It seems I've just posted and it's already been a week. Alice in Wonderland Jr. finished up its run last weekend with terrific audience response. The cast and crew did an outstanding job with the production and it was received with an overwhelmingly positive response from audiences.
Last Friday the MHT Ghost Tours moved to Oak Grove Cemetery. Friday night's fundraising event was a terrific success. MHT Board President Cindy Miller and committee chair Kathryn Joyner along with committee members Heather Overby, Melisa Mast did a great job. All MHT board members contributed food for the event and helped with hosting at the hospitality tent. Tour guides Kim Yocum, Cat Tilker, Fowler Black and Marsha Cash did an outstanding job of learning the script with very little time and creating historical portrayals of the people interred in Oak Grove Cemetery. Saturday night the response was so positive that we added a tour at 7:20 after the 7:00 and 7:45 tours sold out. The guides were kept very busy just finishing up one tour group as another appeared.
A big thank you goes to the Paducah Parks department for helping MHT make this event possible. The night tours of the Mausoleum were a big hit with those taking the tour. The combination of history and a beautiful fall evening, with a full moon both nights, led to a wonderful event. The Oak Grove Cemetery tours continue this Thursday and Friday evening.
MHT has a board meeting this Wednesday to review the completed first quarter of the year. We have struggled with some income areas due to the economy and exceeded our goals in other areas. This year with the purchase of the Arcade building for storage has added a few additional expenses to get the building ready for use. MHT had to do over $2,000 in brick work to stabilize the building in addition to the purchase price. The electrical costs will also run about a $1,000 to get electric service to the building. The theatre has engaged Webb Management resources from NY to do a thorough review of MHT operations and our current facilities. All these things add up and the theatre board has done a great job of trying to balance the additional costs while staying within the budget and a strong financial position. MHT staff continues to keep a close eye on expenses as well.
Bloody Murder has gone through a couple of cast changes as it makes its way towards opening. One of the actors who was first cast had to drop out due to a family medical situation which required them to travel to be with their loved ones. Sunday the cast of Alice in Wonderland and some wonderful parents of some of the kids came in and we cleared the stage after the final performance. On Monday, Jim Keeney and I set up several flats for the beginning of the set for Bloody Murder and the cast moved to the stage with furniture and most of the walls in place less than 24 hours after the full Alice in Wonderland performance ended.
Debra Harned is finishing up the last of the program for Bloody Murder to submit this week while the newsletter written by Don Barger, Sarah Roman, Cindy Miller and myself goes to press. In addition the theatre is just about to send out our annual fund drive information. October has been a very, very, busy month.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
10-19-2010
It has been a long week since my last post. Alice in Wonderland Jr opened to rave reviews. I think that April has outdone herself again and the show ranks right up there with some of the best productions MHT has ever done. The cast is terrific and Janice Peterson's costumes really shine. Kelly Salchli who was the scenic artist also did a terrific job of creating a fantasy world. When I designed the panels, I asked Kelly to paint topiary with hidden animals in the bushes and wispy images of Alice in the clouds. She did a great job of hiding the images and you have to look close to find them all. See how many you can find if you attend the play next weekend. The cast did six school matinees which were sold out with standing room only. The public performances have been about 95% capacity. The cast is currently off for 4 days and will return for 2 final performances next Saturday and Sunday afternoon. If you haven't seen it don't wait to get tickets because I anticipate tickets will go fast for the final two performances.
The Downtown Walking and Bus Ghost Tours started off the month of October slow and last weekend finished with a bang! We had to add two additional tours on Saturday evening to accommodate the ticket demand. A very special thanks goes out to all the guides, Marsha Cash, Phil Counts, Cat Tilker, and Fowler Black. Last Friday evening while Alice in Wonderland was performing on the stage Cat Tilker had to lead all 3 walking tours that night. The following night Marsha Cash and I did three walking tours each and Fowler did both bus tours. Saturday night we did a total of 7 tours between 6:30 and 9:30. Speaking from experience as one of the guides to do 3 tours in a row takes a little over 3 hours of solid walking and speaking with only enough time to get a drink of water before heading out with the next tour. Great job Cat and Marsha! Fowler had his own unique experience with the bus tours on Friday night. The bus he was in stopped across the street from the old first national bank building on 3rd street near the Silver Bullet bar. Fowler was telling the tale of Popular Foot and suddenly a man dressed in dark clothing with a short cane staggered up to the bus and began to bank on the doors. The people on the tour were all startled and thought it was part of the tour. Fowler got off the bus to talk with the man who had obviously too much to drink and tried to get him to go back into the Silver Bullet. The man was quite obstinate. The amazing thing was that the story of Popular Foot is about a man who has his head cut off by a wagon wheel. The man in dark clothes that banged on the bus doors had a scar that ran from behind his ear almost all the way around his neck! Fowler said he was a little spooked by the coincidence as well! One of the people on the tour bus called the police because they were afraid the man would hurt himself falling in the street. The police showed up and Fowlers bus tour continued on. Needless to say it was a memorable event for everyone on the bus when "Popular Foot" made an appearance!
