A lot has happened since my last post and it seems I just posted! Complete Works of William Shakespeare had a wonderful performance run. Steve, Al, and Chuck really outdid themselves and the audiences were very responsive.
The Kentucky Arts Council Grant was submitted on Jan. 15 after about a week of work. I wrote on Facebook that no matter how much prep time I get in I'm still always down to the wire to get it submitted.
In the middle of the run of Complete Works we learned that long time MHT actress and friend Mary Margaret Hoffman passed away. The service was held on the Saturday morning before Complete Works of Shakespeare shows that afternoon and evening. I spoke with Mary Margaret's niece Mary and we arranged to have lots of photos and the painting that is hanging in our lobby at the funeral. Thank you to Betty Wise who went through the photo albums to find pictures of Mary Margaret. I went through the boxes of old publicity photos and found lots of candid shots. The theatre is looking for an appropriate way to honor Mary Margaret and her long connection to MHT. I hope to have something to announce very soon.
Auditions were held for the Dixie Swim Club and 11 talented women auditioned for 5 parts. Because of the smaller turnout for the two nights of auditions I was able to read everyone several times and was able to cast the show without callbacks. Newcomer Sandra Wilson will play Lexie. Veteran Sue Fletcher will play Vernadette, Cat Tilker will play Sheree, Marsha Cash plays Jeri Neal, and Victoria Parrish plays Dinah.
Todd Duff brought his talents to the MHT stage on Sat. Jan. 29 to a sold out audience with all tickets going to benefit MHT Youth and Outreach programming. Todd and Tiffany Gust did a wonderful performance and audiences were very enthusiastic. Todd had a dress rehearsal Friday night the 28 and after the rehearsal we reconfigured the theatre seating to give Todd better access to the audience. We took the seating that was created for The Complete Works and turned the front rows sideways so they faced the middle of the theatre. This put half of the audience withing 4 rows of Todd's performance. Todd and Tiffany did a great job adapting to the new setup. A huge Thank You goes to Todd for all his work raising over $7,000 for the theatre during November, December and January.
This afternoon (Sun. January 30) Bawn in the Mash rehearsed on the MHT stage for a couple of hours to prepare for their performance next Saturday night. They are really excited about their performance and the opening act Pokey LaFarge. In December we rented the theatre to the Doo Wop group for their Christmas show and agreed to rent the theatre to Bawn in the Mash. We have very few dates available for shows like this due to our heavy performance and rehearsal schedule but it seemed to work out well. The musical groups have really commented on how much they enjoy MHT's acoustics for a music.
April is working on several shows all at once in the school system. With all of the snow dates some of her after school rehearsals have been canceled and they are really getting tight on time. In addition The Hundred Dresses is in rehearsal.
We've had a couple of groups contact us about our Murder for Hire Troupe so we are looking at a couple of scripts right now to produce with performances in March.
The Board of Directors met last Wednesday and approved the slate of plays for next season. We will announce our 48th Season at the Curtain Call Auction on March 4. The board also continued to work on the Curtain Call event coming up and reviewing the results of our Webb Management consultant report. President Cindy Miller has formed a couple of "task forces" for certain areas and we will come back with the results on a board retreat on April 16.
We have just under a month until auditions for Annie and our Curtain Call fundraiser. The Curtain Call committee chaired by Valerie Pollard has developed some great themed auction items for the event and everyone is excited.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
1-11-11
It’s two days before opening for the Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged and the theatre was full of activity- but not from the Complete Works cast- they had the night off. Director Ross Daniels has the cast tuned up and ready for the opening and decided that what they really needed was a night off. A great deal of the show has the actors improvising with the audience. It is difficult to rehearse these sections without an audience and keep them lively so Ross suggested it and I agreed that a night off wasn’t a bad idea. This will also help the performers be fully rested for the performances this week. Crew members Denise Bristol, Diane Byrd and Kris Shanks have been refining their dresser duties backstage for the past week to make it seemless for the actors to walk offstage and immediately back on in a new costume. Lisa Wilkins and Jim Roush are running lights and sound for the show.
In the Classroom Tuesday night everything was buzzing with almost 70 auditionees trying out for roles in The Hundred Dresses. April said she had a great turnout with lots of really talented new people as well as the veteran youth and adult performers from past shows. Tonight was the second night of auditions for the show. As I write this April is busy pouring over the auditions forms looking at which actors might work well in the roles, looking at schedule conflicts listed the auditionees listed on their auditions sheets and trying to determine a call back list. The Hundred Dresses opens in about 6 weeks!
