4-18-2 2011

The Theatre sends it's condolences and prayers to the Keeney family on the passing of Jim's Grandmother. Services were held Saturday in Benton.

Three Little Pigs Story Theatre Tour presented 3 productions last week and Dixie Swim Club had it's Technical Rehearsal yesterday. Just before we started the rehearsal yesterday I told the cast and the crew that we would work to get our costume and set changes down to 30-45 seconds. That is the longest an audience will sit during a scene change without losing energy from the previous scene. The cast and crew started to protest that wasn't going to be possible. As we got to the first scene change at 45 seconds I had the lighting person bring up the lights and we discussed what had happened and how close we were to finishing the changes. We worked through scene change issues making the movements more economical so that the crew person did things in an order that allowed them to not have to go offstage with removed items and then return. They brought items on and placed them and then took the other items off. The cast discovered who could help each other with changes and then we ran it again. By the third time we were ready to go at about 40 seconds. By the time we finish the run of the show I expect to have that time down to 25 seconds. It really is amazing what can be accomplished in 30 seconds when you are focused.

The cast for Dixie Swim did a great job yesterday working with costumes and props. Victoria who pours martinis throughout the first scene of the play ran out half way through the scene and then pretended to pour. She realized that she was going to have to make twice as much as she originally thought. On the other hand Lisa Humphrey who filled one of the martini glasses with milk for the one character who doesn't drink put way to much in and the actors had to be very careful not to spill the mill as they walked and talked. I programmed telephone rings into the sound cues and realize I had too many rings in for the amount of time it takes the actress to get off stage to answer the phone so I removed some of those rings. We had a pregnant padding for one of the actresses. Unfortunately it made her look ridiculous so today we will take some of that padding out. In another scene a dress that was supposed to look ridiculous didn't look that way so we will find another that looks even worse. Today will be spent hanging some additional lights and refocusing others to eliminate some of the dark spots that I noticed yesterday during the tech rehearsal. That's the process for this week. You create something you think will work and then you test it during the rehearsal that night. What doesn't work gets reworked the next day.

The board of directors held a planning meeting at First Presbyterian Church on Saturday afternoon and we worked through several items that needed longer time than our regular board meetings. Lots of progress was made in several areas and we hope to have some exciting announcements coming up in the next few months concerning fundraising events. The board also tackled several tough facility questions and we will move forward on the repairs for some big items we had been struggling with. One of those items is the water drainage behind the studio theatre that has been flooding our back hallway during heavy rains. We hope to have that corrected by the end of June.

On today's schedule are rehearsals for Eat, Dixie Swim Club, and Annie.