A huge thank you goes to First Presbyterian church and the several members of the church who volunteered as drivers for the tours. I can't thank the church and those volunteers enough for helping us with our tours.
Story theatre is in the final weeks before it sets out on tour with Little Red Riding Hood. The cast rehearses during the mornings and we are racing to get that set built and painted before it goes on Tour Nov. 1. Yesterday the brick and block work was completed at the old Arcade building. The electrician was there most of the day putting in the new power meter and breaker panel. Jim and I spent about 2 hours yesterday sweeping and removing dust and debris from the floor so that we could start moving furniture and scenery from the Easter Seals building to the Arcade. We can't begin the official move until we have permission from he building inspector after they look at the brick and block work and approve the electrical lighting for the space.
Bloody Murder is in rehearsal each week night. Last night The Complete Works of Shakespeare took advantage of the free stage space in the main theatre to rehearse with a couple of the cast members. Play selection met last night and discussed several plays.
This week we are working hard with the board and the staff to get ready for the Oak Grove tours starting Friday with the fundraising event. The tour guides from the walking tours are helping me with the Oak Grove tours and I owe them a huge thanks and apologies for getting them the script so late. Some of them are just getting their scripts today! They will have about 3 days to cram for the event in order to learn their parts. I'm still writing my part for the tours and will hopefully have it polished and ready to go before Friday as well.
Sunday evening I lead a tour for the First Presbyterian youth group as a way of saying thank you for the loan of the bus. As I finished up the last stories I did find myself sad and proud. Sad that the downtown walking tours had reached the end for this year as we move to Oak Grove and proud of all of the guides and the board members who helped make these tours happen. They all deserve a rousing ovation and my heartfelt thanks for creating something that was truly memorable.
The Downtown Walking and Bus Ghost Tours started off the month of October slow and last weekend finished with a bang! We had to add two additional tours on Saturday evening to accommodate the ticket demand. A very special thanks goes out to all the guides, Marsha Cash, Phil Counts, Cat Tilker, and Fowler Black. Last Friday evening while Alice in Wonderland was performing on the stage Cat Tilker had to lead all 3 walking tours that night. The following night Marsha Cash and I did three walking tours each and Fowler did both bus tours. Saturday night we did a total of 7 tours between 6:30 and 9:30. Speaking from experience as one of the guides to do 3 tours in a row takes a little over 3 hours of solid walking and speaking with only enough time to get a drink of water before heading out with the next tour. Great job Cat and Marsha! Fowler had his own unique experience with the bus tours on Friday night. The bus he was in stopped across the street from the old first national bank building on 3rd street near the Silver Bullet bar. Fowler was telling the tale of Popular Foot and suddenly a man dressed in dark clothing with a short cane staggered up to the bus and began to bank on the doors. The people on the tour were all startled and thought it was part of the tour. Fowler got off the bus to talk with the man who had obviously too much to drink and tried to get him to go back into the Silver Bullet. The man was quite obstinate. The amazing thing was that the story of Popular Foot is about a man who has his head cut off by a wagon wheel. The man in dark clothes that banged on the bus doors had a scar that ran from behind his ear almost all the way around his neck! Fowler said he was a little spooked by the coincidence as well! One of the people on the tour bus called the police because they were afraid the man would hurt himself falling in the street. The police showed up and Fowlers bus tour continued on. Needless to say it was a memorable event for everyone on the bus when "Popular Foot" made an appearance!
A huge thank you goes to First Presbyterian church and the several members of the church who volunteered as drivers for the tours. I can't thank the church and those volunteers enough for helping us with our tours.
