We spent the night in Walnut, IA – a little more than 100 miles from Sioux City. Needless to say, we were up EARLY to make the final jaunt into town. We made great time and arrived around 10:30am for an 11am load in. The local crew – IATSE 42 – was there to meet us and the stage was clear, plot was hung, lines were set, and everyone was ready to go to work.
The Orpheum Theatre is a beautifully restored vaudeville house that is absolutely exquisite. It’s only been restored for about 5 years and it’s a HUGE house – 2500 seats! Pre-sale of tickets was very strong and we had a big write up in the local Entertainment Section of the Sioux City Journal that day of the show. We were expecting a good crowd!
As is typical of these old vaudeville houses, the stage is wide but not very deep. Cindy and Nolan scoped the stage and found a place for everything. But it was PACKED backstage. They made it work during the show – like a well-oiled machine.
Keith and I had a fairly uneventful day because the crew was so good. All the scenery went up fast as did the intelligent lighting. We were into the first break of the day almost 30 minutes ahead of schedule. We moved through focus fast, making only a few adjustments due to the angle of some of the instruments in the front of house position. Keith and Rick started writing cues and I worked on getting the intelligent lighting homed and tweaked. The running crew arrived and we did a tech run through…off to eat dinner before the doors opened!
The show started with a lot of energy in the crowd and once we made it to the Brick Wall illusion, the audience was on the edge of their seats. When I walked through the wall, they broke into instantaneous applause and whistles, shouts of appreciation – it was unbelievable. I don’t know how to put into words how that feels to an artist on the stage. We closed the first half of the show with Windshear and, once again, the audience made me feel like a rock star. Enthusiastic applause, whistling and shouts of appreciation – tons of energy! The second half flew by and when we reached the finale, the Underwater Escape, the audience was right there with us. We left the stage to thunderous applause – a very, very humbling experience for us. We were thrilled to have been accepted so well in Sioux City and look forward to going back.
After load out, we checked into our hotel and took off for Perkins restaurant for some breakfast!! In the morning, we’re off to Texas!