I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change Final Weekend

(***After I wrote this Tuesday, I found out that our website provider has been experiencing some technical problems they hope to have resolved later today and will get us changed over hopefully by the end of the day Wednesday.)



As I write this I'm using a new blogging software and the theatre will hopefully unveil our redesigned website today. I hope that you like our new website format. While it is easier to update and change it has taken me a while to learn the ins and outs of a new software program. As a result I'm behind in my blogs about the show and what's going on at the theatre. We hope that the new home page format will allow smart phone users and computer internet users an easier way to interact with our site.



I Love You You're Perfect Now Change is about to enter its third and final week of performances. It has been a wonderful run so far with lots of great moments. Audience response has been overwhelmingly positive. During the first weekend we had a very special treat for audiences on Friday evening Sept. 3! I had been contacted by Russ Whalen about using the theatre for a short time so that he could propose to his girlfriend. Russ was driving in from Louisville and meeting his girlfriend Emily Kaler in Paducah. I suggested instead that he come to the performance of I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT and at intermission "pop" the question. The production of I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT, has had more people propose during performances than any other. He agreed and on the night of the performance I went up to do the raffle drawing and then said "We have decided to pick someone at random out of the audience to do or drawing tonight! I then walked back down the aisle to his seat and pointed at Russ and said we had chosen him. He stood up and then turned to Emily and said "before I do that I would like to do something else" He pulled out a diamond ring and asked her to marry him.



The second weekend our audience response was overwhelmingly positive again and we settled in for a great weekend of performances. On Saturday evening during the "car" scene Melanie Koch's chair got a flat (lost a wheel) as she was spinning around in circles and she had to literally drag the chair back to the center to finish the song. She did it with such style that I couldn't tell what had happened. On Sunday Towneley Williams called me to tell me she had lost her voice. I called all of the actors in 30 minutes early and Towneley tried to sing her part. I made a decision to have the other actresses fill in for her in her solo scenes. Melanie did "A Stud and a Babe", Audra did "He Called Me" and because of the difficulty with the staging and the lyrics, Towneley acted the role in "The Marriage Tango" while Victoria Parrish stood offstage and sang while Towneley lip-sinked the song. The entire cast all did a great job of covering and we are all keeping our fingers crossed that Towneley has fully recovered for the final week of the show. It is one thing to be familiar with the show and to step in to do someone's role. It is a whole other level to step in with 30 minutes notice to learn the music and do the movement in front of an audience and do it from memory. Fowler emailed me Monday morning to tell me that his voice was gone and that he was headed to the doctor for some help before we start back up again Thursday night. I've got my fingers crossed we have a healthy cast on Thursday.



I knew that when the Play Selection Committee selected I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE that some in our audience would not like the play. It has a little bit stronger language and adult content than many of the plays that we have done in the last several years. I received a call this afternoon from a season ticket holder who did not like the show at all and wanted to express his feelings. I noticed a few people leave at intermission and I assumed that the play was not something they enjoyed. The gentleman who called me this afternoon was very polite and simply wanted to express his feelings. It is never easy to sit quietly and have someone tell you how unhappy they are with something you have done. I do appreciate that this ticket holder cared enough to call me to let me know that not everyone loved the show. Every audience member is important to us and we value their opinions. We are a community theatre and as such we try to make sure that the majority of our programming reflects the community values.



As the Artistic Director of the theatre it is my job to select and review all the plays that the theatre considers producing. I am the person who submitted this play to be considered by the play selection committee. It received rave reviews from other theatres around the country. I wanted to take a moment to share why I thought this was a show that MHT should produce. I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE contains a comic view of men and women and the biological and emotional rollercoaster that we ride on as we look for love and companionship in our lives. Two of the songs in the show are extremely poignant in the show. "I Will be Loved Tonight" and "Shouldn't I be Less in Love with You". Speak about the joy and the pain that relaitionships, or the lack of, bring to our lives. "The very first dating video of Rose Ritz" is an incredibly funny and moving story of a woman whose husband abandoned her and whose world collapses, yet she picks herself up and goes back out to find love again. "Funeral's are for Dating" lets us look at what it is like for two older people who have lost the love of their lives, their spouses to death, and they continue on with life because they still have so much to give. Very few plays can bring us to tears from laughter and tears from an honest moment in the story of relationships. The last song- "Keep coming Back" sums it all up. Those were the reasons that I submitted this play for reveiw even though I knew some of our season ticket holders would not like it.



