ANGELS!!!

I just came back from my first look at the Angels' dance and all I can say is WOW!!!  Bryan Steele and Katie Correia are tops on our list.  They own and run Academy of the Performing Arts in Chelmsford and have choreographed a beautiful dance for the Angels.  I cried when I saw them because they are just so much more than I expected - a real corps de ballet.  I can't wait to see them in costume with the feather wings.  

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the United States.  Everyone's attention is turned toward being with family, cooking a turkey dinner, generally having fun.  Everyone but me.  I am thankful for a lot of things, especially our wonderful Patrons: TRINITY AMBULANCE, CHELMSFORD CULTURAL COUNCIL, CHELMSFORD TELEMEDIA, EASTERN BANK, and my dear friends who would never want to see their names in caps, Mr. and Mrs. Needles, but right now my complete attention is turned to selling tickets.  We need to sell 320 more tickets to break even.  That's only 160 tickets per performance and I know there are people out there to fill those seats.  I'm praying for lots of walk ins...

We're in the news!

The sad fact is that advertising is VERY expensive, so community music/theatre groups are totally dependent on local newspapers running stories about their productions.  We are very fortunate that The Lowell Sun (the closest city newspaper) and The Chelmsford Independent have run stories with photographs.  We are indebted to them for getting our story out.  As much as people like to talk about the internet being the way to reach out, I think newspapers are really still the way to catch people's attention.

Here's the link to the great Lowell Sun article by Nancye Tuttle titled "The Process of Illumination":

www.lowellsun.com/lifestyles/ci_11056564

If It's Not One Thing, It's Another...

I don't even want to think about how close we are to opening.  Act III is going to kill me.  I think it is the most difficult thing I have ever tried to sing.  Tomorrow night is our first complete run-through, but we're starting with Act III so the children can go home early and not have to stay up until 10 pm.  

Scheduling is difficult because we don't want anyone to have to sit around, but it a bit like one of those SAT problems that ask you, "If the red house is next to the blue house and the green house is next to the yellow house with a purple house two doors to the right...where is the pink house?"  The Sandman and the Dew Fairy are at the end of Act II and beginning of Act III, Gertrude (The Mother) and Peter (The Father) are in Act I and Act III, the Gingerbread Children are at the end of Act III...so how do you schedule so no one has to sit around?  III, I, II solves most of the problems for the next couple of rehearsals, but when we get to the theatre I think we will have to run in order.  Parents might not be so happy with that, but it is scary to only have one run-through in order.

Today we had a tech meeting with the TD and Manager of the school theatre.  I guess I have to learn to roll with the punches.  No piano in the pit, fire department doesn't allow fog machines, need for a $1 MILLION liability policy (talk about a budget buster).  I hope there are no more surprises, but I shouldn't say that because certainly there will be something and it will be big.

Thankfully our Scenic Designer, Ben Oldham, is unflappable.  He and the TD of the theatre had a chat and they both were happy.  YAY!

Tomorrow night our Costume Designer, Laura Kampas, will be with us too.  We are all especially excited to see the Dew Fairy and the Sandman costumes.  I have utmost confidence in Laura. 

Let the Magic begin....

The Tempo picks up...

We have now blocked the entire show and last week we ran Acts I and II.  Not pretty, but we got through without any train wrecks, our accompanist didn't have to stop us, and no one had any deer in the headlights moments.  Hurray!  However, this week will be different.  Act III is a bear.  Considering we are not professional singers, we need to do a lot more singing at the piano than pros would (in fact pros just walk in and sing at rehearsals; sometimes even flying in and right onto the stage for a performance.) How I wish we had more rehearsal time, but we just can't afford it.

The orchestra parts are now being printed.  Through the wonders of the internet our wonderful orchestrator, Michael Withers, has been able to e-mail PDFs for me to take to Kinko's for printing and binding.  Just having those in hand makes the endeavor more real and scary.

It is difficult at times to juggle everything from publicity, to consulting with designers, finding a choreographer (more on that next), chasing down the person to unlock the door to the rehearsal room, looking for props, etc., etc. while learning a part.  All this while spending many sleepless nights worrying about ticket sales.  We're at the point where we wake up with H&G in our heads and think we know everyone else's part, but not our own.  Exciting, but scary.

Onward and upward.