Madison Conference 2009

I can't remember how many times I've come to this every other year conference in Madison. Each time I've been recharged by sharing and discussing issues that affect not only each of the theatres that we work for but also some of the challenges that we each face on a personal level. I've eaten wonderful Italian food, terrific Afghan food and tipped back a few micro brews after sessions with fellow directors from Hawaii, Texas, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Kentucky,Kansas, and Florida. I've listened to the struggles of theatres who are struggling to sell ads for $10 in their program up to theatres that have lost over $3 million dollars in their endowment fund.

Many of the issues are the same no matter the size. How do you attract performers, how do you energize boards, how do you sell tickets and how can you raise contribution levels.

In a great session yesterday after noon we had a presentation from Andrew Taylor who talked about social networking, facebook, twitter, flickr, geotagging and geocoding, and how to try not to just keep up but to move ahead to where arts are going. His presentation on place based networking is fascinating. Some theatres are now setting aside "Twitter Seats" for those people to tweet and text during performances. In several places arts organizations have empowered teens to produce shows using almost exclusively teens in all areas of production.

Last night we had a presentation from John Prignano of Music Theatre International who gave away lots of prizes for knowing show trivia but more importantly talked to us about copyright infringement, and new show availability. The new technology that MTI is constantly coming up with is helping community theatres and professional theatres across the country. We got dates for when shows like Legally Blonde, Hairspray, and Spring Awakening will be available for licensing. It was amazing to me how many community theatres in conservative areas had successes with shows that I would consider risky that are available right now- Rent, Full Monty, etc. I found out that Midland Texas and Diamond Head Hawaii can get shows like Les Miserables and others that we may not get for years because they have no tours that will impact them. (You must be at least 100 miles from the closest touring house.) Directors Tim from Midland and Deena from Diamond Head got lots of good natured ribbing from fellow directors about their locations.

I heard some great fundraising events that groups have done like a Diva Night where audience members watch local female performers in solo numbers and then vote on their favorite performer.

We talked about how many times to ask for contributions during the year. We talked about average ticket prices and discounts. We talked about censorship and how to remain true to the playwright while being aware of community sensitivities. We talked about staffing and how to evaluate and to deal with issues of transition.

This morning we have a 3 hour session before we all leave. Many will be heading out through out this mornings sessions to catch flights at the airport. I'm coming back with about a dozen pages of notes and handouts from dozens of theatres to look at implementing new ideas at MHT. While I'm not looking forward to the 8 hour drive back today, I know that my head will be spinning with new thoughts and ideas from this conference.

Boards Budgets and Best Christmas

Last night was the November Board of Directors meeting. We moved it up a week because of Thanksgiving. The meeting started half an hour later than usual because of another meeting which was right before it. We received the audit last night for the last completed fiscal year. The theatre ended the last fiscal year with a deficit. The good news out of that deficit is that the majority of that deficit is from depreciation of the equipment and facilities. We have struggled for a couple of years to find ways to fund the depreciation so that when equipment wears out we have the money to replace it. When income funds are tight, as they are right now with the recession, funding things like depreciation is more difficult.

Today Rhiannon and possibly Marsha Cash will be attending the Visitors Bureau program Give Em a Pickle about Customer Service. I'm scheduled to be at the River Heritage Museum for the a meeting about a big River Celebration.

Best Christmas Pageant set is getting base coated today and Jim is putting up a large rear screen projection for part of the back drop. I'm still looking for furniture and props for the show. We are still looking for crew for the show as well.

The story theatre troupe is performing in Brookport IL this morning with the City Mouse Country Mouse. They have spent everyday this week so far performing in Southern Illinois.

Yesterday I spent time in the main theatre arranging blue chairs to see how many we could fit in for a school matinee. With the new seats coming in our capacity will drop because of the wider seats. I may be replacing some of the new seats for a school matinee with blue chairs in order to keep our number of available seats up. It's like a giant puzzle with the empty space that you keep pushing around the little tiles to get them in order.