The theatre's purpose is to enrich our lives with stories and entertainment. Our brand " We don't just entertain... We change lives" means more than just a slogan. If we wanted to just entertain we would never do anything that would upset or challenge our audiences. (I'm not sure it's possible to not upset anyone and still do something that has value.) Almost every play that has some "guts" to it will upset someone. Cinderella upset some audience members because they thought it had too much kissing in it. Wizard of Oz upset some audience members because it had magic and witches. Smoke on the Mountain upset some audience members because they said we were doing church plays and not secular plays. Any time we do a drama we upset someone because they feel we should only do comedies that make us forget about the problems of real life. If we do a children's show some adults don't want to see children acting, if we do an adult show some audience members want us to do shows that acceptable for children to watch. In the end the only thing I can do is to accept criticism from others in the spirit that they really do care about the theatre and feel that their thoughts and feelings matter to make MHT a better place.



Each play we put on someone comes up to me and tells me they love this play and it is the best show they've every seen and someone else will walk out at intermission (or before) and tell me how much they hated this play. Like the song at the end of I LOVE YOU YOU'RE PERFECT NOW CHANGE, we as a theatre company keep coming back. Back to deciding to produce another play, back to auditioning another cast, back to creating a play that we know someone will love and someone will hate.

Pefect Now Change

Tech week is over and tonight we open the show and the official start of our 47th season. It must be something in the air as all of the other arts and business people I talked to in the last week talked about crazy things are right now. Getting the first show open is a marathon task. Debra Harned is the graphic artist for the theatre who lays out our program. We were late this year in getting our ad sales and sponsors which then pushed the program up and past the deadline. We print the cover and all the color pages once for the entire year. That’s 10,000 covers and color pages that have to be correct for the entire year. After we dropped off what we thought was the final proof on Friday August 13, we had two more color ads come in from businesses that we had given up on. I literally ran over to our printer and told them to hold the press and had them reset the color pages. We worked almost round the clock on the weekend of August 21 & 22 getting final ad copy and sponsor listing for the 32 black and white pages that we turned in August 23. I was still talking to sponsor and getting and creating ad copy right up to turning in the proof. The good news is that we received the printed programs yesterday and they look great.

At the same time we were in rehearsals for the show and trying to finish the set and lights. Last Saturday it was a 14 hour work day which was to finish the hang and focus of lights which started on the Thursday before. We began setting light cues at about 3:30 Saturday afternoon and ended about 10:30 that night. Setting light cues involves Stage Manager Denise Bristol walking through the different scenes on stage while I sit in the audience with the light board and set the cues. At 10:30 Denise left with a prop list of items that was needed for the tech rehearsal the next day and I went home to work until about 1 AM locating images on the internet and creating title slides for the large rear screen projections during the show. This continued starting about 6 AM the next morning until 11 AM when I programmed them into the computer backstage to display the images. (The majority of the images I found and programmed I changed almost immediately after the technical rehearsal because they didn’t work the way I thought they would and pulled “focus” from the actors in the scene.) From 11 AM to 1PM I focused on finding sound effects for the show and setting up the 8 wireless microphones and receivers. We are using the microphones primarily for a monitor speaker for Patt Lynch who is playing piano to hear the actors because he is seated several feet behind the actors and can’t hear their singing as he plays the music for them. We had the tech rehearsal on Sunday technical rehearsal last Sunday we have been dealing with microphone and sound issues along with scenery issues. The lighting and follow spot crew got their dates mixed up and Jim forgot to confirm the day before so they didn’t show up for the rehearsal. When the mistake was discovered TD Jim Keeney had to make and emergency call to his wife and daughter to fill in for the missing crew along with his running some of the equipment. The technical rehearsal went well and afterwards the cast was treated to a great meal while I gave notes from the rehearsal. Volunteers Don and Renie Barger, Ralph and Stephanie Young, Dick Holland, Valerie Pollard and others have taken on the task of making food for the cast crew and orchestra as a way of showing their appreciation for the hard work that has been done to get the show open.

