January 24, 2012

Escanaba in da Moonlight has really taken off since the first weekend. The cast has been terrific under Ross Daniel's direction and audiences have been really responsive. We have added two encore performances of the show because of audience demand on Jan. 27 & 28 at 7:30 pm.

I must confess a mistake I have made more than once as Executive and Artistic Director of Market House Theatre. I underestimated the sensitivities of our audience. When we first looked at selecting this show it was passed up. Some of the reading committee loved the show (myself included) and others thought the humor was a little too crude. I will confess that I watched the movie version of this show and thought-"this may be too crude for our audience." I pulled the show from consideration after that first year of reading because I was also worried that we would not get enough "hunters" to buy tickets to make the show successful.

To my surprise I discovered that not only did our audiences like the show, but women are often the source of the loudest laughs in the theatre.

As I watch the show from the back (mostly watching the audience reaction), it dawned on me- this was the reverse of Dixie Swim Club audiences where the show was about 5 women and their friendships and the loudest laughs came from male members of the audience. We all at some basic level love to see how the opposite sex acts when it's just the guys or just the girls. We may be any age from 30-100 but inside of us there still lurks that 13 year old kid-looking for acceptance from our peer group and willing to do outrageous things to earn that acceptance. There is an honesty to the show (in addition to some really funny stuff) that I think makes the show work really well.

Another worry we had was finding a talented cast of 5 men to rehearse over the Christmas/New Year's holidays which is usually a real struggle. We were able to cast a great group of guys and a girl to make the show a big success. I hope that everyone that missed out because of the sold out shows on the second week will get a chance to come to the encore performances.

Auditions for Getting Sara Married started last night. We had a terrific turnout of of women and men. I did not know the majority of those auditioning! That was a very welcome surprise. Auditions continue tonight and I believe that director Diane Byrd will be able to put together a great cast.

We have a workshop for Auditions for Hairspray on Feb 1 and then the auditions on Feb. 6 & 7. The workshop will let people know what songs to prepare and we will do a little bit of dance and share some of the scene selections I'll use for the auditions. It really is just a primer for those auditioning who have never done this before.

Play selection committee met last night and chose the slate for next season. It will now go into the rights application stage and then if everything is available we will announce our next years season at a big party on March 16 at the theatre. Look for more information on this in the upcoming newsletter. A big thank you goes out to Denise Bristol who chaired that committee, and to its members who read dozens of plays to narrow down the list to our final choices.

The Murder for Hire Troupe is rehearsing for the next event. We will perform Murder by Magic at the Paducah Country Club on March 3 and then in 3 dinner theatre performances at the Market House March 8-10. It should be lots of fun with dinner catered by Neil's Catering and a wine and beer cash bar again. Tickets are $35 each and we encourage people to get a team together to compete.

The Market House Board of Directors Meeting is tomorrow at 5:30 at the theatre. Williams Williams and Lentz will present the official audit to the theatre of our last completed fiscal year.

MHT completed our annual Kentucky Arts Council Arts Partnership application on January 13 and we hope that with all of the state budgets cut that they will be able to continue to fund the arts at some level. That funding leverages 4 times the tax revenue for the city and state as they dispense. The legislature cut the funding for the Kentucky Arts Council in the last two budgets. The arts council ended up eliminating all of their grants except for the Arts Partnerships for long standing arts groups. Any more cuts could quite possibly jeopardize matching funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and that could be the difference between groups being able to make that return on investment in tax revenue for the state which then reduces state revenues even further. Some cuts would literally be worse than others for state revenue. KAC funding isn't just a quality of life issue. It truly is a tax revenue issue as well.

The theatre is still in process on Phase Two of our Organization and Facilities study. We hope to have some significant progress to announce by the end of this fiscal year in June as to our future plans for renovation and expansion. Everything from scene shop construction space to additional lobby restroom space is being studied. The good news is that we have lots of exciting options and a strong financial foundation to build on. Consultants will visit Paducah over the help us evaluate our options.