We performed at Veritas Auditorium on the campus of Elms College two years ago and had a great crowd. Our notes say it was the largest audience they had ever had and we received a standing ovation from the audience. But we also had notes that this was a difficult set up day – the stage is on the second floor of a building with only a small elevator. The technical capabilities are limited – stage lighting and electrical supply were almost non-existent. When they booked the show this year, they said they had done some improvements and renovations to the theatre.
Today, the load in wasn’t any different. Because of the long process of moving cases from the truck, down the hall, into the elevator, down the hall, to the stage and then up the ramp to the stage, load in is an arduous process. While we did an abbreviated version of the full production, it still took almost 90 minutes to load in the equipment before we could begin setting up.
Jose Tolson and the gang had the backstage area ready for us so that made it much easier. Once we were in, we all set out to do our job and get the show up. Lighting was a bit complicated here – numerous instruments but controlled by two different light boards! We set them both up back stage and I wrote the cues so Kylie could operate both lights board and the universal controller for our intelligent lighting (though we could only get some of them in the air).
This show took everyone doing multiple jobs to pull it all off. David was working hard on the stage and with the curtain; Kylie was handling three lights boards while Cindy was performing, changing costumes and helping Kylie out with the sound and music. This show was real team work!
The audience was really great! We had a large crowd and some wonderful volunteers. They gave us great energy and the show ended up coming off smoothly.
Now it came time to tear it down and load it all out. Wow, are we tired….off to New Jersey in the morning.