Sunday evening I spent working with April to design the set for Alice in Wonderland Jr. which April started staging the next day. April has asked to create a set that can grow and shrink with Alice. I had some basic ideas for how to make that work but working through the actual design takes lots discussion and sketches of different ideas and how the actors might move in the different scenes in a space. There are over 30 actors in the show and they all are onstage in a couple of different scenes. We need lots of different height levels so the audience can see everyone and at the same time the choreography and movement needs a flat floor space to work best. We settled on a raked floor that will will elevate those at the back above those in the front and give us a space without steps that would impede the choreography. A rough sketch of the set was completed with very general ideas of how special effects would work to make things grow and shrink. That was enough to get her started.

Monday the focus returned to Perfect Change and the costumes, sets, lights, sound and staging. I had been unhappy with a section of one of the songs in the Wedding scene and decided it needed more choreography. I spent time in the afternoon working through some different possible movements for the “gospel church choir” to do which made them more involved in the scene instead of just standing and singing. When the cast arrived at 6:30 we spent 20 minutes on learning the choreography that would be performed in the song in the first act. Just as we were about to start we had major sound issues with the piano because I had tried to add a hard masking piece in front of the piano for a visual effect. Patt couldn’t hear what he was playing on the piano. We ended up adding monitors for Patt and the percussionist. We started the rehearsal and in the first act a scene with a bed began with a crash. Three actors have to get in a bed that was built to fold in half between the head board and the footboard so it would get through the side masking to get onstage and the head of the bed is elevated so the audience can see the actors when they sit up. That afternoon Tech Director Jim Keeney had decided to redo the casters on the bed to make it easier to roll on and off. The larger casters changed the center of balance on the bed and when the three actors sat down in the dark scene change the bed collapsed into a V shape causing the headboard and the footboard to come together. Al Knudsen who was behind the head board was thrown backwards as the bottom of the headboard kicked out. Audra, Melanie, and Chris hit their heads hard on the head board and everyone came running on to help. We brought up the lights and made sure that everyone was okay. My first thought was “Oh God we just killed 3 actors in bed!” Fortunately everyone was able to continue bruised and a little shaken. Don't let anyone tell you theatre isn't dangerous! We hauled the broken bed offstage and did the scene with the actors sitting on 3 chairs for the rehearsal that night. The rest of the rehearsal went surprisingly well.

Tuesday Jim Keeney rebuilt the bed and readjusted the center of balance. That afternoon Jim and I both jumped up and down on the bed structure with all our combined weight to test the redesign to prevent any future breaking. When the cast showed up that night we opened up the bed and I jumped up and down on it with all my weight to reassure the cast it was now fixed. Audra Hall called in sick right before we began the rehearsal Tuesday night so the other women in the cast had to quickly fill in for her so that we could do the run through. They did a great job not only filling in but also helping us continue to improve the show to get ready for the final dress rehearsal.

Wednesday evening we did the final dress rehearsal. We pay a royalty to the authors to allow a small test audience of performer’s friends and family to see our “preview” of the show. Audra was healthy and back onstage. She had to learn some of the changes that we made on Tuesday night to refine choreography and stage the curtain call with just a very quick walk through before we started. During the second scene of the first act we suddenly had an unknown voice coming through the sound system. After a frantic search it was discovered that the church across the street from the theatre was using a wireless microphone on the same frequency as ours. This created a mad search to track down which wireless receiver was picking up the signal and changing the frequency channels while the first scene was in process. The actors and musicians kept right on going without missing a beat. It was an alert audience member who realized it was the church across the street and he went out during the first scene and asked them to change their frequency. He told me at intermission that the preacher from across the street said that the night before they were hearing us through their sound system. I can only imagine a church service suddenly hearing people sing "If I were a Stud" or "sexually trained attorneys helping you get the satisfaction you want in bed."

With all of the trials and tribulations that go with opening the show and the season, it all comes together tonight as we kick of the 47th Season. One of the family members who was in the audience for the final dress was laughing so hard she was crying at the dating scenes. In another scene Fowler Black’s solo “Shouldn’t I be less in Love with You?” moved the audience to total silence at the end of the scene when the lights went down instead of the standard applause so that you could hear a pin drop. That’s when you know you the audience is really moved by the performance. I hope lots of people will come and be moved to tears and laughter by this great season opener.

