Godspell

The community theatre of which I am the president had its first production in the building that we bought over the window. The fun -- and I use the term extremely loosely -- thing about getting ready for a performance in a renovated building is that you literally don't have any idea whether everything will be ready until pretty much the show is underway.

When we bought the former church that is now the theatre's site, it was agreed that we would do "Godspell" because its a) simple to stage and b) the place used to be a church.

However, it was a church built in the early 1960's. While structurally it was fine, the fact that it is almost entirely concrete didn't always help with the renovation process. In particular, the electrical set-up was a mess. So that we could have the performances, there needed to be some power run places that didn't have power (or more perplexing, places that looked like they had power at one point, yet we could never find where it had come from...the wiring would just kind of stop).

The work on that was still being done right up till the dress rehearsal, and the work on the seat risers wasn't completed until the day before that.

Oh and the parking was always a little bit of a concern...the building has two long driveways, and we really couldn't have people parking there so we had to have people out directing traffic.

And, since its summer and the building doesn't have air conditioning, there was the threat of the building becoming an oven. We installed a large industrial exhaust fan a few weeks ago to help move the air through the building, but that was one of the places where an electrical modification had been made, since the power lines that had gone to what we presume was a similar fan at one time were cut.

The opening night went off just fine, however. The audience came and the show itself was terrific. The shows director, who I had not worked with, and musical director, who I have since he's done the music for two shows that I directed, were working off of a revival version of the show with updated arrangements. The fear with "Godspell" is sometimes that it can feel dated, even if its based on Gospel. But, they did some fun things with the parables and the music was fantastic...as was the performances of the young cast, most of whom were college students.

At the end of the opening performance, and the cast was getting a standing ovation, I started feeling a little misty. There are precious few people that know how much work it was to complete the purchase of the building and then to work through the initial renovation, trying to keep groups working on different tasks from bumping into each other, trying to keep things moving forward and trying to work with long-standing board members that were now trying to reassert authority since, hey, there's a building!

I turned to a member of the crew that was standing next to me -- someone that has worked with me on shows previously -- and clasped his hand, uttering, "And, we just opened a theatre."

The joyousness lasted for all of two minutes. As the audience started filing out, I tried to turn on the ventilation system which we were turning off during the acts for sound purposes. It didn't turn on. I went from swelling pride to launching expletives. I did manage to find the problem and get it working again, but the moment was lost. It also meant that instead of going home, I was going to a hardware store to try to buy materials to keep it from happening again.

The rest of the weekend went along those lines...great show and performances, building or logistically problems. We had a loose wire that sparked near the band and caused them to freak out. Some costumes were moved under what apparently was a leaky pipe and got all wet. Me alternating between joy and wanting to kill someone. Fun stuff like that.

My sons got a chance to see the play. Actually, it was more complicated than that. The family came on opening night, but Marty was falling asleep, so they left at intermission, much to the chagrin of Casey.

On Saturday's matinee, the boys came with me to the theatre and ended up sitting by themselves inside, while I was working on things, and watched the show. They've seen plenty of theater before -- Marty has sat through Neil Simon's "Fools" and Stephen Sondheim's "Into The Woods" on his own in similar situations -- so intermission came and they went out to the lobby and went back in for the second act.

On Sunday, they weren't supposed to be with me, but something came up and they had to come along at least for a while. Casey ended up helping to sell raffle tickets, but Marty was unhappy with having to be back at the theatre. While I was trying to deal with him, I kept losing track of Casey until finally one of the crew said that they would keep an eye on him.

Marty, who didn't want to see the show again because he's not really a fan of crucifiction, was finally sated when I found a quiet spot for him to sit and play, away from everyone. When I went to find out where Casey was, since the show was underway, I found him up in the tech booth sitting quietly next to the director and watching the show for a third time.

Later on, I had them at a department store buying some clothes for our upcoming trip to California, and Casey suddenly started reciting lines from the show, insisting that I help him out with a part that needed byplay. So, apparently he was paying attention.

When the audience was leaving from the final performance, I must admit that I was pretty well spent. I guess that I knew I was under a lot of stress, but once all of the big things are over and you haven't had a visit from the police or your insurance agent and can kind of breath again...and your muscles don't want to relax because they've been held taut for so long, all you really want to do is sleep.

I can't tell you how happy I am to have a vacation coming up. Couldn't come at a better time.