remain true to the playwright while being aware of community sensitivities. We talked about staffing and how to evaluate and to deal with issues of transition.

This morning we have a 3 hour session before we all leave. Many will be heading out through out this mornings sessions to catch flights at the airport. I'm coming back with about a dozen pages of notes and handouts from dozens of theatres to look at implementing new ideas at MHT. While I'm not looking forward to the 8 hour drive back today, I know that my head will be spinning with new thoughts and ideas from this conference.

Boards Budgets and Best Christmas

Last night was the November Board of Directors meeting. We moved it up a week because of Thanksgiving. The meeting started half an hour later than usual because of another meeting which was right before it. We received the audit last night for the last completed fiscal year. The theatre ended the last fiscal year with a deficit. The good news out of that deficit is that the majority of that deficit is from depreciation of the equipment and facilities. We have struggled for a couple of years to find ways to fund the depreciation so that when equipment wears out we have the money to replace it. When income funds are tight, as they are right now with the recession, funding things like depreciation is more difficult.

Today Rhiannon and possibly Marsha Cash will be attending the Visitors Bureau program Give Em a Pickle about Customer Service. I'm scheduled to be at the River Heritage Museum for the a meeting about a big River Celebration.

Best Christmas Pageant set is getting base coated today and Jim is putting up a large rear screen projection for part of the back drop. I'm still looking for furniture and props for the show. We are still looking for crew for the show as well.

The story theatre troupe is performing in Brookport IL this morning with the City Mouse Country Mouse. They have spent everyday this week so far performing in Southern Illinois.

Yesterday I spent time in the main theatre arranging blue chairs to see how many we could fit in for a school matinee. With the new seats coming in our capacity will drop because of the wider seats. I may be replacing some of the new seats for a school matinee with blue chairs in order to keep our number of available seats up. It's like a giant puzzle with the empty space that you keep pushing around the little tiles to get them in order.

I'm spending the day trying to tie up a couple of loose ends before heading off to Wisconsin tomorrow for the national directors conference.

Schools, Scouts and Surveys

This has been a week of rushing around to help April with school projects. Wednesday I went to Clark School to help them with a pep rally for the academic team. They needed a smoke machine so I helped provide one. As it was sitting there sputtering and not really operating at full capacity I noticed a leak under the smoke machine where the smoke fluid was leaking out the bottom of the unit. The smoke machine is over 25 years old. Like so much of the equipment at the theatre we keep machinery functioning for many years beyond its projected life span by doing repairs and maintenance.

Yesterday Jim Keeney helped April load in masking drapes to McNabb Elementary for their Gifted Talented production of the THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF. April was very pleased with the performance that the kids did for the rest of the school. At the end of the school day the masking panels were shifted to Clark Elementary for their Gifted Talented production today of the play THE US CONSTITUTION Revivor: Philadelphia. The play is a take off on Survivor and is a musical production which teaches the basics of the Constitution. I have to copy programs for the performances before I go to the school. I will photograph one of the three performances today trying to get some good shots to send to Bad Wolf Press who are the writers for the show to put on their website.

At noon today a MHT board committee is meeting with a consultant to discuss doing a thorough survey of MHT facilities and programs. This information will be used in our Strategic planning retreat to be held next February.

April has Footlights tomorrow morning and then in the afternoon will do a Girl Scout workshop tomorrow afternoon. She spent last night from about 11 pm to midnight painting Styrofoam balls with Gesso in order for the girl scouts to make puppets on Saturday.

Callbacks and shifting rehearsals

Today we will post the callback list for God's Favorite. Director Diane Byrd had about 14 people audition for the play and she is working through all of the various factors such as acting ability, ages relative to other characters (who can play mother/father, son/daughter,) schedule conflicts, etc... Diane is sending me the call back list for posting this morning.