Mid August update & Mini Season Sale

Wow the summer has flown by. Two weeks from today is the opening of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. We have had lots of actors off on vacations or other conflicts so we have been trying to accomplish a lot in just a short time. Debra Harned has been spending hours trying to get our program into shape for the opening production of our 47th season. We got the color pages (8) to the printer last week and then had a couple of changes to it right before we went to press. This week we are trying to get all of the black and white pages (32) to the printer. The cast, crew, and musician listings along with bios and photos have to be written, arranged and proofed. We are still looking for a very talented violinist for the show. The music is written for piano and violin and the violin part is very difficult.

April held auditions for Alice in Wonderland Jr. Monday and Tuesday of this week and had over 125 youth audition. She and Musical Director Cindy Miller spent hours last night after the call back audition trying to cast the show and left without a final cast list. They will work on it again today. April leaves tomorrow morning at 6 am flying out of Paducah for a weekend Educational Directors Conference in Des Moines Iowa. I'm willing to be that the cast list won't be finalized until moments before she leaves.

We are still in the process of trying to secure warehouse space. We have hit some unexpected issues in our efforts to purchase the old arcade theatre building and are trying to work through those with the city and the present owner. I'm hoping that all can be resolved within the next week so we can move forward. That has been taking up a great deal of time this past month. Some people have asked if we were looking at renovating the arcade into a theatre space and the answer is a definite no. The space would require a large investment and would end up being much smaller than our current space in the Market House. We are strictly looking at this for storage space of our current platforms, flats, and furniture for use at the Market House. Speaking of furniture we are currently looking for 8 wooden chairs with wooden seats and no cushion. We need them for I Love You, You're Perfect for the opening number. Actors have to sit, stand, drag, and swing their legs over the back of them. We are going to the Executive Inn sale this morning to see if we might find them. In addition we are searching for 8 white hooded robes for the show as well. We have found chairs and robes online but they come at an expense that is more than we would like to afford.

Our budget this year for sets, costumes, lights, props, and royalties around $60,000 which depends on us penny pinching on every show. The royalties for the 12 productions (mainstage, youth, story theatre, footlights, and drama camps) alone account for over half of that $60,000. Musicals due to extensive sets, costumes, props, and lights take up the bulk of the remaining funds. Some of our smaller productions depend totally on stock scenery and costumes and have production budgets as low as $50. (Masking tape, two gallons of paint, and screws and hardware to assemble the scenery will use up that budgeted amount very quickly.)

A committee from the board is currently working out the details of the Ghost Tours that will begin in October. We will have the downtown walking tours again but are also adding an Oak Grove Cemetery tour with a big kickoff on Oct. 22. There are lots of fun ideas we are considering for the Oak Grove tour that will also allow school groups during the daytime hours.

Don Barger has added his talents to our newsletter writing staff. Cindy Miller, Sarah Roman, and Don Barger now write articles for the Off Stage Noises. We sent the September edition to the printer Tuesday and we hope to have the online version out today.

I Love You, You're Perfect tickets go on sale today. Tickets are $20 for Adults and $17 for Students age 21 & under. As we finish up season ticket sales we are going to offer a special 1 week only MINI SEASON SALE starting today! We have great seats remaining for performances as we start single ticket sales for I Love You, You're Perfect. You can call the box office starting at 9 am this morning to order a mini season ticket. Mini Season Tickets are discounted to $17 per show. You must purchase a minimum of 3 shows and a maximum of 4 shows. Ticket buyers will receive reserved seats for specific performance dates. If you are interested call the box office at 270-444-6828 and tell them you would like the mini season sale and mention code B47 to get your seats.

July wrapup

As the last day of July unfolds today we wrap up the final performance of the Pied Piper Lunchbox Theatre on the Main Stage. I heard from many people how pleased they were that we had brought back this summer favorite for young children. Over the past 4 days we've had over 300 children in the theatre munching on hamburgers and hot dogs and coloring their rat hats to play along with the show the Pied Piper. While the show got off to a slow start with the change of summer festival dates it has picked up toward the end of the week. We will definitely put it on our calendar again for next summer.

