Saturday started very early. Springfield is only a 30 minute drive from West Hartford but we had two shows at CityStage – load is was 8am. We left Hartford at 7:15am, stopped at McDonald’s and then continued on to Springfield. We arrived at 8am to find Chad (TD) standing outside the dock door to direct us into position. The rest of the crew showed up just a few minutes later.
This is a very unusual space – modified thrust stage and the audience almost completely surrounds you. AND there is very steep seating in the balcony too that wraps around you and looks down at the stage. Chad did a nice job of redesigning our light plot to make it work in the space but it was still a bit of a challenging day. GREAT CREW here and they all worked very hard to help us figure it out.
Cindy had been running these shows through her brain for the last few days, trying to figure out how to make it all work because there’s also no main curtain on the stage. Everything would have to be set up IN FRONT OF THE AUDIENCE and that would mean Cindy and Nolan would have a lot of backstage choreography moving our equipment on and off the stage. Keith and I worked on the lighting, changing up some of the focus so that they could work in the dark while I was lit in other areas of the stage, giving them a mask of darkness to get things into position. It worked beautifully! They did an outstanding job. There were a couple of times that I would introduce the next illusion and it was as if it just “appeared” on the stage.
Coming in on Saturday, we knew that both shows were completely sold out. When I had the chance to see the President of CityStage, she told me that they could have sold out five shows! We were almost sold out in September and in the following weeks, tickets went very quickly. They said we’ve been sold out now for more than 3 weeks. But they also did a wonderful job with the marketing here – newspaper coverage and a drive-time radio interview.
Both audiences were really outstanding. We are also a bit fearful of the matinee crowd, generally more children, and the people are not quite as enthusiastic or responsive as an evening crowd. This audience proved us wrong! And I had the chance to meet many of them in the lobby afterwards.
During the break between shows, we ordered some local Chinese food with Susan’s help (the house manager). We ate and had some time to relax before the 8pm show. We opened the doors earlier than usual to allow for the crowd to get into the auditorium. The Saturday evening show was mostly adults – the 18-35 crowd with a few older people. I love this demographic – they’re skeptical volunteers that give great reactions!
After the show, I met with people in the lobby to sign a few programs and pictures. It’s a humbling experience to hear people tell you how much they enjoyed the show. I certainly don’t take any of this for granted. We are living a dream and I hear about it almost every night from someone in the crowd who says, “I would trade places with you guys in a second.”
It’s Sunday morning and we are renting a car to drive up to Melrose, MA to visit with Gene and Jennifer Yee. They own a very famous “magical” house that once belonged to Anna Eva Fay. I’ll write more about it later. It’s going to be a fun and relaxing day!