The rehearsal for Best Christmas Pageant is moving to the stage today after rehearsing in the classroom for the past couple of weeks. It is always a tough day when you move from a flat floor space that has been taped out to the actual stage. Suddenly everyone has to relearn their entrance and exit points. In addition I will be taking publicity photos at the end of the rehearsal today. TD Jim Keeney and I will be trying to set up some of the basic wall structures today to give a sense of the final space for the show. I'm still working on some of the style choices for the set for the show. In general I always design a basic ground plan and then evolve some of the style choices of the show with the director as the rehearsal progresses. I'm looking for ways to make the set a little more theatrical than a realistic interpretation.

The strategic planning committee has a meeting today at 5:30 pm with a possible facilitator to do our long range planning meeting in February. There are many important issues facing the theatre in the next 4 years and we will conduct an in depth planning retreat in February to chart the course that will take the theatre into the future. With the chair campaign almost finished we are now turning attention to the next set of challenging issues. One of those issues are the women's restrooms and the acoustics of the theatre.

Final Performance of Tom Dick and Harry

I'm sitting here trying to make photo discs and working on a cast and crew photo to give to each cast and crew member of the show in preparation for the final performance this afternoon. Audience response has been terrific. The play has met its budgeted ticket income goal and has been playing to full houses most of the run. I had a gentleman come up and ask me last night if all the wild action on the stage was in the script or if we made it up. Playwrights Ray and Michael Cooney deserve the credit for the dialogue and the ideas for the physical action. It is up to the director and the actors to interpret the words on the written page into something that comes to life onstage. That interpretation can be the difference between a great performance or an "ok" production. I have seen productions of plays where the actors were competent and the material was good but something was missing. Far too many amateur theatre productions are associated with that missing element. The cast of Tom Dick and Harry have many veteran actors and some new performers appearing in their second or third play. They have all come together to form an ensemble that all works together as one. That is something that is difficult to achieve but when it works the audience response is wonderful.

With live theatre you never know what will happen and watching the show as a director is like watching a tight rope performer. As a director I'm always slightly holding my breath with each difficult moment in the show. There is a sense of confidence that develops with some casts that no matter what happens the actors can stay on that tightrope. Last night Landon (Harry) kicked the head of the body parts across the stage for Al (Tom) to pick up then toss back in the bag. They've done this dozen's of times. The only problem was that Landon's aim was off and he kicked the head off the front of the stage into the audience. Without missing a beat Al walked down the steps in front of the stage, rescued the head and tossed it into the bag that Landon was holding without missing a beat. That little moment will surely earn Landon a Golden Screw Award nomination at the annual theatre picnic. The ability of everyone onstage to continue as if nothing had gone wrong was the mark of true professionals.

It has been a pleasure working with this cast and crew as we close out the final performance today. After the performance the cast and crew will tear down the set and then celebrate with a party on the theatre stage. I always get the questions from cast members if I have a favorite show. That is so hard to say. I've worked on lots of wonderful productions with so many wonderful people. Tom Dick and Harry will certainly be added to that long list.

For the staff of the theatre we are already into the rehearsals for The Best Christmas Pageant ever. Auditions for God's Favorite are tomorrow and Tuesday in the main theatre. The performers in Tom Dick and Harry will be able to feel that glow of their success for a long time. For the director, designers, and staff you get about 24 hours before you step back on the tight rope with the next cast and crew and try to do it all over again with a new production. Opening night for Best Christmas Pageant is about 30 days from now.

Searching applications

I have been struggling to get MHT information into certain places. My Iphone has a couple of applications like Where that will give you listings and directions to places close to you. While places like the Carson Center and Maiden Alley Cinema are listed on these apps MHT doesn't come up. What I've found is that a couple of sites are used to populate the information on these applications. If I can get some of the people who know MHT to write a review about the theatre that would help. You can go to Yelp.com and to the Yellowpages.com to write reveiws about local businesses in Paducah. Since it would be inappropriate for me to write a reveiew of the theatre I'm asking others to go on these sites and give MHT a review good, bad or indifferent. That way we will at least show up on some of the applications that people are using to find MHT.