The board of directors met last Wednesday and reviewed ideas for the October Ghost Tour Fundraiser, the purchase of the old Arcade theatre building for warehouse space, and the wrap up of the last years financials. It looks as of the board meeting that the theatre will end they year with with about a $40,000 surplus in operational income. This is great news!

The I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change cast has been learning music all week. They have been extremely patient with my changes and reshuffling of parts while we try to put together the show. Since I cast more than the script called for I have been shifting around parts and songs to try to even things out among all the performers. It looks to be a great show! The cast is constantly breaking into laughter while listening to their fellow cast mates sing some of the songs in the show. We move from the classroom to the stage Monday as we begin to stage the beginning of the show. Musical Director Patt Lynch is working extremely hard at trying to sort through and play the dozens of musical styles in the show. We move from 50's rock and roll to tango to country to 80's pop. The orchestra is composed of Patt on piano, a violinist and percussionist.

Auditions for Disney's musical Alice in Wonderland Jr. will be coming up in a couple of weeks. The Jr. designation means that all performers must be elementary, middle and high school age. No adults over 18 are allowed. The show will be lots of fun and have parts for both new and experienced performers. Perusal scripts are available at the box office for check out with a refundable deposit.

We are in the last week of our drive for program advertisers for the first program. If anyone is interested in a great marketing opportunity contact me at the theatre at 270-444-6828 ext. 114 for more details. It's hard to believe we open the first show of our 47th season in just 4 weeks!

Aaron Spoden has been a technical intern from Moorehead State University all summer and has helped us with Cinderella, the Aladdin Camp, the Grammarosaurus camp, and the Pied Piper. He will be heading back to school soon and we really appreciate his work with us this summer and Moorehead State for his internship opportunity.

We hope to have our redesigned website up and operating within the next couple of weeks. It has been redesigned for to work not only on the web but with smart phones as well.

July 24 2010

Lots of things have happened this week. Friday at 5 pm we wrapped up the Grammarosaurus camp with a performance of the show. The theatre was packed with parents and friends for the one and only performance of the show. April as always did a great job with the kids for the limited time they have to rehearse. During the camp the kids got to run the light board, crawl in the passage way under the stage to get to the trap door (one of their favorites), learn how we make explosions and smoke onstage, had a makeup demonstration where they all got black eyes (which they all pretended were real to their parents), and learned about projected scenery when they did designs which we digitally projected on our rear screen on the stage for their show. We took about 400 photos on Friday morning at the final dress rehearsal and they went fast. Janice Peterson did a great job with baseball caps creating dinosaur heads for all the kids.

Friday after a couple weeks of looking and negotiations we signed a contract to purchase a new warehouse space. The theatre had narrowed it down to two spaces and the board decided on the purchase of 111 S. 5th Street as our new warehouse space. It seems appropriate that we should acquire the space. For those who don't know why that is appropriate it is the auditorium of the old Arcade Theatre. It has been stripped of all the chairs and theatrical equipment and is a space of just under $5,000 square feet with 30 foot ceilings. We will hopefully close in the middle of August and begin moving scenery from our current warehouse location immediately. The Easter Seals of Western Kentucky has been very generous with MHT in letting us use some of their storage space over the past couple of years in exchange for tickets for their clients. The contacted us back in June and notified us that they would be developing the space we were using. So the next time you drive down Kentucky Ave towards the river look to your left when you are across from the McCracken County Library and you will see the back of the Columbia theatre building and the side of the Arcade Theatre building. We will be putting out the word for help when its time to move.

Marsha and Rhiannon have printed out the last sets of Season Tickets and have put them into envelopes with the instructions for how to exchange and purchase additional discounted tickets. We are waiting for the restaurant discount cards to come back from the printer. In addition it takes volunteers to help us check and double check each ticket order before we send them out. After processing over a thousand season tickets it is easy to make a mistake and asking a couple of fresh eyes to review the orders is always helpful. Marsha and Rhiannon are also processing the Flex Pass tickets and creating the Flex Pass Cards. Marsha is working hard to get everything in the mail before she goes on vacation in August.

