Lyceum Theatre

First off, my apologies. I’ve been pretty wrapped up in the pre-season rush and haven’t been as faithful as I continually promise to be. But I encourage you to stay tuned as you will see posts in the next few months from a variety of interesting perspectives: actor, designer, director, etc.

I’m not much of a botanist or an arborist or whoever it is that knows anything about trees, but there is a definite time of year when the tree in front of the theatre (it might be a magnolia, perhaps someone can enlighten me) sprouts beautiful pink and white blooms. It really is wonderful and I’m always sad that our audience never sees it. I was excited this year, knowing that the return of Menopause the Musical coincided with our tree’s brief blooming season, but, alas, too many windy days left our tree with no blooms to share with the world. Fortunately the absence of blooms didn’t hurt ticket sales–Menopause was completely sold out several days before the show rolled into town and thoroughly entertained our audience. I’m curious how many of you faithful readers would be interested in seeing it again. I’m also curious what other shows you’re interested in. I’d love to get you all involved in planning the future of the theatre right here on this blog.

But back to the tree.

it’s not just the beauty of the tree that I enjoy–this tree reminds me that we’re getting close and that is very exciting. A lot of behind the scenes work is still left to do that our audience will never see, but when June arrives the work will be done, the blossoms gone and off we’ll go!

I marvel every year at just how much happens in the few months leading up to the opening of our season. We often get the question, “What do you guys do when there aren’t any shows happening?” I always laugh because it seems like these last few moments before the season begins often feel the busiest. We returned from a HUGELY successful casting trip to New York a month and a half ago. The 115 (or so) roles that make up our various casts this season are cast after many rounds of phone calls. I can guarantee that you will be bowled over by these wonderfully talented folks–adding to my pleasure with this year’s casting is the fact that all our various company members seem to be delightful human beings. That’s always a bonus. Our designers have been hard at work for months on the costume and scenic designs and I look forward to sharing some of their wonderful work with you very soon right here. We’ll unveil portions of their design work this Saturday at our second annual Design Presentation, a special event for our upper level donors and our sponsors. Ticket sales began in January and I’m pleased to say sales are looking great for this upcoming year. For all of you who were disappointed not to get a ticket to Menopause, I say get on the phone now before it happens again! The various marketing materials, ads, our brochure, radio ads are all either completed or underway. Some grant applications are completed, and we continue to search for more granting opportunities. We’ve spoken to civic clubs and radio stations. We’ve been obtaining ads for our season program and securing our much needed and MUCH appreciated sponsors for the season.

So we’re busy. And we’re excited that no one can see our pretty tree because that means we get to spend more time with YOU very soon!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 11:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.