Show is finished

Beauty and the Beast at Valley is finished.  The show closed with a matinee performance today, then we struck everything.  I called my Dad to come to help me strike the sound gear.  There wasn’t a whole lot of stuff, but things were a mess after a week of show.  No matter how neat and orderly things start out, they tend to be on the messy side by the time the week is finished.  There have been hacks and kludges and re-patched cables and all sorts of other joy by the time we get to the end of the run.  Having two people made putting things away from that a lot easier.

Our techie friend Linda brought flowers for Shawn and me.  She’s always so nice, and she’s a damn good techie, too!  She’s studying at a nearby college now, so she can come out to some of the setup and show days that are around weekends.  It’s always great to see some theatre alumni come back, and even better when they come to help.  🙂

The show itself was great.  The kids put a lot of time and effort into this show, and it definitely showed.  The parents and volunteers and staff poured a ton of time into making this show what it was, too–the costumes were amazing, make-up and hair were great, vocal direction was cohesive and clear….  The list goes on and on.  Even better than that, there were a lot of people who came to see the show, so hopefully they did well on it money-wise, too.  I know that the crowds were enthusiastic, which was refreshing to see after being involved in some other shows with audiences that I think may have been mechanical.

We had a new set of microphones for this show that really shined, and that was great.  We won twice with those–the boosters didn’t have to pay for the mic rental, and the sound was phenomenally better than it had been with the rental mics.  We had some issues on Saturday’s performance because someone flipped a switch in a closet that enabled a set of speakers that shouldn’t have been on at all.  That caused me to catch feedback a few times when it shouldn’t have been there, but I controlled it as quickly as I could.  I hate when it happens, though, because then I look like an idiot.

In any case, the show went smashingly well, and now I’m tired.  All of our equipment is back in temporary storage–I have another show in a few weeks for one of the choirs at the school–and I’ve been fed and watered.  Now I think it is getting close to bedtime.

jonathan