On Sunday we will have a Tech rehearsal for Pied Piper Lunchbox Theatre. Performances of Pied Piper are Wednesday through Sunday July 28-31. We are trying to get the word out to parents about this really fun event that is a "dinner theatre" for kids featuring hamburgers, hot dogs, ice cream and the show all for $10. Jim Keeney, Aaron Spoden and I will be hauling all of theatre seating out of the auditorium and setting up 15 round tables with chairs for the show. We put a banner up for Pied Piper on the side of the building on Thursday hoping it might help sell some tickets from the group at the Carson Center for Summer Festival.

The cast of I Love You You're Perfect Now Change rehearsed both Thursday and Friday this past week starting to learn the music to the show. I took some photos during the rehearsal that I will post soon. During the "Wedding Event" song the cast was rocking out trying to learn the complicated rhythms. Fowler Black who was out of town last week on business will have join the cast on Monday for the next rehearsal with some catching up to do.

April will be attending the AACT Education Directors conference in Des Moines Iowa in August. She facilitated the conference a couple of years ago and met lots of great people. This year she is happy to just be attending and is looking forward to seeing the group of educators again at the conference this year.

Mid July update

Here it is the 18 of July and I'm just doing the first post! I can't believe it's already 1/2 way through the month. Yesterday was the Fred Paxton Fund run for Charity. The theatre raised almost $4,300 in donations and I'm sure we will be close to $4,500 by the time all the late registrations are recorded. With the matching of $4,300 from the foundation that will put the theatre endowment fund at approx. $90,000!

Several MHT volunteers won trophies for their times in the run in their age groups. April and I were very proud of our daughter Jade who won First Place Overall in the Kids run for all of the kids ages.

I found out today that long time theatre friend Sarah Roush died today after a long battle with cancer. Sarah helped revitalize several buildings downtown and was a prolific artist. Her enthusiasm in helping others and her creative spirit will be missed. Our thoughts and our prayers are with her family.

Tomorrow begins the final week of the Grammarsoris Camp. April has been rehearsing with the kids this past week. Each day the kids have learned something new about the theatre. Last Tuesday they got to run the light board, learn how we make flash pots and smoke onstage and they got to crawl under the stage in the little crawl space that is used for the trap door. That was the biggest highlight of the whole thing- so much so that they wanted to do it again on Wednesday so we let them. In addition on Wednesday they learned the difference between front and rear screen projections and saw how their set drawings will be projected on the screen for their show. Friday the kids got a tour of the costume shop, dressing rooms and prop areas while they were taking a break from the rehearsal.

Auditions were held last Monday and Tuesday for I Love You You're Perfect Now Change. The show called for 2 men and 2 women. I had a large group of talented people audition and I cast 4 men and 4 women. Cast members are Fowler Black, Audra Hall, Al Knudsen, Melanie Koch, Victoria Parrish, Scott Salchli, Chris Schnarr, and Townley Williams. Patt Lynch is the musical director. We had a rushed first rehearsal last Friday because 3 of the cast was going out of town the first part of this week. It was fun to watch the actors read the script for the first time because many of them were totally unfamiliar with the show they had just been cast in. They only knew bits and pieces from the auditions.

Cindy Miller, Melisa Mast, Kim Yocum, Kristin Williams, and I are out meeting with businesses to sponsor our upcoming season and selling program ads. We hope to have this wrapped up before the end of the month.

Several board members and staff are looking at warehouse spaces. In the past 26 years the warehouse has had to relocate 5 times. That is an average of every 5 years. We are looking at possible lease spaces and exploring possibly buying a building for storage space. The theatre currently needs about 3,000 square feet with high ceilings. We are waiting on insurance quotes and utility quotes to make the decision whether to buy or lease. We are hoping to start moving scenery out of our current space and into a new space starting August 1. Jim will be looking for lots of help when we do move so if you have some free time in August we would be very appreciative.

Marsha and Rhiannon have been hard at work on season tickets. They have processed all of the renewals and most of the new orders. They will begin printing out the tickets and putting them into envelopes along with restaurant discount cards within the next couple of weeks. Ann Counts has been helping with the renewals for the restaurant discount cards so we are just finishing up gathering the information before sending those cards off to print.

