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.