Story theatre is in the final weeks before it sets out on tour with Little Red Riding Hood. The cast rehearses during the mornings and we are racing to get that set built and painted before it goes on Tour Nov. 1. Yesterday the brick and block work was completed at the old Arcade building. The electrician was there most of the day putting in the new power meter and breaker panel. Jim and I spent about 2 hours yesterday sweeping and removing dust and debris from the floor so that we could start moving furniture and scenery from the Easter Seals building to the Arcade. We can't begin the official move until we have permission from he building inspector after they look at the brick and block work and approve the electrical lighting for the space.
Bloody Murder is in rehearsal each week night. Last night The Complete Works of Shakespeare took advantage of the free stage space in the main theatre to rehearse with a couple of the cast members. Play selection met last night and discussed several plays.
This week we are working hard with the board and the staff to get ready for the Oak Grove tours starting Friday with the fundraising event. The tour guides from the walking tours are helping me with the Oak Grove tours and I owe them a huge thanks and apologies for getting them the script so late. Some of them are just getting their scripts today! They will have about 3 days to cram for the event in order to learn their parts. I'm still writing my part for the tours and will hopefully have it polished and ready to go before Friday as well.
Sunday evening I lead a tour for the First Presbyterian youth group as a way of saying thank you for the loan of the bus. As I finished up the last stories I did find myself sad and proud. Sad that the downtown walking tours had reached the end for this year as we move to Oak Grove and proud of all of the guides and the board members who helped make these tours happen. They all deserve a rousing ovation and my heartfelt thanks for creating something that was truly memorable.
Monday, October 11, 2010
10-10-10
I've always liked dates that have symmetry.
We have officially entered Tech Week for Alice in Wonderland Jr. That means that a tremendous amount of work has to be completed in a short time. Costumer Janice Peterson has been burning the midnight oil trying to get costumes ready and she still has a ways to go before we open Thursday. Some of the actors had complete costumes, but other were still wearing street clothes because their costumes were still awaiting assembly in the costume shop. The set was about 3/4 completed, lacking mostly just the final painting for Wonderland. Stools that Tech Director Jim Keeney had built remained raw wood and some of the prop pieces that drop from the "sky" were still "do-fers". For instance the bottle that magically appears for Alice to drink from was a green plastic Sprite bottle for rehearsal until the real bottle is created and attached. Jim Keeney is still working on the shades that we are using to create the look of the scenery growning and shrinking as Alice changes size during the show. They have to rise to a height of 10 feet and shrink to as little as 2 feet.
The scenic projections were purchased from Istock photo and Creststock photo. Some of them were Photoshopped to create a more illustrated look to match the painting on the set walls. I must have looked at almost 2,000 photos and illustrations to find the 10 images that will end up being in the show. In addition there is some video for Alice falling down the rabbit hole. I purchased the video and then opened it in video editing software to expand the length of the looped software. After several tries I finally got the 20 second video clip extended to 5 minutes. We projected the video and I immediately realized that I needed to put the video in slow motion. When I went back in and edited the video to create a slow motion effect the video slowed down but became jerky as it seemed to pause just slightly every so often. That lost the fluid movement that the extended video had so we then changed it back to the first video.
Tech week is full taking an idea that you have created which works in theory and then putting it into practice. What usually happens is that part of it works and part of it doesn't so you then begin to redesign and rebuild to work through the problems at each phase of the process until you have a finished product. I loaded the sound into the computer and April edited it into the software that we use for playback. We found there was a loud buzz in the system. After spending time making sure that all of the power sources were run through a power conditioner to eliminate any grounding problems I was no closer to solving the mystery of the buzz. I then began to change out all of the sound cables to see if one of them was laying across a power source or was unshielded. After several cords were changed out I finally found the culprit and eliminated about 90% of the buzz. There is still a few more cables to move and check but that requires ladders to trace the sound cables over 75 feet that winds its way from the back of the theatre to the stage.
All of this can lead to incredible stress on the director of the show. April is trying to pull all the actors together while the technical elements are added and sometimes eliminated for re-working and then re-added. Trying to make decisions as to what is acceptable, and what must change is a constant battle for all directors and designers. An example from yesterday's tech rehearsal were actors who were standing on the edge of the light at the front of the stage. Do you move the actors about a foot or do you refocus the lights a foot further over. If you refocus then the lights may light up an area that you are trying not to light because you want to reduce the acting area so that the entire set isn't lit. I probably have 50 lighting notes about refocusing, or redesigning some lighting cues to eliminate the actors standing at the edge of the scene who are in partially in the dark.