photos and theatres

Today April and I ran up to Shawnee Community College to see the school matinee of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. A former MHT performer who grew up doing shows at MHT is now the Educational Center Coordinator and got us a couple of tickets. It was great to see him and some of the other people who occassionaly do shows at MHT. Willy Wonka is a musical and is a tremendously difficult technical show. April and I were interested to see the Shawnee theatre after hearing about it for several years and to see the production. April is doing a version of the show for Clark school. The Shawnee production must have had a 100 people in the cast. To coordinate that large a cast is a massive undertaking. We enjoyed the Oompa Loompa costumes (there must have been 50 Oompa Loompas) and the Wonka factory set was very bright and colorful. There were some sound problems in the performance we saw and we couldn't always hear. I saw in an Educational Center handout that Murray State University is bringing a Greek Play to Shawnee during this school year. I would be interested to see how that goes. I've always wanted to direct a Greek Tragedy.

Tonight was a performance of Tom Dick and Harry that was almost sold out with only 4 or 5 seats total left. I took photos tonight and probably have well over 200 photos of the show. Tomorrow is a 2 show day with a matinee in the afternoon and an evening show. I'll provide the food between shows tomorrow since the actors will only have about an hour between the end of one show and the actor call before the second show.

Marsha is now slowly coming back to the office after being gone for the first half of the week with an illness. She has been put on some new medication and it is making her very groggy. I've had several people ask me about buying chairs but Marsha has all the paperwork on those who have already purchased their chairs so she is slowly checking to see what is left that is avaiable.

April has Footlight tomorrow and then Daisy classes after the footlights classes until after 2:30. That means April will be teaching from 7:45 am. to about 4 pm.
That is a long day for her.

Ghosts and TDH

Phil Counts and I guided two more ghost tours this morning. Farley Elementary and Hendron Lone Oak Elementary has two classes working on history projects and thought this might be fun to give a different aspect to their projects. Hearing about witch burnings and grisly murders certainly will give a different view of Paducah's history. We tentatively have a couple more scheduled for next week. Guiding a tour is a lot of fun because you are in essence doing a one person show. The several guides we have all have different styles and personalities they use. I just like it because I get an excuse to walk around with a Victorian top hat and cape on. The kids eyes get really huge when you tell them a story that took place right on the spot they are standing. They tend to jump back as if the spot is still alive somehow.

The Rivers Edge Film festival kicks off tonight and for the first time it won't be at MHT. Back when the organizers changed the date to this weekend we had already scheduled and publicized Tom Dick and Harry. Maybe next year they will find an alternate date and we can work together again. I'm in the process of looking at shows and dates for September 2010-June 2011 right now. Sometimes I can't remember which year I'm really working on.

Audience response to Tom Dick and Harry has been very positive. We haven't sold out but the phone has been ringing consistently and Internet ticket sales are going well. We are still receiving orders every day for plaques for the new seats. The annual fund drive mailing went in the mail yesterday.

The theatre officially canceled our Holiday Home Tour yesterday. We were having a difficult time getting 3 houses confirmed. As soon as we got the third home confirmed one of the first two would have to drop out We will try again next year and see if we can get it locked in earlier! Those people who even considered letting us showcase their homes as a fundraiser have our heartfelt thanks.

I'm in the process of re-reading the script General Order Number 11 by Nancy Gail-Clayton. It tells the story of General Grant order all the Jews to be evicted from Paducah during the civil war. It is strong drama and one that we are considering for future production. I met Nancy at a theatre conference. She's had the work produced in Louisville and has always been interested in a Paducah production. Lately with the ghost stories and several other projects it seems like I'm looking at a lot of historical plays and ideas.