As usual we are behind in getting our Season Information brochure to the printer. Debra Harned has been working on logos for the shows and we have been refining the show descriptions. We have also been trying to work through the other fundraising events that will happen this year. It never fails we start out on track to get the brochure done in a timely manner and soon we are at least a month behind schedule. Last year the season brochure was finished just before we opened the first show of the season. Fortunately we quit using the brochure years ago as the primary season ticket sales form.

I have been working with Innovations brandinghouse on a new website design for the theatre that is smart phone friendly. Hopefully you will get to see it make its premiere in the next few weeks. April and I are currently adding information and we hope that it will allow for a more interactive site. It is designed with a Word Press blogging type of setup which means that more than one person can make changes. I've been the only person over the years who has been able to make changes and that sometimes means the site isn't always as up to date as we would like.

The Pied Piper opens Wednesday July 27 and runs through Saturday July 30 for Lunch box theatre and we hope to have a good turnout. Neil's Catering will be handling the hot dogs and hamburgers for the show.

Last Day of the year

No its not December 31 but it feels like it sometimes. June 30 is the last day of the fiscal year for the theatre. Cinderella Enchanted closed on the 20 with a cast party that followed the show. There was almost no strike except to empty the orchestra pit and put in a large fulcrum lift and then put the cover back on for Aladdin Kids.

The Picnic which was held on June 21 honored retiring board members and voted in the new board members. The Golden Screw awards were presented to those persons who distinguished themselves during the past season in ways they would like to forget. Fowler Black and Katy Miller won the costume award for the moment when Katy's dress got caught on Fowler's medals and when she stood up it pulled the left side of her dress so she had to quickly adapt and do the entire scene seated next to Fowler while they slowly unhooked themselves. Sydney Hughes won the "What's my line award" for yelling that she had to go home and block up her TV. It was supposed to be the word chimney. Eden Lance won for the grace in motion as she was so energetic trying to get off the stool after trying on the slipper that she ran into a wall and ended up crawling offstage. We moved the Picnic/annual meeting inside the theatre and sat in the air conditioned comfort while it was over 100 with the heat index outside.

On Friday and Saturday June 25 & 26 we presented the show Aladdin Kids. Janice Peterson did a great job of adapting the costumes from the Aladdin Jr show 4 years ago to a much younger cast. As usual April did an outstanding job putting the performances together after only 8 rehearsals.

The next day on Sunday June 27 we hosted the Paducah Symphony String Quartet to the MHT stage for a chamber concert.

Monday and Tuesday were spent trying to get publicity out for the upcoming season while the box office staff worked on processing mail orders for season tickets. The final deadline to renew season tickets was June 20. Marsha and Rhiannon have been calling season ticket holders we haven't heard from to confirm they wanted to release their tickets.

The theatre so far has gotten a good response for the fund run as we work towards a 10,000 maximum match. As of yesterday we had raised over $2,500 which was the minimum to get a match. The final day to make a donation to the fund run to benefit MHT is Monday.

Yesterday I went and looked at potential warehouse space. today I went to another location and looked at warehouse space. We have to find a space that we can begin to move into by July 31. We need about 3,000 square feet. We will need lots of help in August to move the scenery from one warehouse to another. This makes about the 5 time we've move warehouse's in the past15 years. I'm hoping to find a long term lease at a reasonable price or buy a space that we know we can always keep for 5-10 years.

We have still not heard from the Kentucky Arts Council on funding for next fiscal year. With so many state budget cuts it looks grim for us to remain at the same levels we had been funded in the past.

April starts Gramasoris camp on July 12 which is the same date I have auditions for I LOVE YOU YOU'RE PERFECT- NOW CHANGE. I've been talking with the Paducah Parks Department on ways we can partner for the theatre to produce an Oak Grove walking tour this October. We confirmed walking ghost tour dates for October today and gave them to the Convention and visitors center.

The theatre will end the current year with an operating surplus. We have been trying to get all of the things that needed maintenance in before the June 30th last day so they wouldn't get charged to next season. This week we had both theatre vans in for repairs and hopefully we are ready to kick off the 47th Anniversary Season with a bang!