I'm spending the day trying to tie up a couple of loose ends before heading off to Wisconsin tomorrow for the national directors conference.

Schools, Scouts and Surveys

This has been a week of rushing around to help April with school projects. Wednesday I went to Clark School to help them with a pep rally for the academic team. They needed a smoke machine so I helped provide one. As it was sitting there sputtering and not really operating at full capacity I noticed a leak under the smoke machine where the smoke fluid was leaking out the bottom of the unit. The smoke machine is over 25 years old. Like so much of the equipment at the theatre we keep machinery functioning for many years beyond its projected life span by doing repairs and maintenance.

Yesterday Jim Keeney helped April load in masking drapes to McNabb Elementary for their Gifted Talented production of the THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF. April was very pleased with the performance that the kids did for the rest of the school. At the end of the school day the masking panels were shifted to Clark Elementary for their Gifted Talented production today of the play THE US CONSTITUTION Revivor: Philadelphia. The play is a take off on Survivor and is a musical production which teaches the basics of the Constitution. I have to copy programs for the performances before I go to the school. I will photograph one of the three performances today trying to get some good shots to send to Bad Wolf Press who are the writers for the show to put on their website.

At noon today a MHT board committee is meeting with a consultant to discuss doing a thorough survey of MHT facilities and programs. This information will be used in our Strategic planning retreat to be held next February.

April has Footlights tomorrow morning and then in the afternoon will do a Girl Scout workshop tomorrow afternoon. She spent last night from about 11 pm to midnight painting Styrofoam balls with Gesso in order for the girl scouts to make puppets on Saturday.

Callbacks and shifting rehearsals

Today we will post the callback list for God's Favorite. Director Diane Byrd had about 14 people audition for the play and she is working through all of the various factors such as acting ability, ages relative to other characters (who can play mother/father, son/daughter,) schedule conflicts, etc... Diane is sending me the call back list for posting this morning.

The rehearsal for Best Christmas Pageant is moving to the stage today after rehearsing in the classroom for the past couple of weeks. It is always a tough day when you move from a flat floor space that has been taped out to the actual stage. Suddenly everyone has to relearn their entrance and exit points. In addition I will be taking publicity photos at the end of the rehearsal today. TD Jim Keeney and I will be trying to set up some of the basic wall structures today to give a sense of the final space for the show. I'm still working on some of the style choices for the set for the show. In general I always design a basic ground plan and then evolve some of the style choices of the show with the director as the rehearsal progresses. I'm looking for ways to make the set a little more theatrical than a realistic interpretation.

The strategic planning committee has a meeting today at 5:30 pm with a possible facilitator to do our long range planning meeting in February. There are many important issues facing the theatre in the next 4 years and we will conduct an in depth planning retreat in February to chart the course that will take the theatre into the future. With the chair campaign almost finished we are now turning attention to the next set of challenging issues. One of those issues are the women's restrooms and the acoustics of the theatre.

Final Performance of Tom Dick and Harry

I'm sitting here trying to make photo discs and working on a cast and crew photo to give to each cast and crew member of the show in preparation for the final performance this afternoon. Audience response has been terrific. The play has met its budgeted ticket income goal and has been playing to full houses most of the run. I had a gentleman come up and ask me last night if all the wild action on the stage was in the script or if we made it up. Playwrights Ray and Michael Cooney deserve the credit for the dialogue and the ideas for the physical action. It is up to the director and the actors to interpret the words on the written page into something that comes to life onstage. That interpretation can be the difference between a great performance or an "ok" production. I have seen productions of plays where the actors were competent and the material was good but something was missing. Far too many amateur theatre productions are associated with that missing element. The cast of Tom Dick and Harry have many veteran actors and some new performers appearing in their second or third play. They have all come together to form an ensemble that all works together as one. That is something that is difficult to achieve but when it works the audience response is wonderful.

