Thursday, December 31, 2015

It Takes A Village

New Year's Eve. Here we are. And what a big day it was for us. Final Dress!  Thanks so much to the folks who came out to our invited dress on New Year's Eve. But I want to take a minute to reflect on this project, and especially to thank those that helped us this year put this production together.

Our theatre community is incredibly supportive and co-operative. There's been some talk recently about local theatres needing to work together more, and I suppose there is always room for improvement in that area, but I'd like to recognize the many theatres and theatre-folk in the area who helped make our production happen.

First, I have to say a huge thank you to Cardinal Gibbons High School, and their drama teacher Kevin Ferguson. They provided us with rehearsal space, which is huge. HUGE huge. Without having a theatre to rehearse in it is very difficult to put on a show. Cardinal Gibbons has a great facility, and Kevin's philosophy is that it should be used as much as possible. If his program isn't using it, he provides space to others. This is the embodiment of the cooperative spirit of our community.

Second, a thank you is in order for Cary Players. They let us borrow the platforms and flats to construct our set. They also let us use their scene shop to paint and store the flats before we loaded in. Itinerant companies like mine can't afford to invest in creating flats and platforms, the basic infrastructure of set building, because when you produce one show a year, what do you do with that stuff? Being able to use this material and the space to prep it in is an enormous help.

Third, big thank you to Theatre in the Park for letting us borrow props, furniture items, and Jeff Nugent. Larger theatres in the area serve as store houses for things like furniture. Some of the stuff on the set is from my house, but there's a limit to what I can bring. TiP is the reason I'm not sleeping on an air mattress!

Fourth, theatre folk. We had huge help from the hardest working man in local theatre (along with Jeff) Todd Houseknecht, our tech guru. We also got enormous help from Elaine Petrone (who helped us re-rig the lights and generally was a huge help at load in). Elaine works all over the triangle including RLT, NRACT, and Forrest Moon Theatre. And our sound tech, Will Mikes, in addition to being a great friend is a veteran of local theatre in the sound department (you have heard him at TiP and Theatre Raleigh).

Finally, but certainly not least, huge thank you to Sonorous Road. Michelle Wells has gone above and beyond simply renting out a space to us. She and her husband Josh have been incredibly welcoming of us and have helped us every step of the way, from filming and editing our kickstarter, to helping us set up sound to just answering a hundred questions that come from producing in a new space. They love local theatre and have done everything they can to make our production a success. Having Sonorous Road is a great asset to the theatre community, and I certainly hope they succeed in the new year.

So Happy New Year everyone! And if you resolve to see more local theatre in 2016, why not start day one? We open the show New Year's Day!


No comments:

Post a Comment

Twelfth Night's Come and Gone

  Whew! What an adventure!  Wow, well our production of Twelfth Night was a huge success. It far exceeded my expectations. I loved this sho...