Friday MHT officially closed on the old Arcade theatre building after 2 1/2 months of setbacks. We still have some hurdles to jump getting the building ready for use as a storage space but the deal has at least been completed. This week masons will come in and brick up door openings between the Arcade theatre section and the rest of the Arcade building to create a firewall between the buildings. As soon as that is complete and new electric service is run and attached to the building then we can start moving our current storage space contents into the new building.
Saturday morning after about 2 weeks of smelling random natural gas on the side walk between the offices and the scene shop I called the gas company and they came out and found a small gas leak at a valve under the brick street. Saturday morning the gas company closed off 1/2 of the market house square (right during Market Square Mornings) and dug up part of the street to fix the leak. I was a little concerned about its effects on Market Square Mornings and the Ghost Tours for Saturday night but the street was reopened that afternoon with barricades around the hole in the street and waling and bus tours went on without a hitch. Next Friday and Saturday will conclude the last tours downtown before we move our historic tours to Oak Grove Cemetery on Oct. 22.
On the things to do list for this week are finish up Alice and get it open, story theatre rehearsals for Little Red Riding Hood and get that set design finalized, get a set design finalized so Phil Counts can begin staging for Bloody Murder which is rehearsing each night this week, get the Fall Annual Fund Drive letter printed and processed, get the Arcade ready for storage, read scripts for next season, finish up the research on the Oak Grove Cemetery script and planning for the event, do final details on the Mad Hatter Tea Party in connection with Alice in Wonderland, and hopefully selling lots of tickets to all of the events!
We have officially entered Tech Week for Alice in Wonderland Jr. That means that a tremendous amount of work has to be completed in a short time. Costumer Janice Peterson has been burning the midnight oil trying to get costumes ready and she still has a ways to go before we open Thursday. Some of the actors had complete costumes, but other were still wearing street clothes because their costumes were still awaiting assembly in the costume shop. The set was about 3/4 completed, lacking mostly just the final painting for Wonderland. Stools that Tech Director Jim Keeney had built remained raw wood and some of the prop pieces that drop from the "sky" were still "do-fers". For instance the bottle that magically appears for Alice to drink from was a green plastic Sprite bottle for rehearsal until the real bottle is created and attached. Jim Keeney is still working on the shades that we are using to create the look of the scenery growning and shrinking as Alice changes size during the show. They have to rise to a height of 10 feet and shrink to as little as 2 feet.
The scenic projections were purchased from Istock photo and Creststock photo. Some of them were Photoshopped to create a more illustrated look to match the painting on the set walls. I must have looked at almost 2,000 photos and illustrations to find the 10 images that will end up being in the show. In addition there is some video for Alice falling down the rabbit hole. I purchased the video and then opened it in video editing software to expand the length of the looped software. After several tries I finally got the 20 second video clip extended to 5 minutes. We projected the video and I immediately realized that I needed to put the video in slow motion. When I went back in and edited the video to create a slow motion effect the video slowed down but became jerky as it seemed to pause just slightly every so often. That lost the fluid movement that the extended video had so we then changed it back to the first video.
Tech week is full taking an idea that you have created which works in theory and then putting it into practice. What usually happens is that part of it works and part of it doesn't so you then begin to redesign and rebuild to work through the problems at each phase of the process until you have a finished product. I loaded the sound into the computer and April edited it into the software that we use for playback. We found there was a loud buzz in the system. After spending time making sure that all of the power sources were run through a power conditioner to eliminate any grounding problems I was no closer to solving the mystery of the buzz. I then began to change out all of the sound cables to see if one of them was laying across a power source or was unshielded. After several cords were changed out I finally found the culprit and eliminated about 90% of the buzz. There is still a few more cables to move and check but that requires ladders to trace the sound cables over 75 feet that winds its way from the back of the theatre to the stage.
All of this can lead to incredible stress on the director of the show. April is trying to pull all the actors together while the technical elements are added and sometimes eliminated for re-working and then re-added. Trying to make decisions as to what is acceptable, and what must change is a constant battle for all directors and designers. An example from yesterday's tech rehearsal were actors who were standing on the edge of the light at the front of the stage. Do you move the actors about a foot or do you refocus the lights a foot further over. If you refocus then the lights may light up an area that you are trying not to light because you want to reduce the acting area so that the entire set isn't lit. I probably have 50 lighting notes about refocusing, or redesigning some lighting cues to eliminate the actors standing at the edge of the scene who are in partially in the dark.
