September 7 2011

Tomorrow begins the second weekend of Putnam County Spelling Bee. Audience volunteer spellers have been great this past weekend. Ticket sales for this weekend are picking up and hopefully word of mouth will help us sell the third weekend. Cindy Miller has done an outstanding job with the difficult music in the show and percussionist Joe Plucknett has really added to the musical support in the show. Performers, Fowler Black, Tony Bohannon, Audra Hall, Al Knudsen, Cheri Paxton, Chris Schnarr, Heather Tomko, Kim Yocum, and Chuck Wilkins are doing a terrific job of bringing the middle school angst to their characters. Every audience member that has stopped me after the show has complimented the acting and vocal performances of the cast. Tuesday I was the guest speaker at the Lion's Club meeting. Al Knudsen and Cindy Miller came with me and Al sang "I'm not that smart" from the show while Cindy accompanied him on piano and we gave away a pair of tickets for the show. Today at Rotary Al and Cindy again performed the song and we gave away another pair of tickets.

While the first show of the season has been running smoothly I can't say the same for our Air Conditioning units. Opening night you would have witnessed me standing in front of the theatre, drenched from a water hose that back pressured on me, looking up a long ladder to the two technicians working on the roof. Fortunately we have had air conditioning for every performance but we have been only running the units during the performances due to overheating of the main units on the roof. Today we had the service techs back out to service all 4 of the air conditioners on the main market house building. The main coils both outside and inside the building had become so clogged up the units were quickly overheating. All should be running smoothly by showtime Thursday night with audiences never knowing that we have been hard at work this past week to keep them cool.

While that has been going on we have finished up the roof repairs on the three buildings owned by the theatre. Last month we repaired the brick and mortar of the parapets on top of the three buildings. Hopefully we will get the interior water damage from the spring rains repaired by the end of September and be in good shape for quite a few years.

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week the consultants from Webb Management based in NYC were back in Paducah to talk with city officials and others about MHT's future plans. We are looking forward over the next few months to identify specific facilities recommendations to meet our current and future demand. Facilities issues have really taken up a lot of time and money since last January.

Auditions are next Monday and Tuesday for the next comedy, The 39 Steps. I'm hoping for a good turnout. We have only 4 roles in the show but these roles are very complex. While that show is auditioning and starting rehearsals we will also be in high gear to do the Downtown Walking Ghost Tours and the Oak Grove Cemetery Tour again this year. Stories are being brushed up with a few new ones added.