The show must go on

It has been up and down this past week. We have overcome lots of obstacles and each time it seems that something else comes up to challenge us. The main theatre air conditioner after 2 days of trying to find out what was causing our continuing problems was finally narrowed down to the main compressor unit had worn out and was constantly overheating and shutting down. We were notified 2 1/2 hours before show time on Thursday Sept 8 before the start of our second weekend of performances. The compressor unit was had to be replaced but the earliest it would arrive from out of town was Monday Sept. 12. Then we would have to get a crane to take the old one off the roof and put the new one on.

The weather mercifully cooled off for that weekend and we were able to do the shows with the overhead ceiling fans running during the performances with very little audience discomfort. The compressor unit didn't show up the following Monday but did arrive the next day and was finally installed and the system was working at 100% about 4 pm on Thursday Sept. 15 just in time for the 3rd weekend of performances of Putnam County Spelling Bee.

On Saturday Sept. 17, thirty minutes prior to opening the auditorium to allow the audience in for seating for the 7:30 show that night the stage lighting system crashed and became totally inoperable. That's the interesting thing about live theatre. You never know what is going to happen. You also have the motto- the show must go on!

I've been working in theatre now for over 35 years (that makes me feel really old!). Each year some new challenge comes along that demands you come up with a solution in a crises situation. I feel like the character on the old TV show McGiver some days when you have to improvise something out of whatever is on hand to get out of a tough situation. There are always several paths you can take when faced with what seems to be a hopeless situation. One of them is to give up. To cancel the show. When ever we have rough weather everyone assumes that is what we will do- cancel the show. It seems to amaze people when we don't do that. We have only canceled in extreme circumstances (the ice storm).

Thing I love about theatre people is that we all have a show must go on attitude. It's not a silly thing that "show biz" people say. It truly is a code of conduct. When you are faced with difficult situations you don't give up. You find a way to not just survive but succeed! Sometimes our best performances come from very difficult circumstances.

So we madly scrambled and were able to rig up 4 floodlights using stage lighting cables from the backstage to put just enough light on stage to keep the entire stage illuminated. We dug out our 30 year old portable lighting dimming system that you plug into a wall outlet and then plugged the lighting cables into that. We were able to at least bring the four floodlights up and down to give some different lighting to the show. Our old system however can only handle 1,000 watts per channel for up to two channels. During the Saturday night show one of the channels kept flipping its breaker so we kept trying to run the lights at only about 75% or 750 watts to keep it going.

We were able to take a show that had over 100 lights and almost 100 light cue changes and redesign it as the performance progressed to do the show with 4 lights and a follow spot and still created about 40 light cues all made up as we went along. Lisa Humphrey, Jim Roush, and Jim Keeney all did a great job of following my verbal instructions to change the lights with each scene. Sunday Jim Keeney and I came in early and re-hung, re-cabled and re-lamped the flood lights so they wouldn't keep blowing the old breakers and we could all rest a little easier that we wouldn't lose all the stage lighting if one breaker went out.

This morning we called the lighting repair company that we use to come out and see if our 20+ year old lighting system can be fixed. I want to say how proud I was of the actors and the crew who not only overcame adversity with so many problems that developed during the run of the show but gave some of their best performances in the toughest situations. Bravo to the cast of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. You did an outstanding job kicking off our 48th Season. Cindy Miller and Joe Plucknett also outdid themselves musically on the show!

We don't get to rest however. Today we will move the Charlotte's Web set on stage so the cast can start rehearsing on it tomorrow and get it ready for it's opening in 3 weeks. Tonight is the first rehearsal of The 39 Steps with a terrific cast and the first meeting of the play selection committee to look for plays for the 49th season.

The show must go on...