Opening Night went fine. We had a lovely audience of about 150, small for a 350-seat theatre but it was a Tuesday, who were mostly from a Southern Baptists Church group. This was a terrifying thought for me at first, how would an older group react to a show that is untraditional and revolves around technology? I was pleasantly surprised with their reaction! More than pleasantly, just surprised! They laughed at random jokes, clapped after every scene and made comments during the big fight scene. On top of that every time a phone ringed on stage each of the checked their cell phones, looking at their friends with that “didn’t you turn off your phone?!” look. After act one they got the picture, it was apart of the show. My favorite moment of the opening was when an audience member answered her cell phone in the middle of act one and preceded to chat on it for a solid 3 minutes as she made her way out of the theatre. Talk about life imitating art. At the end of the show this lovely audience gave my hard working cast a standing ovation. I’m not sure it was an earned standing ovation, but it was nice to see the audience responding so well to the show. The evening ended with a small opening night party at the theater where my cast was joined by the cast for the next show, Run For Your Wife, including the always joyful Tim Cox and Larry Lesher. Larry and I see to have parallel summers at the moment, he just finished at Stagedoor and now I am heading there. Him, Tim, and I spent a good hour just talking shop over a drink. I retired early and left the party rage on into the wee hours of the morning.
The staff at the Playhouse seemed to be pleased with the work I did, especially Miss. Charlotte, the wife of the man who built the Playhouse 61 years ago. Holly and Robby gave me nice compliments on the show itself. While I'm not entirely sure that FOR BETTER was the best choice for the Playhouse audience I hope they enjoy it. Now, if my actors could only get those lines right at the end of act one.
Early this morning I departed for the airport for my 10am flight from Lexington to Detroit. Lucky me, I was delayed several times, and may finally land around 8:30pm. Now you may be thinking, Katherine, that’s not too bad. Unfortunately for me I have to be back in New York tomorrow morning for meetings at work, which means I will have a good 10 hours to return home, do laundry, pack, get things together for said meetings, and then kiss my parents goodbye again before hoping on the 7am flight to NYC. Phew.
Needless to say, I’m not the happiest of campers right now. The good news is that I got a lot of documents organized on my computer, worked on my website, and wrote this entry.
Danville was a lovely way to spend two weeks, despite the unending heat and rollercoaster that is having to cast the artistic director, the people all have the best intentions and are oh-so sweet. We will see if I get asked back next summer. Either way, I had a nice time and I wish the whole Pioneer Playhouse gang the best with the rest of their season!
In case you forgot on Sunday, August 1st, I leave for Stagedoor Manor in the Catskills. Stagedoor is about two hours from New York, which means that Nick will be driving me up on Sunday. Send good travel thoughts my way for tomorrow and Sunday, one day of non-stop travel was enough for me!
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