Opening Night

Opening night was on Thursday and it went really well. We were scheduled to perform at the LeClaire park band shell, but because of storms that were moving in and out of the area pretty quickly all day long we moved the performance indoors at Junior Theatre. Making the last minute adjustments to blocking and preshow procedures was a little hectic, but luckily Jason, the director was still there to help figure it all out. While the actors didn't remember all of the changes, such as exiting into the wings instead of behind the set, they did a really good job. We also had a decent size audience considering we moved locations.

After opening night was done we packed up the truck and a few of the cast, Jason and I went out to eat to say goodbye. Jason flew back to New York yesterday so from now on I'll be completely in charge of warm ups and making sure the cast is ready and giving any notes back stage that they need. I've definitely confirmed in my mind how much I love stage managing though. I've also received lots of compliments from Jason, Jessica, the other stage manager and Daniel on how well I've been doing and what a good stage manager I am as it plays to a lot of my strengths.

We have performances tonight and tomorrow night and then a break until Thursday. I've also found out that on Thursday I'm going to be playing Show Time Pal before the performance. I'm pretty excited. It seems like a sort of rite of passage when working at Junior Theatre to get to play Show Time Pal. A lot of the staff went to Junior Theatre when they were kids and had the experience then, but Morgan and I are new here so we were both given a chance if we wanted to get the experience now.

I'll be plenty busy during our break before Thursday though. Our second week of camp starts on Monday. I should be teaching my own class for the week. It's going to be a busy week though. Tuesday and Wednesday we have classes going and they'll be on the stage for rehearsal before their final performance in two weeks. Then on Thursday we have the performance back in Illinois right when camp is over. I'll try to write more during camp week to share what my group of kids is like and how our next two performances go.