As many people already know Rhiannon Dodds McIntosh left the theatre after 7 years as a box office assistant over the Christmas break. Rhiannon found a job much closer to home and can now be home in the evenings with her son, daughter and new husband! We wish her the very best. We have had several calls and emails asking if we are going to hire someone to fill the vacant position. At the present time we are doing a thorough review of all the administrative duties and staffing positions. The last time we did a review was just before we hired Alexis as the Box Office Manager almost 5 years ago. After we finish our review we will post any open positions on our website and in this blog and seek applicants to fill the position or positions. We currently hope to have new staff in place and trained by the opening of The Hundred Dresses in February.
This week and last has also been spent working on plays and royalties for next season as well as writing the Kentucky Arts Council Grant for our next fiscal year. The grant is due Jan. 15 and it is always a race to get it submitted by the deadline. Each year I spend two weeks writing about the economic impact on our community, the 50+ jobs that MHT supports in the community, the 300+ performers and technical crew members at MHT, the over 40,000 people who participate in some manner in MHT programming, the money that is raised in local tax revenues for the city of Paducah from MHT programming and audience spending, and the 15-17 plays and productions created each year. The staff collects samples of our programs, advertising, and other things that we include with the grant to prove that we credit the Kentucky Arts Council for their funds and prove the quality of our programming. The same kind of grant writing for Kentucky Arts Council funding is happening at the Symphony, Carson Center, Yeiser, Maiden Alley Cinema, and Quilt Museum. In a continuing tradition of making my life difficult, this year’s ART’s DAY at the Kentucky Capitol building in Frankfort is once again the week we open a show- The Hundred Dresses.
Valerie Pollard and the Curtain Call Committee meet this week to start the intensive work until the first week of March and the auction to raise funds for the theatre by auctioning off roles in a special performance of ANNIE in June. I spent a couple hours today going through the Annie script and pulling out cameo roles that could be auctioned off. Each year it gets harder to top the previous year!
In the Classroom Tuesday night everything was buzzing with almost 70 auditionees trying out for roles in The Hundred Dresses. April said she had a great turnout with lots of really talented new people as well as the veteran youth and adult performers from past shows. Tonight was the second night of auditions for the show. As I write this April is busy pouring over the auditions forms looking at which actors might work well in the roles, looking at schedule conflicts listed the auditionees listed on their auditions sheets and trying to determine a call back list. The Hundred Dresses opens in about 6 weeks!
As many people already know Rhiannon Dodds McIntosh left the theatre after 7 years as a box office assistant over the Christmas break. Rhiannon found a job much closer to home and can now be home in the evenings with her son, daughter and new husband! We wish her the very best. We have had several calls and emails asking if we are going to hire someone to fill the vacant position. At the present time we are doing a thorough review of all the administrative duties and staffing positions. The last time we did a review was just before we hired Alexis as the Box Office Manager almost 5 years ago. After we finish our review we will post any open positions on our website and in this blog and seek applicants to fill the position or positions. We currently hope to have new staff in place and trained by the opening of The Hundred Dresses in February.
This week and last has also been spent working on plays and royalties for next season as well as writing the Kentucky Arts Council Grant for our next fiscal year. The grant is due Jan. 15 and it is always a race to get it submitted by the deadline. Each year I spend two weeks writing about the economic impact on our community, the 50+ jobs that MHT supports in the community, the 300+ performers and technical crew members at MHT, the over 40,000 people who participate in some manner in MHT programming, the money that is raised in local tax revenues for the city of Paducah from MHT programming and audience spending, and the 15-17 plays and productions created each year. The staff collects samples of our programs, advertising, and other things that we include with the grant to prove that we credit the Kentucky Arts Council for their funds and prove the quality of our programming. The same kind of grant writing for Kentucky Arts Council funding is happening at the Symphony, Carson Center, Yeiser, Maiden Alley Cinema, and Quilt Museum. In a continuing tradition of making my life difficult, this year’s ART’s DAY at the Kentucky Capitol building in Frankfort is once again the week we open a show- The Hundred Dresses.
Valerie Pollard and the Curtain Call Committee meet this week to start the intensive work until the first week of March and the auction to raise funds for the theatre by auctioning off roles in a special performance of ANNIE in June. I spent a couple hours today going through the Annie script and pulling out cameo roles that could be auctioned off. Each year it gets harder to top the previous year!
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