Last night’s show really ended up exceeding expectations. That’s always nice. We went into yesterday with only 35 tickets in and went out with 82 in the house. That’s our best Thu. night yet, and they were just a great group of people to welcome this show back from a break and send them on high into a fourth weekend. I got some pretty decent archival footage, too.
Tonight is shaping up, and I’m holding high hope that we just blow this sucker out.
As I was looking over numbers this morning (I’m an addict, I know), I saw that this show has now become the best-grossing show that we’ve produced on our own. It’s second right now for attendance of a show we’ve produced on our own, but we have time to overtake that as well over the next few days.
Remember what I was saying in that other entry about progress? Numbers sometimes help tell a story about how we’re doing, so I’m always extremely happy to see proof – solid evidence – of this company’s growth.
The top-seller/attended show we didn’t produce all on our own? Dracula, in 2001. We did that as a co-production with TBPAC’s Center Theater Company before it officially desolved and made us resident theater company. I’m still not sure how we’re ever going to beat that one. It was insane.
I’m reading everyone’s status on Facebook, or drawing little nuggets from emails and conversations about how everyone in the show is simultaneously happy and sad the show closes Sunday. Sad to see it go from a performing standpoint – it’s what actors do after all. Happy that they aren’t spending 1.5 to 2.5 hours nightly applying make-up and getting into those crazy getups and then spending another .5 to whole hour getting out of it – in addition to the just under two hours of the show. Sad that we may have found out a little too late the show could have probably maintained a fifth week of performances (though likely happy about not having all that preparation time sucked out of their schedules), but most assuredly happy to get some time back. I hear stories of mounds of laundry and dishes, unruly pets (and significant others) acting out.
Doing a show – particularly one like this – takes a toll after a while, but almost any actor will tell you that the rewards are always more than worth it.
There’s nothing like those first few days though after you close a show to fully decompress, get your life back on track/in order and the reflection on that great experience you just had.
I’m real proud right now. It would be impossible not to be. I went from thinking this show would be cake, to crapping my pants I’d never be able to cast it with how every other company seemed to cast their fall two months before we did, to crapping my pants again as it really sunk in just how little I knew about the mechanics of directing to a musical, to dropping a load over how much time it was going to take to detail things the way the designers and I all wanted, to the natural challenges that come in directing any show to finally seeing it live and breathe in the company of real people.
There’s something to that whole notion that works of art are an artist’s children. We’re just as hopeful for their futures, protective of their honor and proud of their growth and accomplishments.
It wouldn’t be a blog entry without some shillin’ in it – so please make an effort to come out this weekend if you’ve yet to make it out, and I’d adore anyone tirelessly who sent us some business this weekend based on your recommendations.