November 1, 1983

We left Kansas City on October 30, 1983 after packing up my belongings and April's belongings in Kansas City. We finished packing the U-Haul truck about 3pm in the afternoon. I had added a tow bar to the back of the truck and towed my gold American Motors Sport-About Hatchback vehicle (which was also loaded down). April followed in her loaded down Red Buick Regal. I remember we finally pulled out of Kansas City which had been our home and headed to Paducah. I had looked at a house about 3 weeks earlier that was across from Paducah Middle School. That house had fallen through and one of the board members at the time had secured a house for us on Clark Street with a 1 year lease. We took the house on the recommendation of a board member. All I had was an address in Paducah as to where April and I were going to live. April was going to stay for a week and then she was driving to Wisconsin to prepare for our Wedding which was set for Nov. 19, 1983. We drove as far as Mount Vernon that first day and then got a room at the Holidome there. We arrived in Paducah on Halloween and located the house. It was small but cozy. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I remember coming to the interview only a month earlier. The theatre was doing the technical rehearsal for the play The Rainmaker on the day I came for an interview. I remember following the directions into Paducah and pulling up outside of the theatre. I can still distinctly remember thinking- "where did they put a theatre in this tiny space?" When I walked in all of the actors were present. They were setting light cues and all of the actors had to stand in place while the lights were set. This process took several hours (something I changed immediately upon being hired). The floor was painted white so that it would reflect the lights up onto the actors. The floor was also made of particle board so that every time someone dropped something on it the floor dented. All of the canvas walls were painted with a powdered pigment paint that rubbed off on all the costumes if you brushed against it. In fact the side of the building still had some remnants of color on it from the last strike where the strike crew "washed" off the color from the flats so they could be used again. I met with the board of directors that night at Virginia Glover's home. I spent the night at Executive Director Paul Meier's home. His young son Cameron had given up his bedroom for me to sleep in while I stayed overnight and I remember sleeping on Smurf sheets. I had never set foot inside a community theatre before in my life and never worked for one either. Apparently the board was impressed with my portfolio of set, costume and lighting designs along with my technical director portfolio. I had directed and acted in plays and was a theatre generalist. I talked money with the board and then drove back to Kansas City. I received a call the next week offering me a job. I also had offers from two other professional theatres but there was something about Paducah that appealed to me. I accepted the job of Technical Director for $14,000 a year with no benefits (I also had to pay all my own taxes at that time). The theatre was celebrating its 20th anniversary. When the board asked me why I was interested in Paducah I told them that April and I were looking for a place to start a family and a place where we could become part of a community.

As April and I unpacked our belongings I went to work and began the set and costumes for my first production at MHT which was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs which opened the first week of December 1983. Looking back now at the playlist from the very first one produced in 1963, Snow White was the 95th production that MHT had produced in its history. I designed and built the sets, designed and hung the lights, and designed and sewed all the costumes for the actors. (My biggest costuming at MHT was the first production of the Miracle Worker where I sewed over 20 dresses by myself. Some of those dresses are still in costume storage and occasionally used.) That first year the theatre produced 5 shows total. I directed my first show at MHT that April with the production of To Kill a Mockingbird.

In 1985 Paul Meier left the theatre and MHT hired April as its Executive Director. April held that position until 1995 when she left for a couple of years to work as the Youth Minister at Grace Episcopal Church. I took over as the Executive Director in July of 1995.

Tom Dick and Harry marks MHT's 510th production and my 100th show to direct at MHT. MHT has grown a great deal over the time I've been fortunate enough to be involved with it. The main thing that has remained is a group of talented people who continue to impress me with the dedication and donation of their time and money to produce professional quality theatre. The board of directors has always been supportive and caring. The staff and volunteers I work with each day are truly dedicated to making great theatre.

This month I will attend the National Community Theatre Directors Conference in Madison Wisconsin. It is a conference that never fails to recharge my batteries. Almost 100 Managing Directors from across the country will sit in a room for 3 days and share all of their successes and failures. We will also adjourn to a local bar after hours and over our favorite spirits share our personal stories complete with pictures of children and grandchildren with long time friends.

So this November 1, we have a hit show (Tom Dick and Harry) on stage at MHT, a youth show (Best Christmas Pageant Ever) in in rehearsal, a Story Theatre musical (The City Mouse and the Country Mouse)touring production that has its first school performance on Tuesday, and the River City Ghost Tours for school groups that continue on Thursday. The work hasn't slowed down a bit in 26 years. But the things that made me feel something special about MHT and Paducah when April and I first arrived on Halloween 1983 are still present today.