Friday MHT officially closed on the old Arcade theatre building after 2 1/2 months of setbacks. We still have some hurdles to jump getting the building ready for use as a storage space but the deal has at least been completed. This week masons will come in and brick up door openings between the Arcade theatre section and the rest of the Arcade building to create a firewall between the buildings. As soon as that is complete and new electric service is run and attached to the building then we can start moving our current storage space contents into the new building.
Saturday morning after about 2 weeks of smelling random natural gas on the side walk between the offices and the scene shop I called the gas company and they came out and found a small gas leak at a valve under the brick street. Saturday morning the gas company closed off 1/2 of the market house square (right during Market Square Mornings) and dug up part of the street to fix the leak. I was a little concerned about its effects on Market Square Mornings and the Ghost Tours for Saturday night but the street was reopened that afternoon with barricades around the hole in the street and waling and bus tours went on without a hitch. Next Friday and Saturday will conclude the last tours downtown before we move our historic tours to Oak Grove Cemetery on Oct. 22.
On the things to do list for this week are finish up Alice and get it open, story theatre rehearsals for Little Red Riding Hood and get that set design finalized, get a set design finalized so Phil Counts can begin staging for Bloody Murder which is rehearsing each night this week, get the Fall Annual Fund Drive letter printed and processed, get the Arcade ready for storage, read scripts for next season, finish up the research on the Oak Grove Cemetery script and planning for the event, do final details on the Mad Hatter Tea Party in connection with Alice in Wonderland, and hopefully selling lots of tickets to all of the events!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
10-4-2010
We had the first two evenings of Ghost Tours this past weekend. We knew that with fall break starting and the Paducah Symphony playing Saturday we might have small crowds for the Ghost Tours. We did have quite a few who bought tickets at the door so that was great. It was disappointing that we didn’t have anything in the newspaper until Sunday about the ghost tours and the October events. I told someone else it’s hard to believe that October is here. MHT Business Manager Marsha Cash did the first two tours on Friday night and Cat Tilker and Fowler Black shadowed her tours. I took the last tour Friday. Both Marsha and I have been battling allergies and colds. We both sounded like frogs Friday night. Saturday Marsha had no voice and she gladly gave up the guide spot to Cat Tilker. Cat did the 6:30 pm Saturday tour and I took the 7:30 and 8:30 tours. Next weekend we will hopefully have both Cat and Fowler up to speed and I’ll concentrate on guiding the bus tours.
Saturday morning was the third Market Square Morning where the streets were closed off around the Market House building. We had a smaller turnout than the first two weeks. We didn’t close the square last week because of the BBQ festival. It was also Fall break so that may have contributed to the lower numbers. One of vendors commented that there is always someone ready to offer a quick reason that attendance is down when you do something like this. We have 3 more weekends to to go and are looking forward to bigger crowds. We will wrap up Oct. 23.
Last week was crazy in trying to wrap up the sale of the Arcade theatre building. It seemed that just as soon as we cleared one hurdle another presented itself. Most of the hurdles came from trying to find out who had what paperwork or authority in the city government and to get the inspection department to sign off on the project even after we had cleared all the other hurdles. With so many city departments involved it was a miracle that we got through it as quickly as we did. I spent almost 2 full days last week tracking down city departments and information.
This morning the auditors came in for our annual audit. I spent part of the day reprinting minutes of past board meetings and trying to locate other files. As part of our grant processes we have an independent audit firm conduct an annual audit. Sandy our bookkeeper had me tracking down how many mentions WKMS made and for what production last year as part of the trade for sponsorships. There will be interviews with all staff members and the usual review of how all income and expenses are documented and the processes by which money is handled. While this is important for our grants, it is more a matter of MHT have transparency in all our financial dealings so that donors and participants can all have confidence that we are spending money wisely and that our board and staff are all concerned with the integrity of the organization. When someone donates they want to know that the bulk of their donation is going to fund programs they care about and not administrative overhead. I’m pleased to say that MHT does an outstanding job in directing the donated funds and grant funds to where it can do the most good with almost no administrative costs.
We have 6 days until the technical rehearsal for Alice in Wonderland Jr. That means that we are working on getting the set finished and getting the scenery and projections completed. Tech week is always a long labor intensive week that requires a great deal of work to be done in a very short time. As of today we have to paint all the scenery to look like a park setting. The slides have to be designed yet for the different locations and two large trees, a house that moves on and offstage, a house costume for Alice when she grows bigger than the house have yet to be built. Two courtroom dockets, some small bushes and branches and a bench that wraps around a tree. In addition when the rabbit goes down the hole our trap door lift has to be configured for the actors weight. TD Jim Keeney, scenic artist Kelly Salchli, myself, and costumer Janice Peterson have a lot to do. April as director is also out hunting props today for several costume/props pieces.
