We did a show tonight on Valentine’s Day so we celebrated the night before as we arrived in Princeton, only a few miles from Mt. Carmel. We ate at Taco Bell – romantic! There were some surprises – Cindy put out Valentine bags filled with goodies for each of us. I managed to surprise her with a “I Love You” teddy bear and some of her favorite candies.
After dinner, it was on to Mt. Carmel, IL to get into our hotel. This was our first visit to Mt. Carmel. It’s a lot like the town in which I grew up in Indiana. Small town charm – friendly people, quaint shops and stores, everyone knows everyone. It was a very comfortable place for us to be.
We arrived at the Brubeck Arts Center on the campus of Wabash Valley College. It’s a nice venue – small with a modified thrust stage – but Cindy and David figured the ins and outs of the large apron on the stage. With a large stage apron (the area in front of the main curtain), the audience can “wrap” around the stage creating some sightline challenges. Ended up, in order to get the maximum stage space with the least amount of visual problems for the audience, that we had to use two curtains. I had some work to do on the lighting. Thrust stages in general cause me some problems when it comes to lighting all the illusions. My technical contact, Ron, and a couple of his assistants worked hard with me to move some fixtures around and focus some lights into other areas. In the end, it all came together with time to spare.
Doors opened and the people FLOODED into the theatre! The show was scheduled to start at 7:30pm and the house was almost 2/3 full at 7:05pm! People just kept coming in and you could sense the excitment in the house.
We were so pleased with the way everyone responded to the illusions. In venues like this, we often have to scale back the full production because their just isn’t enough room for everything backstage. We’ve actually had a few of these types of venues in the last few weeks so we’re getting good at figuring it out! When there is no fly space, it makes it tough to get our intelligent lighting in the air and nearly impossible to get any scenery in place. The show has to be scaled back to provide the best possible entertainment value for the audience in the most professional way we can. If you have our ASIA DVD, you will see some of the actual set up of the show in most of the venues and the way it had to be scaled back in one of them. There is a big difference!
Our most important goal is to give the audience a great magical experience – incredible magic that’s entertaining. We can do that without all the “bells and whistles” but we like all the extras as well.
The audience last night was GREAT! Wonderful volunteers and visual/verbal responses to everything – Standing Ovation. Thanks Mt. Carmel!