HSM Still Going Strong

De's ankle is much better. And the show is going well. We had to miss last Sunday's show due to injury but today's show was great. Cast and the band are spot on.

The audience was clapping along with the entr'acte. This show is a hit with the kids, adults not so much

One more week left of High School Musical then it's on to singing Nazis...

Missed the Sunday Show Due to Injury

The bride and I missed the Sunday show because she fractured her ankle. We're hoping she'll get better for the shows this weekend...

High School Musical Rocked Again

Show went very smooth tonight. The techies rocked - as always. Group of us techies and actors headed to Chili's after the show. Good times. Good people.

Pensacola's High School Musical Is A Hit!

Opening Night last night and the house was packed. Show went off without a hitch. Everybody was awesome. Techies were fantastic!

Heck, the audience applauded when the house lights went out for the first act. They even applauded when the house doors closed. They were a great audience.

The balcony ushers were dancing and clapping along during the finale. Good show. Good job everybody.

HSM Rehearsals...

...are going well. The lighting has been updated and looks really good.

The cast is superb. They're all able to bring the play's two-dimensional characters to life. Claney Outzen is very funny as Kelsi, the nerdy writer of "Juliet and Romeo." Valerie Remic as Charpay and Benjamin Haupt [Jo Jo from last year's Seussical] as her sidekick Ryan are delightful.

The two leads, Jordan Moore as Troy and Courtney Ricardo as Gabriella, bring warmth and likability to some pretty bland characters.

The techies are brilliant, as always.

Working the follow spots on this show is fun. It's not a difficult show like Seussical was. Most of the spots are on stationary characters. In Seussical, the cast was jumping and running all over the place.

Spot Ops at the High School Musical

The Bride and I operated the spots at last night's rehearsal. It went well. This is gonna be a fun show for the kids.

The band was in the pit and the songs sound pretty good. This cast of actors can really sing. That's a good thing because the play itself is so...well...horrendous.

Okay, it's horrendous only for people born before Clinton's first inaugural. God, I'm old...

High School Musical Tech Week Has Begun

No spot ops were needed at last night's rehearsal but got to watch the whole show.

First, I shall commend this awesome cast. They are talented kids. Pensacola actors never cease to amaze me. There is a lot of talented people - of all ages - in this little town.

But the storyline of the show is painful. It's best described as "Grease" meets that episode of "Saved By The Bell" wherein troublemaker Zak Morris takes a drama class to get a credit so he can graduate.

Not having seen the original Disney movie with Zac Efron and whats-her-name I cannot judge the songs. The music at the rehearsal was provied by a very loud piano.

Now, the cast does a great job performing "Status Quo," the song that closes out the first act. But the show's finale never seems to arrive. There is this endless reprise of all the songs and it just goes on and on and on...but the kids that'll make up the audience will just dig it.

Needless to say I'm out of this show's target demographic.

Tonight we shall run the spot ops.

Next Up - High School Musical

The wife and I shall run the spotlights on Pensacola Little Theater's 2009 production of High School Musical...oy vey!

Tech week starts tonight.

The performance dates are: July 24-26, July 31- Aug 2, and Aug 7-9.

Follow Spot Blog of the Day™ - Music Man

The Music Man has ended its interminable run at Pensacola Little Theater. The techies - managed by Carol Mankins - and the large cast rocked on this show.

The sets were nutty, like the two-sided set pieces. Stage right had a large living room set on one side and the exterior of a billiard hall on the other side, stage left had the exterior of a porch backed with the exterior of a Livery stable.

During scene changes the techies ran out onto the darkened stage to rotate the set pieces so that the appropriate side faced the audience for the next scene. Therefore the techies were as choreographed as the actors and dancers.

The lighting designer and follow spot operators also rocked. Sound was great despite technical difficulties like broken wireless mikes.

The cast really shined on the stage. Everyone brought life and joyous excitement into their repective roles.

For example, Scott Haring, who portrayed Marcellus, the Music Man's former partner in crime, acted with such gusto that we tech folk fell apart everytime he growled "Hey! Gregory!!"

The biggest plus of the production was the Barber Shop Quartet as portrayed by Pensacola Fiesta Barbershop Chorus. Listening to their delightful voices blend into a glorious harmony as they sang “Lida Rose” and “Sin in Sincere” made sitting through the show night after night tolerable.

Music Man ain't a bad show but some of those dialog scenes just went on and on...and on...

The music numbers: "Wells Fargo Wagon", "You Got Trouble", "Gary Indiana", "Pick-a-Little", and "Seventy Six Trombones" were spectacular. The orchestra was energetic, the dancing and singing by the large cast was perfect.

But thank the Lords of Kobol this show is finally over. Now, onto the next.

Retro Blog - Seussical The Musical Summer of 2008

My wife and I had operated the spot lights for the Pensacola Little Theater production of Seussical The Musical this past summer(2008.)

The show was a big hit. The cast was fantastic. I had never worked spot before and it was quite an experience.

The entire show was movement and music. My wife had one side of the stage and I covered the other side. We did the best we could with only two spotlights. Huge cast. Something like 30 actors.

The show is a blast. I never grew tired of the songs during the run of the show.