I’m still working on the script for the Oak Grove Cemetery tours. I hope to have that done before the end of the week so the tour guides and actors can have at least two weeks with it before we perform it. I’ve gotten some great help from several people who have provided me with research materials. Speaking of scripts play selection meets for the second time this evening at 5:30 at the theatre. There is a group of about 10 people who have all volunteered to read scripts. Over the weekend I read 3 more scripts that might be possibilities for next season. Some of them are by playwrights whose work we’ve recently produced at the theatre.
We hope to have our fall annual fund drive kicked off next week so we are putting the finishing touches on that campaign. Many of the theatre’s donors have been involved with us for years and keep supporting us even during tough economic times. I received a wonderful compliment this past Saturday from someone who has been coming to the theatre for over 30 years. She said that the positive impact MHT has had on the youth of this community will be felt for generations to come. We see so many adults who participated as a child and are now coming back to the theatre and bringing their children with them and signing them up for Footlights classes.
Saturday morning was the third Market Square Morning where the streets were closed off around the Market House building. We had a smaller turnout than the first two weeks. We didn’t close the square last week because of the BBQ festival. It was also Fall break so that may have contributed to the lower numbers. One of vendors commented that there is always someone ready to offer a quick reason that attendance is down when you do something like this. We have 3 more weekends to to go and are looking forward to bigger crowds. We will wrap up Oct. 23.
Last week was crazy in trying to wrap up the sale of the Arcade theatre building. It seemed that just as soon as we cleared one hurdle another presented itself. Most of the hurdles came from trying to find out who had what paperwork or authority in the city government and to get the inspection department to sign off on the project even after we had cleared all the other hurdles. With so many city departments involved it was a miracle that we got through it as quickly as we did. I spent almost 2 full days last week tracking down city departments and information.
This morning the auditors came in for our annual audit. I spent part of the day reprinting minutes of past board meetings and trying to locate other files. As part of our grant processes we have an independent audit firm conduct an annual audit. Sandy our bookkeeper had me tracking down how many mentions WKMS made and for what production last year as part of the trade for sponsorships. There will be interviews with all staff members and the usual review of how all income and expenses are documented and the processes by which money is handled. While this is important for our grants, it is more a matter of MHT have transparency in all our financial dealings so that donors and participants can all have confidence that we are spending money wisely and that our board and staff are all concerned with the integrity of the organization. When someone donates they want to know that the bulk of their donation is going to fund programs they care about and not administrative overhead. I’m pleased to say that MHT does an outstanding job in directing the donated funds and grant funds to where it can do the most good with almost no administrative costs.
We have 6 days until the technical rehearsal for Alice in Wonderland Jr. That means that we are working on getting the set finished and getting the scenery and projections completed. Tech week is always a long labor intensive week that requires a great deal of work to be done in a very short time. As of today we have to paint all the scenery to look like a park setting. The slides have to be designed yet for the different locations and two large trees, a house that moves on and offstage, a house costume for Alice when she grows bigger than the house have yet to be built. Two courtroom dockets, some small bushes and branches and a bench that wraps around a tree. In addition when the rabbit goes down the hole our trap door lift has to be configured for the actors weight. TD Jim Keeney, scenic artist Kelly Salchli, myself, and costumer Janice Peterson have a lot to do. April as director is also out hunting props today for several costume/props pieces.
I’m still working on the script for the Oak Grove Cemetery tours. I hope to have that done before the end of the week so the tour guides and actors can have at least two weeks with it before we perform it. I’ve gotten some great help from several people who have provided me with research materials. Speaking of scripts play selection meets for the second time this evening at 5:30 at the theatre. There is a group of about 10 people who have all volunteered to read scripts. Over the weekend I read 3 more scripts that might be possibilities for next season. Some of them are by playwrights whose work we’ve recently produced at the theatre.
We hope to have our fall annual fund drive kicked off next week so we are putting the finishing touches on that campaign. Many of the theatre’s donors have been involved with us for years and keep supporting us even during tough economic times. I received a wonderful compliment this past Saturday from someone who has been coming to the theatre for over 30 years. She said that the positive impact MHT has had on the youth of this community will be felt for generations to come. We see so many adults who participated as a child and are now coming back to the theatre and bringing their children with them and signing them up for Footlights classes.
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