Closing Jinx -or- Bringing Down the House

Well, we closed out our show at Patio Playhouse. "Chicken Every Sunday" closed out to an oversold house. Apparently, we decided to sell the seats normally reserved for our concessions and box office volunteers. Fortunately, they had all seen it. This was by far the most eager to laugh audience we had during the run, so it was a good way to close it out. And, although nobody died or was even injured, we managed to keep our Sunday jinx run alive. There is a curtain that separates the lobby from the seating area. It also conceals the actors making stage right entrances. The former is important during matinees because, if anyone opens the door, sunlight streams in. The latter for obvious reasons. So, it was truly unfortunate that it came down halfway through Act II. It was not something easily fixed, so we had an assortment of volunteers hold the loose end of a fairly heavy and wide canvas backed curtain up as high as they could for the rest of Act II and all of Act III!

We have some set construction folks stopping by this week for the next show. A few of us got together and engineered a solution that ought to prevent a recurrence. We are going to have 3/4 inch pipe bracketed to the walls on either side of the entrance. The curtain will be hung with rings looped through grommets. Take that!

For my next trick, I will be in a musical review while co-directing a youth theater show. Both are listed on the front page of the Patio website. The challenging part is that the performances and rehearsals overlap! After that, I'm taking a break until the summer musical, "Guys and Dolls"! (I'm going for one of the Guys.)

Categories: Entertainment, Personal