With live theatre you never know what will happen and watching the show as a director is like watching a tight rope performer. As a director I'm always slightly holding my breath with each difficult moment in the show. There is a sense of confidence that develops with some casts that no matter what happens the actors can stay on that tightrope. Last night Landon (Harry) kicked the head of the body parts across the stage for Al (Tom) to pick up then toss back in the bag. They've done this dozen's of times. The only problem was that Landon's aim was off and he kicked the head off the front of the stage into the audience. Without missing a beat Al walked down the steps in front of the stage, rescued the head and tossed it into the bag that Landon was holding without missing a beat. That little moment will surely earn Landon a Golden Screw Award nomination at the annual theatre picnic. The ability of everyone onstage to continue as if nothing had gone wrong was the mark of true professionals.

It has been a pleasure working with this cast and crew as we close out the final performance today. After the performance the cast and crew will tear down the set and then celebrate with a party on the theatre stage. I always get the questions from cast members if I have a favorite show. That is so hard to say. I've worked on lots of wonderful productions with so many wonderful people. Tom Dick and Harry will certainly be added to that long list.

For the staff of the theatre we are already into the rehearsals for The Best Christmas Pageant ever. Auditions for God's Favorite are tomorrow and Tuesday in the main theatre. The performers in Tom Dick and Harry will be able to feel that glow of their success for a long time. For the director, designers, and staff you get about 24 hours before you step back on the tight rope with the next cast and crew and try to do it all over again with a new production. Opening night for Best Christmas Pageant is about 30 days from now.

Searching applications

I have been struggling to get MHT information into certain places. My Iphone has a couple of applications like Where that will give you listings and directions to places close to you. While places like the Carson Center and Maiden Alley Cinema are listed on these apps MHT doesn't come up. What I've found is that a couple of sites are used to populate the information on these applications. If I can get some of the people who know MHT to write a review about the theatre that would help. You can go to Yelp.com and to the Yellowpages.com to write reveiws about local businesses in Paducah. Since it would be inappropriate for me to write a reveiew of the theatre I'm asking others to go on these sites and give MHT a review good, bad or indifferent. That way we will at least show up on some of the applications that people are using to find MHT.

photos and theatres

Today April and I ran up to Shawnee Community College to see the school matinee of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. A former MHT performer who grew up doing shows at MHT is now the Educational Center Coordinator and got us a couple of tickets. It was great to see him and some of the other people who occassionaly do shows at MHT. Willy Wonka is a musical and is a tremendously difficult technical show. April and I were interested to see the Shawnee theatre after hearing about it for several years and to see the production. April is doing a version of the show for Clark school. The Shawnee production must have had a 100 people in the cast. To coordinate that large a cast is a massive undertaking. We enjoyed the Oompa Loompa costumes (there must have been 50 Oompa Loompas) and the Wonka factory set was very bright and colorful. There were some sound problems in the performance we saw and we couldn't always hear. I saw in an Educational Center handout that Murray State University is bringing a Greek Play to Shawnee during this school year. I would be interested to see how that goes. I've always wanted to direct a Greek Tragedy.

Tonight was a performance of Tom Dick and Harry that was almost sold out with only 4 or 5 seats total left. I took photos tonight and probably have well over 200 photos of the show. Tomorrow is a 2 show day with a matinee in the afternoon and an evening show. I'll provide the food between shows tomorrow since the actors will only have about an hour between the end of one show and the actor call before the second show.

Marsha is now slowly coming back to the office after being gone for the first half of the week with an illness. She has been put on some new medication and it is making her very groggy. I've had several people ask me about buying chairs but Marsha has all the paperwork on those who have already purchased their chairs so she is slowly checking to see what is left that is avaiable.

April has Footlight tomorrow and then Daisy classes after the footlights classes until after 2:30. That means April will be teaching from 7:45 am. to about 4 pm.
That is a long day for her.